Maintenance Manager

About the role

Victory Farms is hiring a Maintenance Manager in Westlands, Nairobi. The role leads a multi-trade maintenance department, turning reactive repairs into a planned operation, managing the maintenance budget and overseeing asset management, safety and reporting.

Key responsibilities

• Maintenance strategy and reliability: set asset criticality, balance scheduled, condition-based and corrective work, develop the department from reactive repair to planned maintenance, analyse recurring failures and set reliability targets by asset class.
• Planning and work management: run a rolling preventive maintenance programme driven by running hours, operate a single work-order system from request to close-out, batch work by area, trade and shutdown window, and reserve capacity for breakdown response.
• Asset management and lifecycle: build and maintain a complete asset register in ERPNext with cost, history and downtime, weigh repair against replacement, work with Finance on depreciation and disposal, and prepare hire-versus-purchase analyses.
• Budget, cost and procurement: own and control the maintenance budget across labour, spares, consumables, contractors and capital, manage total cost of ownership, assess OEM value and set spares and critical-stock policy.
• Leadership: establish a clear departmental structure with named supervisors and accountable leads, delegate authority, communicate with production and support, assign ownership of assets and incidents, formalise shared resources with Construction, recruit, train and review staff.
• Facilities, safety and reporting: equip trade workshops and stores, own safety including permit-to-work, isolation and lock-out, maintain statutory inspections for lifting equipment and pressure systems, and report monthly on availability, downtime, schedule completion, repair time, MTBF and cost.

Required profile

• Degree (or equivalent) in engineering from a recognised university, recognised by Kenyan certifications and mandatory regulations.
• Advantageous: registration with the Engineers Board of Kenya as a Professional or Graduate Engineer, maintenance/reliability certification (CMRP, RCM, TPM), project management certification, a recognised safety qualification, or a master's degree in engineering or engineering management.
• Minimum 8 years post-qualification in engineering and maintenance in industrial, agro-industrial or estate operations, including at least 4 years leading a multi-trade department of 20 or more staff.
• Experience with continuous-running sites, dispersed assets requiring spares planning, preventive maintenance programmes and direct accountability for a maintenance budget.
• Kenyan operating experience, or proven ability to work within Kenyan regulatory, labour and supply conditions.

Required skills

• Engineering knowledge: power generation and electrical distribution, pumping and water systems, refrigeration and cold chain, mechanical plant and fleet, welding and fabrication, and marine assets.
• ERP: ERPNext or a comparable ERP or CMMS, with asset master data, work orders, requisitions, stock and maintenance history.
• Projects: planning and resourcing multi-stage work, installations and upgrades, coordinating with Construction and external contractors.
• Measurement: deriving availability, repair time, failure intervals and cost per asset from primary data.
• Budgeting: lifecycle costing, depreciation and payback, and making capital cases in financial terms.