Maintenance Engineer

Vow is a food company – a very different one. We create real meat products from animal cells, bringing together cutting edge innovations in science, engineering, culinary and design. We're on a mission to feed billions with food that's good for your taste buds and your planet.

We’re on the search

Do you like it when things just work? Do you like forging order from chaos? Like variety? Then join us in the Facilities team as a Maintenance Engineer to help improve all aspects of Vow life across our two Sydney sites in Alexandria.

As a Maintenance Engineer at Vow you'll be joining a team responsible for overseeing, coordinating and ensuring the completion of maintenance and continuous improvement of the property, plant and equipment across both of our Sydney sites.

The role involves a mix of planned and unplanned tasks that will see you solve many problems as they arise to ensure the safety of your fellow team members (AKA Vowzers) and our delicious products and the reliability of our growing array of equipment.

You’ll use a combination of your technical know-how, great communication skills and ruthless prioritisation abilities to keep on top of it all to help us make delicious food that is safe, tastier, more nutritious, more sustainable, and ultimately more affordable than what we eat today.

We care far more about your adaptable skills than the titles you've held. We're more interested in who you are and how you approach challenges than the exact roles you've performed in the past. Some of the things that we are looking for:

• Technical Proficiency: You have a technical mindset; which will likely be an engineering qualification with at least 1-2 years of experience in an engineering role.
• Project Leadership or Multitasking ability: Experience in leading projects or managing tasks with multiple stakeholders with the ability to multitask and prioritize effectively.
• Proactive problem solver: You have proven history in being able tokeep calm, assess a situation, decide on next steps and inform stakeholders in a timely and safe manner, no matter what the situation. You will look to identify blockers before they become a problem.
• Strong communicator: You have an approachable, friendly manner that encourages all team members to readily report blockers. You are able to use various communication forms (oral, written, presentations, etc.) to effectively coordinate with both internal teams and external partners.
• Strong record keeping: You have experience in SOP writing and/or process documentation experience
• Computer literacy: Familiarity with MS Office 365 or Google Gsuite, Notion, Slack etc. and a willingness to learn and utilise new platforms as needed on a regular basis
• Flexibility to carry out shift work/weekend work when required (with time in lieu accumulated accordingly)

Bonus if you have:

• Familiarity with food processing or bioprocessing equipment (e.g. mixers, fermenters, pumps, filters, centrifuges) or
• Familiarity with plant equipment e.g. large air compressors, specialty gasses, steam boilers, reverse osmosis systems, pumps etc.
• Management experience of any kind (teams of people, or over systems/spaces)
• Experience using a computerised maintenance management system (CMMS)

You’ll be performing a wide range of tasks in this role, no two days will be the same. Here are some of the things you can expect:

• Drive the continuous improvement of our new and existing factory equipment as we navigate a period of rapid growth and development across the organisation
• Coordinate contractors and service technicians
• Set rosters and ensuring their completion
• Communicate on critical work to internal stakeholders
• Roll up your sleeves, getting out the service manuals, tools and giving things a go
• Responding to calls for help with equipment or new problems to solve problems on the spot
• Have a roughly 50/50 split between organisational/desk work and hands-on activity
• Minimize risks to personnel, food safety and equipment reliability

Ultimately help to build a world-first cultured meat factory that will serve as the prototype and inspiration for all that follow

• Get oriented with our most important systems/equipment across our two sites
• Start to take on responsibilities integral to the smooth running of our operations
• Perform planned and unplanned maintenance on a broad range of equipment

By the end of 3 months, you’ll:

• Be a critical contributor to our HACCP/GMP compliance requirements
• Making a real impact to the safety of your fellow Vowsers
• Be challenging how we do things and drive forward improvements

In your first year, you’ll:

• Become an expert user of our systems and may have built/implemented a few of your own. For example, overhauling our monitoring and alerting systems, operational metrics/dashboards or establishing a maintenance software/data tracking/hardware implementation pipeline
• Have numerous examples of parts of Vow that you have meaningfully and tangibly improved
• Be taking an active role in determining the strategy of the Facilities team into the future
• Have played a part in bringing multiple cultured meat products to the world.

Our mission is to feed billions, which means making food products for everyone. To do this we need a team that’s representative of the people we serve. We celebrate multiple approaches and points of view and have built a culture to match. Be yourself and come as you are.

Our team includes some of the world’s top scientists, innovators, operators, and creatives with decades ofindustry experience. Despite our experiences, we all strive to build, break, learn, and repeat. We see the impossible as temporary and strive to learn and support our company and fellow Vowzers' growth as much as possible.

We’re bringing together innovations in science, engineering, and food, to create the world’s most unique culinary experiences. All without compromising on ethics or our planet. Since our inception in 2019, we have held the title of being the first startup tocultivate meat from the cells of an undomesticated animal. We're wild because we can be.

We can make a real impact thanks to our investorsBlackbird Ventures, Square Peg Capital, Grok Ventures, Tenacious Ventures, P7 Ventures, Toyota Ventures and PeakBridge VC.

In addition to competitive base salaries, each and every ‘Vowzer’owns equity in the companyso we can all benefit from our hard work and future success.

For those who choose to start a family, we offer 8 weeks of paid caregiver leave and an additional 8 weeks paid leave for the birth giver.

We offer support for interstate or overseas team members, their families and, of course, their pets.

Sometimes you need time off to recuperate, look after your mental health, or simply deal with an emergency. We put unlimited personal leave in place to empower you to bring your best self to work every day.

We value work-life balance and we recognise that everyone works differently. We want you to do your best work, so you can choose how and where you do it.

Complete with a glass-walled lab, manufacturing lines, snacks, a culinary centre and professional-grade coffee machine.

Our fantastic "food inventors" on the Vow team are always cooking up new product prototypes, and all Vowzers are given the opportunity to taste, give feedback, and learn from their culinary prowess.

An inclusive community and culture, in a welcoming office, we encourage you to bring your true self…and your dogs.

It's Vowzers who make our culture. From book clubs to hiking groups, we’re always looking for ways to learn and engage with each other.