Posted: 25-Jun-26
Location: Austin, Texas
Type: Full Time
Categories:
Additional Information:
The Senior Product Safety Assurance Analyst, Perishables, is responsible for vetting the safety and quality of new and existing WFM products by investigating supplier programs, establishing testing requirements in accordance with regulatory and WFM requirements, and developing and maintaining safety and quality technical specifications for new and existing products across diverse product categories. The Senior PSA shall provide technical guidance and recommendations for product and process development. This role supports product categories with high food-safety risk and/or elevated regulatory requirements.
Note - This role requires someone with experience in high-risk food categories, such as meat, seafood, produce, ready-to-eat foods, etc.
This role sits within a growing Product Safety Assurance team that supports the WWGS Private Brands business, which is currently in a period of rapid acceleration. This hire is critical to scaling our safety and quality capabilities in step with that growth.
Key job responsibilities
• Enables commercialization activities and provides technical guidance to ensure products meet WFM quality and regulatory standards by:
o Developing appropriate chemical, microbiological, physical, and shelf-life testing requirements based on supplier data, existing testing profiles, regulatory requirements, safety risk, and WFM requirements
o Reviewing Supplier Food Safety Plans and product risk assessments
o Partnering with WFM Legal team on regulatory requirements
o Reviewing applicable product claims/statements and determining claim validation criteria
o Developing and negotiating shelf-life study validation parameters
o Partnering with Product Developers to incorporate characterizing product attributes into testing profiles
o Reviewing Supplier documents and test results for WFM and regulatory compliance
o Reviewing Supplier Quality Reports, Supplier Visit Reports, and Facility Risk Assessments
o Reviewing First Production test results
• Enables commercialization activities and provides technical guidance to ensure products meet WFM quality and regulatory standards
• Engages with suppliers and customers to evaluate and resolve complex, recurring, and business-critical issues and concerns.
• Advises the stores, operational areas, suppliers, and leadership up to the executive level on any local, state, federal, and international regulatory and compliance issues.
• Leads development and implementation of advanced technical solutions using programming, data analytics, and automation tools to enhance food safety and quality systems
• Monitors formulation and label review for WFM, identifying product or cross-product issues, identifying root causes, and driving sustainable resolutions.
• Oversees or advises others on the management of multiple Product Safety & Quality analyses, tests, documentation, and reporting.
• Provides expert technical consulting, leveraging advanced software tools and cross-functional relationships to develop innovative solutions for emerging issues
• Works with all levels of operational leadership toward continuous improvement of food and product safety/quality standards and operational excellence.
• Advises leadership on functional progress, status, trends, and issues.
• Leads functional continuous process improvement by:
o Developing sophisticated data analysis tools and dashboards
o Programming automated solutions for quality monitoring
o Implementing new technical tools for food safety management
o Designing systems for predictive quality analytics
• Stays abreast of state-of-the-art processes, programming languages, and emerging technologies within food safety and quality management
Office Location(s):
- USA, TX, Austin (Highly Preferred)
- USA, WA, Seattle
- USA, VA, Arlington
- USA, CA, Irvine
- USA, CO, Denver
- USA, CA, Pasadena
- USA, IL, Chicago
- USA, NY, Jersey City
- USA, FL, Fort Lauderdale
Basic Qualifications
- Experience working independently with minimal supervision
- Bachelor's degree in Food Science or related field
- 10+ years CPG and/ or food retail experience
- 6 + years' experience in food or non-food consumer goods (including personal care, supplements, household, pet care, and baby products) production facility
- HACCP certification and PCQI certification
- Advanced knowledge of Product/Food Safety for complex products categories and processing environments + Quality Assurance and control processes and workflows
- Advanced understanding of Retail product lifecycle management, Project leadership skills, Cross-functional team leadership skills
- Expert ability to leverage market understanding for project decisions, demonstrate knowledge of WFM operations
- Ability to travel domestically and internationally up to 30% of time, including overnight stays
- Have fun and enable others to have fun while achieving results
Preferred Qualifications
- Graduate degree in science or relevant field
- Experience with natural and organic foods
- GFSI or Quality Systems and Product Safety Auditing Experience
- Experience with specification databases/Product Lifecycle Management Systems
- Sensory evaluation experience and skills