---
title: 'Maintenance Manager at Vulcan Elements'
canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/maintenance-manager-vulcan-elements-research-triangle-park-16xbaat3zj0e'
type: 'job'
last_seen: '2026-10-18'
---

# Maintenance Manager at Vulcan Elements

- **Company:** Vulcan Elements
- **Location:** Research Triangle Park, NC
- **Posted:** 2026-10-14
- **Last confirmed live:** 2026-10-18
- **Apply:** https://job-boards.greenhouse.io/vulcanelements/jobs/5442088008

## Job description

## VULCAN ELEMENTS

Maintenance Manag

Location

Benson, NC - on-site, full time

Vulcan Elements is commissioning a rare earth (NdFeB) permanent magnet manufacturing facility in Benson, North Carolina. The Maintenance Manager will report to the Maintenance & Reliability Director and lead maintenance execution for assigned manufacturing areas, with direct responsibility for the skilled trades and crafts supporting complex production equipment and facility systems.

This leader will build and develop the area maintenance organization, establish trade coverage and work practices, coordinate planned and unplanned maintenance, and ensure technicians are prepared to safely troubleshoot, repair, inspect, and maintain equipment from commissioning through steady-state production. The role is centered on practical maintenance leadership, workforce capability, work execution, and equipment ownership rather than an engineering background.

The ideal candidate has progressed through a skilled industrial trade and into maintenance supervision or management within a complex manufacturing environment. They will bring strong field leadership, sound troubleshooting judgment, disciplined work-management practices, and the ability to develop multi-craft teams that consistently execute safe, high-quality maintenance while supporting production, reliability, and cost objectives.

Essential Duties and Responsibilities

Maintenance Organization and Skilled Trades Leadership

Build and lead the maintenance craft and trades team for assigned manufacturing areas, including staffing, shift and on-call coverage, span of control, technician assignments, and day-to-day floor leadership.

Recruit, onboard, qualify, and develop skilled trades personnel, including industrial maintenance technicians, electricians, mechanics, millwrights, and other crafts required by the equipment base.

Establish trade qualification matrices, cross-training plans, progression expectations, and practical competency standards so technicians can safely and independently support assigned equipment.

Coach frontline supervisors, leads, and technicians on work quality, troubleshooting discipline, ownership, communication, and effective coordination with Operations and Engineering.

Maintenance Execution and Area Ownership

Own maintenance execution for assigned production areas, ensuring planned, corrective, and emergent work is prioritized and completed safely, efficiently, and to an appropriate technical standard.

Coordinate daily maintenance priorities with Operations, Planning & Scheduling, Reliability, Engineering, and Production leadership, balancing production needs with preventive maintenance and equipment health.

Ensure equipment breakdowns are rapidly assessed, the appropriate trades and resources are deployed, repairs are technically sound, and equipment is verified before return to service.

Manage the balance of preventive, predictive, corrective, and improvement work to control backlog, reduce repeat failures, and protect equipment availability without creating unnecessary maintenance burden.

Coordinate technicians, contractors, OEM support, parts, tools, permits, and production access for major repairs, shutdowns, and other work requiring cross-functional execution.

Startup, Commissioning and Equipment Readiness

Partner with cross functional engineering and design teams to establish equipment PMs, lubrication and inspection routines, critical spares, special tools, maintenance documentation, and initial job plans.

Identify maintainability, access, serviceability, spare-parts, and recurring equipment issues during commissioning and drive closure before they become embedded operating constraints.

Establish clear maintenance turnover and area-ownership practices so technicians understand equipment boundaries, escalation paths, maintenance standards, and responsibilities at startup.

Safety, Reliability and Continuous Improvement

Set the standard for safe maintenance execution, including LOTO, electrical safety, hot work, confined-space entry, elevated work, rigging, stored-energy control, and other hazards associated with industrial maintenance.

Ensure maintenance procedures, permits, job plans, pre-job reviews, and field execution are appropriate to the risk and complexity of the work being performed.

