📍 Ingleburn | Close to Home
🏭 Fast-paced Meat/Pet Food Manufacturing | Long-term Stability

Do you like to get stuck in, not stand on the sidelines?

Are you a hands-on Mechanical Reliability Specialist who thrives in a busy manufacturing environment and wants job security in a growing industry?

At Real Pet Food, we’re driven by passion, innovation, and a shared love of pets. Our brands — Ivory Coat, Billy + Margot, Fussy Cat, Nature’s Gift, VIP, and Trilogy — are trusted and loved by millions, and we’re on a mission to change the game in pet nutrition.

We’re looking for a Mechanical Reliability Specialist to join our busy Ingleburn site. This is a practical, sleeves-rolled-up role where you’ll be on the tools when needed, working side-by-side with maintenance and production teams to improve reliability, availability and performance of our mechanical assets.

This is not a role for someone who prefers to observe and instruct from afar — you’ll be visible on the floor, solving problems, leading by example and helping keep production moving. If you enjoy good banter, teamwork and getting real results, you’ll fit right in.

What you’ll be doing

• Enhance asset reliability and capability through continuous improvement initiatives, robust maintenance strategies and close collaboration with production teams to maximise uptime and efficiency.

• Develop and implement maintenance policies, procedures and training that support safety, quality and operational excellence, while contributing to capital planning and maintenance management.

• Build strong working relationships with internal teams and external stakeholders to reduce equipment failure risk and drive mechanical reliability improvements.

• Identify and address mechanical safety risks and contamination sources, ensuring high customer service and compliance with food manufacturing standards.

• Lead the site RCM program and strengthen preventive and predictive maintenance strategies across all mechanical assets, including condition-based maintenance and CMMS scheduling.

• Act as the go-to mechanical expert, providing hands-on troubleshooting support and partnering with engineering and maintenance leaders to optimise critical spares and stock policies.

What will help you succeed

• Strong communication skills and the ability to influence and collaborate across maintenance, production and engineering teams.

• A proactive, problem-solving mindset with a genuine passion for continuous improvement.

• Solid experience managing maintenance operations using a CMMS.

• Training or hands-on experience in RCM, predictive maintenance technologies, FMEA and RCA.

• Proven technical, hands-on maintenance capability, including troubleshooting and programming of control systems.

• Experience designing and implementing mechanical safety controls (e.g. zero-access machine guarding) with sound knowledge of AS4024.

• Strong fault-finding capability across mechanical systems and sub-assemblies, including:

  • Pneumatics (compressed air and vacuum)

  • Hydraulics (circuits, power packs, systems)

  • Power transmission (gearboxes, chains, belts, bearings, shafts)

  • Fluid transfer equipment (pumps, blowers, etc.)

Ideally, you’ll also have

• FMCG experience within food or meat manufacturing.

• A minimum of 5 years’ experience in manufacturing mechanical, process or industrial engineering environments.

• Project management qualifications or demonstrated experience delivering significant projects using structured methodologies.

• Proven involvement in developing mechanical and lubrication maintenance programs.

• Experience managing contractors and service providers, including safe systems of work (Permits to Work, SWMS/JSA).

Why join us?

• Work close to home at our Ingleburn site

• Be part of a growing, stable industry

• Join a down-to-earth team that values action, teamwork and a bit of humour

• Make a real impact in a role where your expertise is valued and visible

If you’re ready for a hands-on reliability role where you can make a difference every day, we’d love to hear from you.

What’s next?

If you're ready to unleash your potential and make a real difference in the booming pet industry, then we want to hear from you! Next steps will include:

• An initial telephone interview followed by 2 face to face interviews and site visit

• 2 work references

• A Pre-Employment Medical

• Must have full Australian working rights. We are unable to offer sponsorship at this stage

We are proud to be an Equal Opportunity Employer. Diversity’s not a buzzword here, it’s in our DNA. Diverse perspectives shape our culture and make our work better. That’s why we’re committed to building inclusive teams that represent a variety of backgrounds and skills. If you need any reasonable adjustments, accessibility assistance or would like to note which pronouns you use at any stage of our hiring process, just contact us at accommodations: people&culture@realpetfoodco.com.au. We look forward to hearing from you.

Please note: NO agencies will be considered during this process. We encourage you to refrain from submitting unsolicited profiles