The Role
This person keeps the plant running — the building, the utilities, and the electroforming and plating line — and builds the things we need to make production work. It is a broad, hands-on seat for someone who finds what is broken and fixes it without waiting to be told, and who can fabricate a solution when one does not exist off the shelf.
A significant part of this job is building custom fixtures, tooling, and equipment, and running hands-on projects that directly support production. If someone enjoys designing and building things with their hands as much as maintaining them, this is the seat.
Core Responsibilities
- Building and facilities. Electrical, plumbing, compressed air, HVAC, ventilation, lighting, doors, and general building repair and upkeep. This is the backbone of the job.
- Plating and electroforming line support. Tanks, pumps, filtration, rectifiers and power supplies, heaters, exhaust and ventilation, and fluid handling.
- Custom fixtures, tooling, and equipment. Design and build the work-holding, fixtures, carts, racks, guarding, benches, and one-off equipment that production needs. Fabrication, welding, and assembly are a real part of this job, not an occasional extra.
- Hands-on production support projects. Take on the physical projects that make the shop work better — installing new equipment, reworking a layout, improving material handling, standing up a new process area.
- Equipment maintenance. Preventive and corrective work on shop equipment, including the CNC machines — mechanical, electrical, pneumatic, hydraulic, and coolant systems. Deep CNC controls expertise is not required; we bring in the machine builder for that.
- Diagnose and fix. Troubleshoot methodically and get things back in service quickly. Find problems before they find us.
- Vendor coordination. Manage outside contractors for work beyond in-house scope, and hold them to schedule.
- Spares and consumables. Keep critical spare parts and shop materials on hand and track what we have.
- Documentation. Record maintenance and projects performed, and build simple preventive-maintenance schedules and procedures so the work is repeatable by someone else.
- Machine operation. Step in to run scheduled production jobs on CNC equipment when the floor needs the hands.
- Safety and housekeeping. Support compliance and keep the facility in a condition we are proud of.
Baseline Shop Expectations
These apply to everyone on the floor:
- Stay alert, stay safe. We work with a lot of machinery and chemicals. Watch for long hair, loose clothing, and hanging jewelry, and stay aware of what is happening around you.
- Complete scheduled jobs by their scheduled completion times. Other people’s schedules depend on yours.
- Stay on task. There are a lot of interesting things going on here, but the company stays in business by meeting customer deliverables.
- Learn and follow established processes. Working from the same playbook is what prevents crashes, confusion, and lost time. We are always open to improvement — keep a running list of what could be better and we prioritize it as a team.
- Keep the area clean and organized. A dirty shop does not mean more work is getting done. Make a mess when you are in the thick of it, then come back and clean it up — or clean while the machines are running.
- Room to grow. The shop is evolving quickly, with automation and cobots coming. We expect people to upskill into new roles as those opportunities appear.
Required
- U.S. person status for ITAR compliance — non-negotiable
- Broad hands-on maintenance experience across building systems — electrical, plumbing, compressed air, HVAC, and mechanical
- Fabrication ability — able to design and build a fixture, a rack, or a piece of equipment from scratch, not just repair what exists
- Ability to read schematics and equipment manuals and troubleshoot methodically
- Self-starter who identifies and fixes problems without being assigned them — this is the single most important trait for this seat
- Comfortable working around industrial chemicals with proper PPE
- Willingness to work overtime when equipment is down or the schedule requires it
Preferred
- Industrial or manufacturing plant maintenance background
- Welding, sheet metal, or general metal fabrication skill
- Plating, anodizing, or chemical process line experience
- Machine tool maintenance experience
- Electrical licensure or equivalent trade certification
- Military maintenance background — aviation, shipboard, or ground equipment
- Machine operating experience, or the willingness to learn it quickly
Compensation and Relocation
- Base rate: $28.00 per hour
- Overtime: Time and a half over 40 hours per week. Overtime is genuinely available and regularly worked.
- Relocation: $7,500. Half is paid on the start date and half at 90 days. The full amount is repayable if the employee leaves voluntarily within 12 months. No housing allowance, no ongoing stipend, and no separate expense reimbursement.
- Benefits: Per company benefits sheet
- Location: On-site, Brookfield, Connecticut
Path Forward — Our Hiring Process
Three steps, and we move quickly through them:
- Web conference interview. A video call to cover the candidate’s hands-on experience — the machines they have run, the tolerances they have held, and how they work through a setup. We also explain plainly what the shop is like and what we expect.
- On-site interview, at our expense. If the video call goes well, we fly the candidate to Connecticut. They walk the floor, see the equipment they would be running, meet the people they would work alongside, and talk through real work with us at the machine.
- Offer. If the on-site goes well, we move to an offer.
The on-site visit is a two-way evaluation. We want candidates to see the shop as it actually is before they commit to a move.
