Associate Director, Product Safety & Compliance

The Opportunity

Caraway Home is looking for an experienced Associate Director, Product Safety & Compliance to build our product compliance function from the ground up and own what we call the Caraway Promise, a testing-obsessed, transparency-first approach to product safety that sets the bar for the industry. The Caraway Promise exists because we believe in transparency, not because the industry requires transparency.

This is a foundational role, the first dedicated compliance hire at Caraway, responsible for building the frameworks, lab relationships, testing strategy, supply chain diligence, claims substantiation, and regulatory sequencing across a diverse and growing product portfolio.You will own the full compliance lifecycle across Caraway's product categories (cookware, bakeware, electrical items, food contact materials, textiles, and packaging), always meeting or exceeding the most stringent applicable global standard to establish industry-leading Caraway protocols and procedures. You will be US-based, work closely with Asia-based suppliers and third-party labs (particularly in China), and build the internal systems and processes that let Caraway scale compliantly, credibly, and with confidence.

Additionally, an important responsibility of this role is disseminating key information, labels, and results to support marketing initiatives. You need to be a strong communicator, working collaboratively with cross functional teams, to broadcast and showcase the diligence Caraway is taking across its entire product portfolio in regards to compliance, being able to assist with crafting accurate, transparent, educational and understandable language and messaging that resonates with our consumer.

This position reports to our Director, Product Development.
Who You Are

You have ten or more years of product safety and regulatory compliance experience in consumer goods, ideally grounded in chemistry, materials science, or applied laboratory research, with deep expertise in food contact materials, cookware, kitchen appliances, or an adjacent hard goods category. You know FDA, LFGB, EU Framework Regulation (EC) No 1935/2004, REACH, CA Prop 65, CA AB 1200, NSF, FSC, and CPSC requirements not as acronyms on a checklist, but as frameworks you've navigated hands-on, including where global standards diverge. You’ll use this fluency to scale the Caraway Promise internationally: building a testing and compliance framework that anticipates global standards.

You are a builder and a scientist at heart, ready to own a compliance program entirely: selecting labs, building testing matrices, writing material certification requirements, establishing supplier audit cadences, and designing the studies needed to substantiate product claims. You operate comfortably across cultures and time zones, with direct experience working with labs and manufacturers in Asia, particularly China. You communicate complex science and regulatory requirements clearly to internal teams (Product, Marketing, Legal, Supply Chain) and external partners alike, and you see internal education as core to the job.
Responsibilities

- Own and pioneer the Caraway Promise: define and champion a testing-obsessed, transparency-first approach to product safety that goes beyond what regulation requires, because we believe our customers deserve it.

- Build Caraway's product safety and compliance program, defining frameworks, documentation standards, testing protocols, regulatory calendars, and governance processes across all product categories (cookware, bakeware, small appliances, food contact materials, textiles, and packaging); integrate compliance across the full product lifecycle, from development and supplier onboarding through market placement, ongoing monitoring, and end-of-life.

- Own and continuously monitor regulatory compliance across US federal and state requirements (FDA food contact, CPSC, CA Prop 65, CA AB 1200, Colorado PFAS Act, and emerging state chemical le