Lead Engineer – Manufacturing Shift & Coaching

Weetabix; Kettering; On-site; GBP 70,000 - 90,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Annual bonus

Pension scheme (double-matched)

Discounted Weetabix products

24/7 counselling service

Enhanced parental leave

Fertility and neonatal care time off

Employee kitchens and product samples

Job summary

Weetabix is seeking a Lead Engineer to provide day-to-day engineering leadership on a manufacturing shift in Burton Latimer. You will coordinate maintenance, respond to breakdowns, and drive reliability, safety, and quality targets across the site.

Balanced hands-on technical work with people leadership, you will develop skills across the team, lead root-cause investigations and work closely with production and engineering colleagues to maximise uptime and production performance.

Qualifications

• Engineering maintenance expertise across mechanical, electrical and control systems in complex manufacturing.
• Experience developing engineering capability, including assisting teams and apprentices across maintenance and improvement activities.
• Proficient in CMMS, using data to improve planning and inform outcomes.
• Clear insight of manufacturing operations and impact on OEE, downtime, cost, quality and waste.
• Ability to work jointly with production and engineering teams to align maintenance planning, scheduling and continuous improvement.

Responsibilities

• Deploy resources effectively to minimise downtime, remove bottlenecks, and improve productivity.
• Support performance management, coaching, and development planning, including apprentices.
• Provide hands-on technical support to resolve breakdowns and maintain safe, efficient operations.
• Produce shift reports, including engineering performance, breakdown trends, and operational impact.
• Ensure compliance with Health & Safety, Food Safety, company standards, and statutory requirements.
• Manage Permit to Work processes and the safe control of contractors and high-risk activities.
• Maintain accurate CMMS records, ensuring quality data and timely job completion.
• Coach and develop engineering and production colleagues to build capability.
• Support engineering activities across multiple production facilities in a fast-paced environment.
• Lead root cause investigations and implement effective corrective and preventive actions.
• Respond to major breakdowns, driving rapid fault resolution and reducing downtime.
• Collaborate with engineering and operational teams to improve reliability, performance, and continuous improvement.
• Support wider business needs through additional duties as required.

Skills

Mechanical & electrical maintenance

CMMS experience

OEE awareness

Maintenance planning

Team leadership

Tools

CMMS

Job description

Weetabix is seeking a Lead Engineer to provide day-to-day engineering leadership on a manufacturing shift in Burton Latimer. You will coordinate maintenance, respond to breakdowns, and drive reliability, safety, and quality targets across the site.

Balanced hands-on technical work with people leadership, you will develop skills across the team, lead root-cause investigations and work closely with production and engineering colleagues to maximise uptime and production performance.