Solcoa Industries
Pilot Plant Manager
Alameda, California · Contract
Sponsorship not specifiedDetected 8 days ago
Mechanical DesignThermodynamics
About the role
- You will run the line as a production operation: safety, output, yield, uptime, people, and material flow.
- You will be the person accountable for how much metal the plant made this week.
- You'll report directly to the founders and work alongside our engineering team.
Responsibilities
- Own production. Plan and execute production campaigns against output targets. Run daily operations of the pilot line, including furnace operations, casting, and downstream handling.
- Track and improve yield. Own the mass balance. Maintain yield and recovery tracking by campaign, identify loss mechanisms, and drive corrective actions.
- Own maintenance. Build and run the preventive maintenance program. Track equipment condition, schedule and direct maintenance work (in-house and contractor), manage spares inventory, and minimize unplanned downtime.
- Build the operator team. Screen, interview, and help hire operators. Develop the training program: SOPs, qualification checklists, and sign-offs. Train operators directly on equipment and procedures.
- Track feedstock and inventory. Manage receipt, storage, staging, and consumption of oxide and magnet feedstocks, reductants, salts, crucibles, and consumables. Maintain accurate inventory and reorder points.
- Own safety on the floor. Enforce safe work practices around molten metal, high-temperature furnaces, inert gas systems, and reactive materials. Lead incident investigation and near-miss reporting. Support environmental and permitting compliance (BAAQMD, CUPA).
- Close the loop with engineering. Log run data, flag deviations, and feed operational learnings back into process development and the design of our commercial plant.
- Manage the schedule.
Requirements
- Degree in metallurgical, chemical, materials, or mechanical engineering (or equivalent hands-on depth).
- 5+ years in production operations at a high-temperature metals or chemicals plant - smelting, foundry, specialty alloys, glass, or similar.
- Track record of owning production metrics - yield, recovery, OEE, downtime - and improving them.
- Hands-on maintenance fluency: you can read a P&ID, troubleshoot alongside a millwright, and know when to call the vendor.
Compensation
- Now we're scaling it to thousands of tonnes of annual production.
Benefits
- Competitive salary + meaningful equity in a fast-scaling company.
- shift scheduling and coverage.
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This listing is sourced directly from Solcoa Industries's careers page and normalized into a canonical job model.