Maintenance & Automation Technician

About Us

Zina's Fine Foods makes refrigerated ready-to-eat meals, salads and side dishes at our South Plainfield plant. We are SQF certified and expanding into more space and more lines, which means more equipment to install, improve and keep running.

About the Role

We are looking for a technician who is happiest with tools in hand and a panel open. You will keep production running day to day, and you will help bring new equipment online. Some of our machines arrive secondhand with no manual, no drawings, and no vendor to call. Working out how a machine is meant to run, setting it correctly, and getting it into production is a real part of this job—and it is the part we value most.

First shift, on site, roughly 7:30 AM to 5:00 PM.

Responsibilities

• Troubleshoot and repair production equipment: mechanical, electrical, pneumatic, and hydraulic
• Set up, level, align, and time machines so they run right, not just run
• Install and commission new and used equipment, from uncrating through the first production run
• Work on fillers, depositors, labelers, checkweighers, metal detectors, cookers, coolers, conveyors, weighers, and wrappers
• Read and correct electrical schematics, and wire or modify control panels
• Troubleshoot PLC-controlled equipment and VFDs, and make program changes where needed
• Find the real cause when a machine keeps failing, fix it, and confirm it stayed fixed
• Show operators how to run and set the equipment, and document what you did so the knowledge is retained
• Work safely in a wet, cold, washdown environment under GMP and SQF rules

Requirements

• Several years maintaining production equipment in a plant (food, beverage, or another wet manufacturing environment is a strong plus)
• Real mechanical ability: bearings, drives, belts, chains, gearboxes, pneumatics, hydraulics
• Electrical troubleshooting through 480V three phase
• Ability to work with PLCs and VFDs (Allen-Bradley or Siemens)
• Comfortable working from the machine and a meter when there is no documentation
• Able to work on your own when a line goes down

Nice to Have

• Experience commissioning, rebuilding, or retrofitting used equipment
• Panel building or machine building experience
• Electrical license or certification
• Spanish language skills
• SQF, HACCP, or GMP experience
• A degree or trade qualification in mechatronics, electrical, or mechanical

How to Tell If This Is You

The best person for this job has walked up to a machine nobody understood, figured it out, and had it making product by the end of the week. If that sounds like your kind of problem, we want to talk to you.

Benefits

• 401(k)
• 401(k) matching
• Employee discounts
• Free food & snacks
• Paid time off