Drive high-quality maintenance practices that improve equipment condition and reduce repeat failures, including precision installation, proper alignment and assembly, inspection discipline, and effective post-maintenance verification.

Partner with Reliability and Engineering resources on recurring equipment losses, root-cause investigations, condition-based maintenance, and equipment improvements; ensure corrective actions are translated into field execution and standard work.

Maintain organized, professional maintenance shops, tool-control practices, staging areas, and housekeeping standards that support efficient and safe craft execution.

Work Management, CMMS and Resource Control

Establish strong CMMS discipline for the assigned areas, including accurate work requests, labor and parts history, failure coding, completion notes, preventive-maintenance compliance, and timely work-order closeout.

Manage area performance using practical maintenance KPIs such as schedule compliance, PM completion, backlog age, response and repair time, repeat failures, overtime, contractor usage, and equipment-related downtime.

Manage maintenance labor, contractor support, tools, consumables, and area maintenance spending within plan; work with Planning, Stores, Reliability, and Procurement to ensure critical parts and external resources are available when needed.

## Qualifications

Required

Eight or more years of industrial maintenance experience in a manufacturing, process, or similarly equipment-intensive environment, including three or more years leading maintenance technicians, skilled trades, or craft teams.

Skilled trade apprenticeship, technical diploma, journeyman credential, military technical training, or equivalent hands-on industrial maintenance experience; demonstrated trade and maintenance leadership capability is more important than an engineering degree for this role.

Strong practical knowledge of maintaining complex manufacturing equipment, including mechanical systems and industrial electrical, pneumatic, hydraulic, material-handling, automated, or other production equipment relevant to the assigned area.

Demonstrated ability to organize and deploy multi-craft maintenance resources across planned work, equipment breakdowns, shutdowns, and competing production priorities.

Strong command of industrial maintenance safety and work-control practices, including LOTO and safe execution of higher-risk maintenance activities.

Experience using a CMMS and applying preventive maintenance, work planning, backlog management, troubleshooting, root-cause problem solving, and maintenance performance metrics in a production environment.

## Preferred

Experience supporting startup, commissioning, major equipment installation, or expansion of a new manufacturing operation, including direct engagement with equipment OEMs and contractors.

Experience in advanced materials, automotive, machining, metals, battery, semiconductor, aerospace, or other manufacturing environments with complex automated equipment and strong uptime, quality, and safety requirements.

## About Vulcan Elements

## Company Overview
- **One-liner**: Vulcan Elements manufactures American rare-earth permanent magnets to build a resilient, Western supply chain for critical industries including defense, aerospace, automotive, and AI datacenters.
- **Entity Type**: Private (Seed + Series A + Debt financing)
- **Headquarters**: Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States (primary R&D operations also in Research Triangle Park, NC)
- **Founded**: 2023
- **Founders**: John Maslin (CEO) and Dr. Piotr Kulik (CTO)

## Core Business
- Primary industry: Advanced manufacturing of rare earth permanent magnets (neodymium).
- Target customers: B2B and government/defense – enterprise customers in defense, aerospace, automotive, industrial, consumer electronics, AI datacenters, semiconductor fabrication.
- Mission: "Improving U.S. and allied security by producing the Rare Earth Magnets that are critical to economic and national security." – [vulcanelements.com](https://vulcanelements.com/)

## Products & Services
- **Rare Earth Permanent Magnets (Neodymium)**: High-performance sintered and bonded magnets used in motors, generators, sensors, and actuators. Application areas include defense systems, satellites, AI datacenters, semiconductor fabrication, consumer electronics, industrial motors, power tools, and non-drive train motors. – [vulcanelements.com](https://vulcanelements.com/)
- **R&D and Process Optimization**: Developing next-generation magnetic technologies and advanced manufacturing processes focused on efficiency, cost competitiveness, and supply chain transparency. – [vulcanelements.com](https://vulcanelements.com/)

