Plant Engineering Manager

About the role

The Plant Engineering Manager oversees all engineering, maintenance, utilities, and automation systems within a large, highly automated USDA food manufacturing plant. This leader ensures equipment reliability, regulatory compliance, continuous improvement, and long-term asset health while driving operational excellence in a 24/7 production environment.

Responsibilities

• Engineering Leadership & Technical Direction
• Set the technical vision for the plant, ensuring engineering strategies align with production goals, food safety requirements, and long-term asset health.
• Team Development
• Build a high-performance culture across maintenance, reliability, and controls teams. Provide coaching, succession planning, and skills development for technicians, supervisors, and engineers.
• Cross-Functional Influence
• Serve as the plant's technical authority, partnering with Operations, Quality, Sanitation, and Corporate Engineering to solve complex problems and drive plant-wide improvements.

Requirements

• Required Qualifications:
• Bachelor’s degree in Engineering (Mechanical, Electrical, Industrial, or related field).
• 7 + years of engineering or maintenance leadership in food manufacturing, CPG, or high-automation environments.
• Demonstrated success managing large capital projects and cross-functional initiatives.
• Equipment uptime and reliability (MTBF, MTTR)
• Successful execution of capital projects (on time/on budget)
• Maintenance cost performance (M&R spend)
• Audit readiness and regulatory compliance
• OEE improvement and waste reduction

Qualifications

• Preferred Qualifications:
• 10 + years of engineering or maintenance leadership in food manufacturing, CPG, or high-automation environments.
• Professional certifications (PE, PMP, Six Sigma) are a plus.
• Experience in FDA, USDA-regulated or ready-to-eat (RTE) facilities strongly preferred.

Skills

• Mechanical & Electrical Expertise
• Strong understanding of industrial equipment, automation, and utilities within a high-speed CPG company.
• Project Management
• Ability to manage complex timelines, contractors, and budgets.
• Regulatory Knowledge
• Experience with USDA, HACCP, GMPs, and food safety engineering requirements.
• Leadership & People Development
• Proven ability to coach, mentor, and build high-performing technical teams.
• Data-Driven Decision Making
• Skilled in using CMMS, OEE data, and reliability metrics to guide improvements.
• Root Cause Analysis
• Expertise in RCA, FMEA, and structured problem-solving methodologies.
• Food Safety
• Fundamental understanding of Sanitary Design Principles, sanitation practices and requirements, and mitigation strategies.

Benefits

Annual Salary Range: $165k - $185k
A relocation package is available to qualified candidates
Jack Link’s provides a variety of benefits to eligible Team Members, including medical, dental and vision benefits, life and disability insurance, 401k participation, paid holidays, and paid time off.

Pay

Actual wage will vary based on several factors, including but not limited to external market data, internal equity, location, and candidate skill set and experience.

Schedule

Base pay is just one component of Jack Link’s Total Rewards package for Team Members. Other rewards may include annual incentive and program-specific awards.

Physical Demands

The physical demands described here are representative of those that must be met by a Team Member to successfully perform the essential functions of this job. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions.

Work Environment

The work environment is a plant setting with wet/slippery floors, varying degrees of temperatures with an average temperature of 40 degrees in the production area. Team Members will be exposed to raw and/or cooked meat products and moving equipment and will be required to follow all Food Safety Quality requirements.