Associate Director of Maintenance
Associate Director, Maintenance & Reliability
Location: Remote (Future Relocation to East Coast or Midwest Manufacturing Site)
Compensation: $175,000 - $195,000 + Bonus
PLEASE READ BEFORE APPLYING: Do not apply without experience leading maintenance, reliability, or technical operations programs within pharmaceutical, API, biotechnology, specialty chemical, or other highly regulated process manufacturing environments. Candidates must have experience supporting capital projects, facility start-ups, greenfield or brownfield expansions, and developing maintenance and reliability systems for large-scale manufacturing operations.
A global life sciences manufacturing organization is seeking an Associate Director of Maintenance & Reliability to support a major U.S. growth investment focused on advanced pharmaceutical manufacturing. This individual will play a critical role in designing and building the maintenance organization, reliability programs, asset management strategy, and long-term operational readiness plans for a new manufacturing operation.
This is a highly visible leadership position that will partner closely with engineering, operations, quality, automation, and project teams to ensure the facility is designed, commissioned, and operated with world-class reliability, maintainability, GMP compliance, and mechanical integrity standards.
Key Responsibilities
- Lead maintenance and reliability readiness activities through facility design, construction, commissioning, qualification, and start-up.
- Develop and implement preventive, predictive, and reliability-centered maintenance strategies to maximize equipment uptime and asset performance.
- Partner with engineering and project teams to ensure maintainability, accessibility, serviceability, and lifecycle considerations are integrated into facility and equipment design.
- Establish asset lifecycle management programs including spare parts strategies, calibration programs, maintenance planning, and reliability initiatives.
- Support the selection, implementation, and optimization of CMMS platforms and maintenance technologies.
- Participate in FAT/SAT activities, commissioning, qualification, and operational readiness efforts.
- Build the future maintenance organization, including staffing plans, training programs, procedures, and support models.
- Identify and mitigate reliability, maintenance, and operational readiness risks while providing updates to project leadership.
- Drive mechanical integrity and equipment performance improvements across manufacturing operations.
- Collaborate with cross-functional stakeholders to establish best-in-class maintenance systems from the ground up.
Required Qualifications
- Bachelor's degree in Engineering, Reliability Engineering, Facilities Management, or a related technical discipline.
- 10+ years of maintenance, reliability, engineering, or technical operations experience within pharmaceutical, API, biotechnology, CDMO, or process manufacturing environments.
- Experience supporting major capital projects, facility start-ups, manufacturing expansions, greenfield developments, or operational readiness initiatives.
- Strong knowledge of maintenance best practices, reliability engineering, asset lifecycle management, and equipment performance improvement.
- Experience with CMMS platforms, predictive maintenance technologies, reliability-centered maintenance (RCM), and maintenance planning systems.
- Understanding of GMP requirements related to equipment maintenance, calibration, qualification, documentation, and inspection readiness.
- Strong leadership, communication, project management, and cross-functional collaboration skills.
- Ability and willingness to relocate to a future manufacturing site as the project progresses.
- Ability to travel approximately 25-30%, including international travel.
Preferred Background
- Pharmaceutical Manufacturing
- Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients (API)
- CDMO Manufacturing
- High Potency API (HPAPI)
- Small Molecule Manufacturing
- Specialty Chemicals
- Fine Chemicals
- GMP-Regulated Operations
- Greenfield and Brownfield Manufacturing Projects
- Maintenance & Reliability Program Development
- Mechanical Integrity Programs
- Containment-Intensive Manufacturing Environments
This is a rare opportunity to build a maintenance and reliability organization from the ground up for a major manufacturing investment. The position offers significant visibility with executive leadership, involvement in facility design and start-up decisions, and the opportunity to shape the long-term operational success of a globally recognized life sciences manufacturer.
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