## Market Standing
- **Valuation**: Not publicly disclosed.
- **Total Funding**: $690.2 million (as of November 2025) across three rounds:
  - Seed Round (Dec 2023): $5.2M – 3 investors.
  - Series A (Sep 2025): $65M – led by Washington Harbour Partners and Altimeter.
  - Debt Financing (Nov 2025): $620M – led by the Department of Defense’s Office of Strategic Capital (OSC). – [cbinsights.com](https://www.cbinsights.com/company/vulcan-elements) / [linkedin.com](https://www.linkedin.com/company/vulcan-elements)
- **Key Metric**: Total funding $690.2M; production output of 10 metric tons in 2025.
- **Notable Investors/Partners**: Department of Defense’s Office of Strategic Capital, Washington Harbour Partners, Altimeter.
- **Growth Signals**: 
  - Announced a $1.4 billion partnership with the United States government.
  - Selected Benson, North Carolina, for a 1.1 million sq ft facility – the largest magnet manufacturing plant outside China.
  - Employee headcount of 38 (+200% YoY) as of mid-2026.
  - Rapidly scaling pilot operations; 37 open job listings on Greenhouse. – [vulcanelements.com](https://vulcanelements.com/) / [linkedin.com](https://www.linkedin.com/company/vulcan-elements) / [greenhouse.io](http://job-boards.greenhouse.io/vulcanelements)

## Competitive Advantages
- **Domestic Supply Chain**: The only U.S. company vertically integrating rare earth magnet production, reducing reliance on Chinese supply.
- **Technical Expertise**: Co-founder Dr. Piotr Kulik is one of four rare earth magnet science professors in the U.S. and opened the first academic rare earth magnetics lab in the country in over 20 years.
- **Government Backing**: Strong ties to U.S. national security agencies and over a billion dollars in government-funded partnerships.
- **Process Innovation**: Proprietary process optimization methods aimed at cost competitiveness without sacrificing performance.
- **National Security Focus**: All operations require U.S. Person status, aligning with defense and aerospace customer needs.

## Strategic Focus
- **Scale Production**: Transition from pilot-scale (10 metric tons/year) to mass production at the Benson, NC facility to meet surging demand from defense, AI, and automotive sectors.
- **Supply Chain Resilience**: Partnering exclusively with U.S. and allied-country suppliers (UK, Australia, Japan).
- **R&D**: Developing next-generation magnetic materials and advanced manufacturing processes.
- **Talent Acquisition**: Actively hiring engineers, scientists, operations, and business development talent to support rapid growth. – [greenhouse.io](http://job-boards.greenhouse.io/vulcanelements)

## Why Work Here
- **Mission-Driven Culture**: Employees contribute directly to national security and economic resilience, with values of Mission Focus, Technical Excellence, and Transparency. – [vulcanelements.com](https://vulcanelements.com/careers/)
- **Benefits**: Competitive equity, unlimited PTO, 90% health insurance (100% for employee), 99% dental and vision, 401K, fully stocked kitchen. – [vulcanelements.com](https://vulcanelements.com/careers/)
- **Work Environment**: Fast-paced startup with a "startup manufacturer" ethos; roles are largely on-site in Research Triangle Park, NC or Benson, NC. Internship opportunities available with mentorship and real impact on critical projects.
- **Growth Opportunity**: Extremely high headcount growth (+200% YoY) and large-scale facility expansion offer rapid career advancement.
- **U.S. Person Requirement**: Many positions require U.S. Person status due to government contracts.

## Sources
1. [vulcanelements.com](https://vulcanelements.com/)
2. [vulcanelements.com/careers](https://vulcanelements.com/careers/)
3. [greenhouse.io (Vulcan Elements jobs)](http://job-boards.greenhouse.io/vulcanelements)
4. [linkedin.com/company/vulcan-elements](https://www.linkedin.com/company/vulcan-elements)
5. [cbinsights.com/company/vulcan-elements](https://www.cbinsights.com/company/vulcan-elements)

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