Quality Technician - 3rd Shift

Thrive Foods•Oak Creek, WI

4d•Onsite

About The Position

Thrive Freeze Dry is hiring a full-time Quality Technician for its Pet Food Division at its freeze-dry manufacturing facility in Oak Creek, Wisconsin. The position is listed as a third-shift role, scheduled from 5:30 p.m. to 5:30 a.m., with a starting pay of $24.70 as stated in the posting. It reports to the Quality Assurance Supervisor. The Quality Assurance Technician helps ensure food safety, product quality, and regulatory and customer compliance by monitoring and documenting quality assurance standards, procedures, and controls. The role includes inspecting and sampling incoming materials and product returns, maintaining sample records, reviewing supplier certificates of analysis, completing operational and GMP inspections, conducting cleaning verification and environmental monitoring, and documenting quality-related findings. The technician communicates non-conformances and food safety concerns to leadership and may provide backup support for QA management to help ensure food safety, quality, and SQF system requirements are met. The work takes place in a food manufacturing production environment with frequent temperature variations. Personal protective equipment is required and provided. The role involves physical activity, including lifting up to 40 pounds and frequent lifting, carrying, pushing, pulling, stooping, kneeling, crouching, and crawling. Unrestricted visual and audio abilities are required for employee safety. Thrive Foods describes itself as a freeze-dried food industry leader with plant operations across multiple regions and a focus on healthy snacks, clean-label products, human food, probiotics, and pet food. Its stated values are leading with integrity, treating people well, chasing big goals, doing what matters most, winning together, and learning and growing. Thrive Freeze Dry is an Equal Opportunity Employer.

Requirements

Two years of experience in a field, laboratory, or production-facility quality-control role.
Ability to communicate professionally and effectively with internal and external customers.
Good written and verbal communication skills.
Good organizational skills.
Maintain good attendance.
Ability to lift up to 40 pounds.
Unrestricted visual and audio abilities for employee safety.
Ability to perform frequent lifting, carrying, pushing, and pulling; frequent stooping, kneeling, crouching, and crawling; and tasks requiring some fine finger dexterity.
Understand and follow food safety, quality, sanitation, and GMP policies and procedures.

Nice To Haves

Experience in food manufacturing or food service is highly preferred.

Responsibilities

Inspect and sample incoming raw products, ingredients, and packaging materials to verify conformance with established specifications and standards.
Inspect and evaluate product returns, including products rejected because of customer complaints or incorrect shipments.
Collect incoming-material samples according to predetermined sampling plans and evaluate them against company specifications and requirements.
Issue incoming-material inspection reports and non-conformance reports, file inspection reports, and communicate non-conformances to upper management.
Maintain incoming QA sample storage and the sample library for quick retrieval.
Review supplier certificates of analysis (COAs) against company specifications.
Perform and document QA tasks for pre-operational and post-operational inspections.
Perform cleaning verification swabbing and execute the site Environmental Monitoring Program according to its schedule.
Follow company food safety and sanitation policies and procedures, and communicate and document food safety incidents, observations, or opportunities.
Perform and document GMP inspections.
Enter data in multiple systems as needed.
In the absence of QA management, provide backup to help ensure food safety and quality objectives and SQF system requirements are met.
Adhere to and help ensure product safety, quality, food defense, GMP, and food-contact packaging standards are followed.