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
