Maintenance Technician Job Description

Key skills

Responsibilities

• • Respond to breakdown tickets, restore service where possible and make equipment safe where it is not
• • Complete planned preventive maintenance tasks to schedule rather than deferring them under reactive pressure
• • Record work carried out, parts used and root cause in the maintenance system so history is usable
• • Carry out mechanical repairs and replacements on plant, conveyors, pumps, motors and building equipment
• • Work within permit and isolation procedures and stop when a task exceeds the role's authorisation
• • Monitor spares and consumables and raise replenishment before a critical part runs out
• • Escalate work requiring certification to the appropriate qualified trade or contractor
• • Support contractors on site, including induction, permit issue where authorised and checking work on completion

Requirements

• • Practical maintenance experience across more than one discipline in an industrial, facilities or plant environment
• • Ability to diagnose faults on unfamiliar equipment using drawings, manuals and method
• • Understanding of safe isolation, permits to work and when a task must be handed to a certified trade
• • Comfort using a maintenance management system and recording work accurately
• • Availability for the shift or on call pattern the site runs, including nights or weekends if applicable
• • Any trade qualification or safety training the site's jurisdiction requires for the work, confirmed locally

Nice to have

• • A recognised mechanical or electrical apprenticeship or equivalent trade background
• • Experience with programmable controllers, sensors or automated equipment fault finding
• • Welding, fabrication or machining capability for on site repairs
• • Experience in a regulated environment such as food production, pharmaceuticals or healthcare
• • Familiarity with the maintenance management system already in use on site

Hire for breadth and for knowing where breadth stops

The valuable maintenance technician can restore service across several disciplines and is completely clear about which tasks require a certified trade. Ask directly what they will and will not take on, and be suspicious of the candidate who claims everything. Someone who says they would isolate and make safe, then call a registered electrician for the certification, is describing exactly the behaviour that keeps a site compliant. Someone who describes doing certified work informally is a liability regardless of their skill, and their previous employer's tolerance is not a defence.

Use an equipment walk as the practical assessment

Take shortlisted candidates onto the floor and stop at two or three machines. Ask what they would check first if it stopped, what the likely failure modes are, and what they would want on the shelf as spares. You are testing method on unfamiliar equipment, which is the actual job, rather than familiarity with your specific plant. It also shows whether they look at the machine, the guarding and the isolation points before answering, which is a habit worth more than a list of remembered faults.

Ask what they do with the planned work when a breakdown lands

Planned maintenance is the first thing sacrificed under pressure, and a site where it is permanently deferred generates the emergencies that justify deferring it. Ask how the candidate has handled competing planned and reactive work, and whether they have ever pushed back on a production request. Listen for prioritisation reasoning rather than heroics. A technician who quietly abandons the schedule every time someone shouts will keep the site running this week and cost it far more within a year.

Screen the shift and on call pattern before skills

Maintenance cover often spans nights, weekends or an on call rota, and that pattern determines retention more than the technical fit does. State the pattern in the advert, including how the on call rota rotates, what the response expectation is and how it is paid, then confirm on the first call that the candidate can genuinely do it. Ask about travel time to site for callouts, since a technician an hour away cannot meet a thirty minute response. Rota mismatch causes most early departures in these roles.

How an ATS helps when maintenance vacancies are urgent

A maintenance vacancy is felt immediately, because the remaining technicians absorb the cover and planned work slips within the first week. Pitch N Hire's applicant tracking system keeps previous applicants searchable by discipline, trade background and availability, so a resignation starts from a warm list rather than a fresh advert. Structured application questions capture safety training, trade qualifications and shift availability up front, which removes the applications that cannot work the pattern. Engineering managers who spend most of the day on the floor can review candidates and book interviews from a phone.