Maintenance & Engineering Manager

Job Description

Job Description

About MUSH

Founded in 2015, MUSH manufactures, distributes, and markets ready-to-eat food products designed to make healthy eating more convenient. Our first product line of ready-to-eat overnight oats pioneered a new category for the breakfast occasion, offering a healthy, satisfying, and convenient alternative to traditional morning meals.

Our mission is to make healthy food more convenient so that humankind can feel, think, and do better.

Role Overview

The Maintenance & Engineering Manager leads the maintenance, reliability, and engineering function for MUSH’s ready-to-eat food manufacturing facility. This role is responsible for ensuring production equipment, utilities, and facility systems operate safely, reliably, and efficiently while supporting food safety, product quality, and operational performance.

This leader manages and develops the Maintenance team, owns the preventive and predictive maintenance strategy, identifies and maintains spare parts inventory, drives equipment reliability and downtime reduction, and provides technical leadership for equipment installations, process improvements, and capital projects. The role partners closely with Production, Quality, Sanitation, and Safety to ensure maintenance and engineering activities to support a safe, hygienic, high-performing food manufacturing environment.

The Maintenance & Engineering Manager is a hands-on leader who can move effectively between long-term strategy, technical problem-solving, project execution, and real-time support of plant operations.

Key Responsibilities

Maintenance & Reliability Leadership

• Lead and continue to develop the Maintenance team, including scheduling, prioritization, performance management, coaching, and technical development
• Ensure appropriate maintenance coverage to support plant operating schedules and business needs
• Build, maintain, and continuously improve preventive and predictive maintenance programs for production equipment, utilities, and facility systems
• Drive equipment reliability, uptime, and overall operational performance through disciplined maintenance systems and data-driven decision-making
• Lead troubleshooting and resolution of complex mechanical, electrical, controls, and equipment issues
• Establish clear priorities for planned, preventive, predictive, and corrective maintenance activities
• Ensure work orders are properly documented, prioritized, completed, and closed in a timely manner
• Analyze downtime, recurring failures, and maintenance trends to identify root causes and implement sustainable corrective actions
• Develop and monitor key maintenance and reliability metrics, including equipment downtime, PM completion, recurring failures, and maintenance response

Engineering & Continuous Improvement

• Lead engineering initiatives that improve equipment reliability, capacity, safety, quality, labor efficiency, and process performance
• Partner with Operations and Quality to identify and implement opportunities for process optimization and continuous improvement
• Provide technical leadership for equipment modifications, line improvements, automation, and manufacturing process changes
• Apply structured problem-solving and root cause analysis to recurring equipment and process issues
• Support development of equipment standards and technical specifications that enable scalable manufacturing growth
• Identify opportunities to improve equipment design, maintainability, reliability, and hygienic performance

Capital Projects & Equipment Installation

• Lead or support capital projects from technical evaluation and planning through installation, commissioning, and handoff to Operations
• Partner with internal stakeholders, equipment manufacturers, contractors, and vendors to ensure successful project execution
• Support equipment selection and technical evaluation for new manufacturing capabilities
• Coordinate equipment installation, startup, commissioning, and validation activities
• Ensure new and modified equipment meets operational, safety, food safety, quality, sanitation, and performance requirements
• Develop maintenance strategies, spare parts requirements, and technical training plans for new equipment prior to operational handoff

Food Safety, Quality & Sanitary Design

• Ensure all maintenance and engineering activities are performed in accordance with GMPs, food safety requirements, allergen controls, sanitation standards, and facility procedures
• Partner closely with Quality and Sanitation to ensure equipment is maintained in a condition that supports hygienic operation and effective cleaning
• Ensure appropriate controls are followed during and after maintenance work in production areas to prevent contamination from tools, parts, lubricants, metal fragments, chemicals, or other foreign material
• Ensure post-maintenance inspection, cleaning, and release requirements are consistently followed before equipment is returned to production
• Support hygienic design assessments and improvements to reduce harborage points, improve cleanability, and mitigate microbiological risk
• Partner with Quality and Sanitation on investigations involving equipment condition, environmental findings, foreign material, sanitation effectiveness, or potential product risk
• Ensure food-grade lubricants and maintenance chemicals are appropriately controlled and used
• Support facility readiness for customer, regulatory, and third-party audits

