About Us
Dandelion Chocolate is a bean-to-bar chocolate factory in San Francisco’s Mission District. We make chocolate from only two ingredients, cocoa beans and cane sugar, and travel to origins as often as we can to build good, trusting relationships with the producers who grow and ferment the beans we buy. We strive to make some of the best chocolate in the world, highlighting the individual nuances of each origin and emphasizing transparent sourcing practices at each supply chain step. Today we’re seeking a Director of Chocolate Production to lead our public-facing flagship 16th Street chocolate factory where we continuously innovate our equipment, techniques, and tasting profiles to bring the bean-to-bar chocolate story to life.

About the Role
We’re looking for a humble servant-leader who has the been-there-done-that to have high-level production planning, food safety, and equipment safety playbooks while also being excited to try new tools, to continue raising the bean-to-bar each year, and who can preserve the magic that makes our culture special. You’ll work alongside the team to ensure we have the chocolate to support our cafés, online store, wholesale partners as well as alongside our R&D team to develop experiments and flavor profiles.

A Day in the Life
While there’s no such thing as a typical day, you usually start the day joining the Chocolate Maker morning huddle, listening to the Senior Chocolate Makers review the day’s production goals with the team. On schedule, you hear the tempering line jump into action with the clickety-clack of molds moving across new conveyor belts you just installed last month. During the 1-1s, you ask each team member for their advice on training a newcomer who starts next week (what did they like with their training, what should their 90-day look like, what can we do better). One Chocolate Maker expresses interest in improving our lock-out procedures before the new team member begins. Another Chocolate Maker suggests identifying a specialization area (bean sorting, tasting, roasting, etc) for each new team member to make it easier to develop expertise.

Everything is proceeding smoothly with normal check-in team meetings, updating production plans, writing HR recommendations for Chocolate Makers to go on future origin trips, when you are alarmed by a sudden deafening pause: the tempering line has gone quiet. You hear clamorring voices on the production floor and with a text to reschedule, you drop everything, pull on your PPE, and focus all of your attention on working with the Chocolate Makers and Production Mechanic to find a solution. Over the next hour you delegate troubleshooting tasks, make phone calls to an Italian machine manufacturer to verify a gearbox’s spec, and finally -- thanks to a library of spare parts -- a fixed machine!

You finish the day by putting a meeting on the calendar with the exec team where you outline your plans for 2025 and a budget for a second tempering line to increase production, hopefully avoiding downtime in the future and allowing for more experimentation in the future.

About You
You’ll be a key leader who helms the chocolate production department at Dandelion Chocolate, working shoulder to shoulder with the team daily. Prior food manufacturing experience is a requirement though we don’t expect it to be in chocolate – other craft foods are great too such as wine, tofu, craft confections, or specialty jams. Our ideal candidate wants to be in this role for a long while, growing with us and rolling up their sleeves when necessary to deal with finicky machines while still being at home running spreadsheet formulas and maybe even presenting to the Board of Directors on occasion. Most of all, you are excited to inspire a new standard for American bean-to-bar chocolate. If you think this sounds like a dream-come-true role, you’re right! Will it be easy? No. Will it be worthwhile? Absolutely.

Responsibilities

• Production Operations – Consistently meet production targets for bars, ground chocolate, nibs, whole roasted beans through effective goal setting and implementation. Ensure everyone knows their roles and responsibilities (while prioritizing safety above all else!), allow opportunities for team’s voices to be considered, and to jump hurdle upon hurdle to ensure the team delivers upon its deadlines and promises. Anticipate the needs of your team. When speed bumps emerge you roll with it without making unnecessary sacrifices that will prevent us from reaching our long-term goals. You’re known for your positive, active listening, team-oriented, can-do leadership style.
• Safety & Quality – Working with Sourcing and Flavor and Quality teams, implement systems to continue to improve flavor/quality each year. Ensure that team members have proper PPE, safety procedures, and follow protocols each day so that we work towards our zero-injury goals.
• Strategy – Your commitment to quality and sourcing is obvious through the processes you’ve designed to ensure your team is making products you can stand behind. While thinking about the 2-5 year goals, you go beyond just the numbers, equipment, and team structure to also ensure we continue to attract the best Chocolate Makers, make award-winning chocolate, and offer a world-class factory to the public. Eventually, make a plan for the Valencia Street Factory and oversee production at our small, original factory.
• Planning – Working with your team, create and maintain a strategic daily, weekly, monthly production plan that has been vetted across the organization so that everyone is aware of any potential hiccups along the way. Your backup plans help minimize any decrease in production. Maintain inventory of beans, sugar, and production supplies to support production goals.
• Machines and Systems – Actively research new equipment, develop and document operational processes/SLAs so that we are continuing to operate at best-in-class levels. Act as a strategic thought-partner to the exec team, knowing when to advocate for big technical, machine, process, or product jumps forward and when to take a more iterative approach towards best-in-class excellence.
• Leadership and Talent – Coach, mentor, and inspire a well-rounded team through leveling and growth plans so you have a deep bench of leadership to draw upon in future years. Celebrate team wins at all hands and in company monthly reports. Be the team that everyone in the organization wants to join not just because of your cohesive team culture but because your team is known for always delivering upon its goals.
• Organization Relations – Develop strong relationships with the managers across the entire organization. You proactively schedule lunches with other teams so that you have a solid relationship to lean on when there are tricky issues to negotiate. Represent 16th street production point of view in meetings with other departments in the company while understanding and balancing strategic company goals
• Hands on production tasks when required
• Other tasks as needed

Requirements

• Leadership experience – Significant years in a leadership role with timelines and manufacturing production goals with a minimum of five or more team members. Preference for leading more than one team simultaneously so you have the vocabulary to handle complex cross-discipline issues. We prefer leaders who have had individuals who have reported to them for long tenures, such as four or more years.
• Tech savvy & analytics – Your computer skill set includes Excel/spreadsheets, the entire Google Suite, and a willingness to pick up new systems. Bonus points for any type of scripting (Python, Bash, etc) to help with data analysis.
• Excellent communication skills – Your communication style is approachable and clear, making it easy to coordinate with your team as well as other managers across the company.

• Language skills – Fluent spoken and written English. Spanish language skills are encouraged though not required. Japanese skills are also helpful for interacting with our Japanese partner Chocolate Making team (not part of this role).

Benefits
The benefits and perks continue beyond a robust chocolate education. Dandelion Chocolate constantly invests in our people and culture. All team members receive medical, vision, and dental benefits as well as the option to enroll in our 401k program. All employees receive paid vacation time, holiday pay, and paid sick time. In addition, our team members enjoy commuter benefits, FSAs, chocolate tasting opportunities, the chance to travel to origin and our Japan locations, and a range of opportunities to grow and develop within the company. This full-time exempt position has a range of $115,000-$135,000/year.

How to Apply
Dandelion is growing and we are invested in employees who take ownership over their role and are interested in contributing in a bigger way with us. You will stand out from the crowd if your resume is accompanied by a cover letter with a few sentences describing how you helped contribute to your previous company’s culture.