Animal Care Technician I

For 75 years, Charles River employees have worked together to assist in the discovery, development and safe manufacture of new drug therapies. When you join our family, you will have a significant impact on the health and well-being of people across the globe. Whether your background is in life sciences, finance, IT, sales or another area, your skills will play an important role in the work we perform. In return, we'll help you build a career that you can feel passionate about.

Job Overview

We are seeking an Animal Care Technician to provide daily care and husbandry for research animals.

Animal Care Technicians play a critical role in maintaining the health, safety, and well-being of the animals in our care. If you are dependable, comfortable with physical work, and interested in gaining hands-on animal care experience in a research environment, we'd like to hear from you.

Previous laboratory animal experience is not required. Candidates with experience in animal care, farming, kennels, warehouses, restoration, landscaping, construction, or other hands-on, physically demanding environments are encouraged to apply.

Schedule: Sunday-Thursday or Tuesday-Saturday, 7:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.

Must be available to participate in shared weekend, holiday, and overtime coverage as needed.

What You'll Do

As an Animal Care Technician, you will help ensure animals receive consistent, high-quality care every day. Responsibilities include:

• Perform daily animal health and mortality checks
• Provide food and water according to established procedures
• Clean and maintain animal cages, enclosures, and housing areas
• Handle and move animals as needed to complete routine husbandry tasks
• Perform cage changes, including transferring rodents between cages
• Provide exercise and environmental enrichment for animals
• Assist with daily food preparation, including preparing produce and specialized diets
• Monitor animal housing areas and report any unusual observations or concerns
• Support cage-wash operations, including removing used bedding and preparing cages for reuse
• Learn and follow husbandry procedures for multiple species, including rodents, dogs, pigs, and nonhuman primates
• Adhere to established procedures, safety requirements, and quality standards in a regulated research environment

What the Work Environment Is Like

• This is a hands-on, physically active position with a significant cleaning component.
• Animal care areas can be warm and wet, and required personal protective equipment (PPE) must be worn throughout the workday. Certain areas, including cage wash, can become particularly hot.
• You will spend much of your shift on your feet performing repetitive physical tasks. The work is demanding and not always glamorous, but it is essential to the health and well-being of the animals in our care.

What We're Looking For

Successful candidates will typically:

• Have a strong work ethic and reliable attendance
• Be comfortable performing physically demanding work throughout the day
• Enjoy working in a structured, routine-driven environment
• Understand that animal care involves significant cleaning and sanitation responsibilities
• Be comfortable working in warm, wet, or occasionally unpleasant conditions
• Take pride in maintaining clean, organized spaces
• Be willing to learn and follow detailed procedures and protocols
• Work effectively both independently and as part of a team
• Be comfortable working with multiple animal species
• Be available to participate in shared weekend, holiday, and overtime coverage as needed

The pay for this position is $20/hour. Please note that salaries vary within the range based on factors including, but not limited to, experience, skills, education, certifications, and location.

About Safety Assessment
Charles River is committed to helping our partners expedite their preclinical drug development with exceptional safety assessment services, state-of-the-art facilities and expert regulatory guidance. From individual specialty toxicology and IND enabling studies to tailored packages and total laboratory support, our deeply experienced team can design and execute programs that anticipate challenges and avoid roadblocks for a smooth, efficient journey to market. Each year approximately 300 investigational new drug (IND) programs are conducted in our Safety Assessment facilities.

About Charles River
Charles River is an early-stage contract research organization (CRO). We have built upon our foundation of laboratory animal medicine and science to develop a diverse portfolio of discovery and safety assessment services, both Good Laboratory Practice (GLP) and non-GLP, to support clients from target identification through preclinical development. Charles River also provides a suite of products and services to support our clients' clinical laboratory testing needs and manufacturing activities. Utilizing this broad portfolio of products and services enables our clients to create a more flexible drug development model, which reduces their costs, enhances their productivity and effectiveness to increase speed to market.

With over 20,000 employees within 110 facilities in over 20 countries around the globe, we are strategically positioned to coordinate worldwide resources and apply multidisciplinary perspectives in resolving our client's unique challenges. Our client base includes global pharmaceutical companies, biotechnology companies, government agencies and hospitals and academic institutions around the world.

At Charles River, we are passionate about our role in improving the quality of people's lives. Our mission, our excellent science and our strong sense of purpose guide us in all that we do, and we approach each day with the knowledge that our work helps to improve the health and well-being of many across the globe. We have proudly worked on 80% of the drugs approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in the past five years.

We're committed to providing benefits that elevate your quality of life. Based on your position these may include: bonus/incentives based on performance, 401K, paid time off, stock purchase program, Health and wellness coverage, employee and family wellbeing support programs, and work life balance flexibility.

Equal Employment Opportunity

Charles River is an equal opportunity employer and is committed to providing equal employment opportunities for all qualified applicants and employees without regard to race, color, sex, religion, national origin, ancestry, age, mental or physical disability, family status, pregnancy, military or veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state, or local laws.

It is unlawful in some states (including Massachusetts) to require or administer a lie detector test as a condition of employment or continued employment. An employer who violates this law shall be subject to criminal penalties and civil liability.

If you are interested in applying to Charles River Laboratories and need special assistance or an accommodation due to a disability to complete any forms or to otherwise participate in the resume submission process, please contact a member of our Human Resources team by sending an e-mail message to View email address on click.appcast.io. This contact is for accommodation requests for individuals with disabilities only and cannot be used to inquire about the status of applications.

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