Safety & Compliance

• Champion a strong safety culture across all maintenance and engineering activities
• Ensure compliance with Lockout/Tagout requirements and other applicable OSHA and facility safety programs
• Ensure maintenance work involving electrical systems, confined spaces, elevated work, hot work, and other high-risk activities follows established safety requirements
• Partner with Safety and Operations to identify and eliminate equipment-related hazards
• Ensure contractors and third-party service providers comply with facility safety, GMP, food safety, and site access requirements
• Support machine guarding, electrical safety, and other equipment-related risk reduction initiatives

Spare Parts, CMMS & Vendor Management

• Own spare parts strategy and inventory to ensure critical components are available while maintaining appropriate inventory controls
• Identify critical spare parts based on equipment risk, lead time, and operational impact
• Ensure effective use of the Computerized Maintenance Management System (CMMS) to manage assets, work orders, preventive maintenance, and maintenance history
• Build and maintain strong relationships with equipment manufacturers, contractors, and technical service providers
• Manage vendor performance and support cost-effective sourcing of maintenance parts and services
• Maintain accurate equipment documentation, manuals, schematics, and technical records

Facility & Utilities

• Oversee maintenance and reliability of facility infrastructure and critical utility systems
• Support systems including HVAC, process chilling, refrigeration, electrical, plumbing, compressed air, docks and doors, security systems, and other plant infrastructure
• Partner with internal and external resources to ensure facility systems are maintained safely and effectively
• Support long-term facility planning and infrastructure improvements required for continued growth

Cross-Functional Leadership

• Serve as the primary technical partner to Production, Quality, Sanitation, Safety, and other plant functions
• Participate in daily and weekly operating routines to align maintenance priorities with production needs
• Communicate equipment status, risks, priorities, and recovery plans clearly to plant leadership
• Build strong working relationships across shifts and functions
• Foster shared accountability for equipment care, reliability, safety, food safety, and continuous improvement

Qualifications

Required

• 7+ years of progressive maintenance, engineering, or technical operations experience in a manufacturing environment
• 2+ years of experience leading, supervising, or developing maintenance or technical teams
• Experience in food, beverage, pharmaceutical, or another highly regulated manufacturing environment; food manufacturing experience strongly preferred
• Strong mechanical and electrical troubleshooting capabilities
• Experience with automated manufacturing and packaging equipment
• Ability to read and interpret electrical, mechanical, and technical schematics
• Experience managing spare parts inventory
• Experience building and managing preventive maintenance programs
• Strong understanding of equipment reliability and root cause problem-solving
• Experience with maintenance work-order management
• Working knowledge of GMPs and safety requirements within a manufacturing environment
• Strong leadership, communication, organization, and prioritization skills

Preferred

• Experience in a ready-to-eat food manufacturing environment
• Experience with hygienic equipment design and sanitary maintenance practices

• Experience leading capital projects, equipment installations, commissioning, and startup
• Experience with Lean Manufacturing, Continuous Improvement, TPM, or reliability-centered maintenance practices
• Experience supporting BRCGS, SQF, or similar GFSI-certified food manufacturing systems
• Bilingual in English and Spanish

Education

• Technical, trade school, or associate degree in Industrial Maintenance, Electrical, Mechanical, Automation, or a related discipline preferred
• Bachelor’s degree in Engineering, Engineering Technology, or a related technical field preferred but not required

What Success Looks Like

• Production equipment operates safely, reliably, and consistently
• Preventive and predictive maintenance programs reduce unplanned downtime and recurring failures
• The Maintenance team is well-led, technically capable, responsive, and accountable
• Engineering projects and equipment improvements deliver measurable operational value
• Maintenance work consistently protects food safety, product quality, and hygienic conditions
• Strong partnership exists across Maintenance, Production, Quality, Sanitation, and Safety
• Equipment-related issues are addressed at the root cause rather than repeatedly repaired
• Capital projects and equipment installations are executed safely, effectively, and with strong operational handoff
• Maintenance systems, technical capabilities, and facility infrastructure scale with MUSH’s continued growth

Physical and Work-Related Requirements

• Ability to stand and walk for extended periods in a manufacturing environment
• Ability to bend, climb, reach, and lift up to 50 pounds as required
• Ability to work around operating manufacturing equipment and in varying environmental conditions
• Ability to respond to urgent equipment or facility needs outside standard working hours when required
• Ability to work weekends and holidays as business needs require
• Ability to work in a facility that handles food allergens, including milk, peanuts and tree nuts