Mechanical Team Lead – Assembly & Commissioning
Department: Engineering / Manufacturing
Reports To: Managing Director
Direct Reports: Mechanical Fitters, Assembly Technicians, Commissioning Engineers and Apprentices
Location: Machinelab HQ + Customer Sites
Role Purpose
The Mechanical Team Lead – Assembly & Commissioning is a senior hands-on engineering role responsible for leading the mechanical build, assembly, debugging, installation and commissioning of Machinelab automation systems.
This is a practical, workshop and site-based position. The successful candidate will be expected to work directly on machines while also leading and organising the mechanical team.
The ideal person will come from a strong practical engineering background such as:
- Toolmaker
- Mechanical Fitter
- Machine Builder
- Maintenance / Commissioning Engineer
- Hands-on Mechanical Design Engineer with significant machine-building experience
The role requires someone who understands how high-quality special-purpose machinery should actually be built, aligned, adjusted, debugged and commissioned — not simply how it should look on a drawing.
The Mechanical Team Lead will take ownership of mechanical build quality and ensure machines leave Machinelab safe, reliable, professionally finished and production-ready.
Core AccountabilitiesMechanical Leadership
- Lead the Mechanical Assembly & Commissioning Team across Machinelab projects
- Work directly alongside the team during machine assembly, debugging and commissioning
- Take ownership of mechanical build quality and workmanship
- Provide practical technical direction during machine assembly
- Identify mechanical design, manufacture or assembly issues early
- Drive mechanical problems through to permanent resolution
- Act as the senior mechanical escalation point during machine build and commissioning
- Ensure machines are assembled correctly, accurately and to drawing
- Challenge designs that are difficult to manufacture, assemble, maintain or commission
- Feed practical lessons from the workshop and site back into Mechanical Design
Machine Assembly & Build
The Mechanical Team Lead will actively participate in:
- Mechanical assembly of special-purpose machinery
- Precision fitting and alignment
- Bearings, shafts, linear systems and drive assemblies
- Servo-driven mechanical systems
- Pneumatic systems
- Conveyor systems
- Filling, capping and packaging equipment
- Robotics and automated handling systems
- Stainless-steel machine construction
- Machine guarding and safety systems
- Change parts and tooling
- Mechanical modifications and rework
- Machine setup and optimisation
The role requires someone comfortable using hand tools, measuring equipment, machine tools and workshop equipment and who is willing to physically work on machines when required.
Mechanical Commissioning
- Lead mechanical commissioning of machines at Machinelab and customer sites
- Establish correct datum positions, alignment and mechanical setup
- Debug mechanical issues during initial machine startup
- Work closely with software and controls engineers during commissioning
- Diagnose mechanical causes of machine faults
- Optimise machine movements, tooling and product handling
- Eliminate jams, vibration, wear, misalignment and inconsistent operation
- Support cycle-time improvement and machine performance optimisation
- Ensure machines are mechanically stable before FAT
- Lead mechanical activities during FAT and SAT
- Support production ramp-up at customer sites
- Ensure mechanical issues identified during commissioning are permanently resolved rather than temporarily worked around
Project Delivery
- Ensure mechanical assembly activities remain aligned with project schedules
- Plan mechanical labour and assembly priorities
- Coordinate closely with Mechanical Design, Electrical Build, Software, Project Management and Manufacturing
- Review upcoming builds and ensure parts, drawings and materials are available
- Identify project risks early
- Escalate shortages, design issues or resource constraints affecting delivery
- Support efficient machine startup and minimise commissioning downtime
- Ensure punch-list items are properly closed before machine shipment
- Ensure machines are mechanically complete and ready before software commissioning
- Support installation, SAT and production handover at customer sites
Mechanical Design Support
The role is not primarily a CAD design position, but strong mechanical understanding is essential.
The Mechanical Team Lead will:
- Participate in design reviews
- Review designs from a buildability and maintainability perspective
- Identify assembly access problems before manufacture
- Recommend practical mechanical improvements
- Support tolerance, fit and material-selection decisions
- Review machine layouts and mechanisms
- Support standardisation of proven mechanical assemblies
- Feed lessons learned from assembly and commissioning back to the design team
- Where capable, undertake minor CAD modifications or practical design work when required
Team Leadership & Development
- Lead, mentor and develop the mechanical team
- Allocate daily work and priorities
- Maintain high standards of productivity and workmanship
- Develop apprentices and junior engineers
- Encourage personal ownership of build quality
- Promote structured fault finding rather than trial-and-error troubleshooting
- Maintain an organised and professional workshop
- Ensure tools and equipment are properly used and maintained
- Develop consistent mechanical assembly standards across the business
- Build a culture of precision, accountability and right-first-time assembly
Customer & Site Leadership
- Represent Machinelab professionally at customer facilities
- Lead mechanical installation and commissioning activities
- Coordinate mechanical contractors where required
- Work directly with customer engineering and maintenance teams
- Lead troubleshooting of critical mechanical issues
- Maintain calm and practical leadership during high-pressure commissioning periods
- Ensure work areas remain clean, organised and professional
- Protect customer confidence through strong technical delivery
Technical Competency
The successful candidate should demonstrate strong practical experience in several of the following:
- Special-purpose machine building
- Precision mechanical fitting
- Toolmaking
- Automated machinery
- Machine assembly
- Mechanical commissioning
- Servo and motion systems
- Pneumatic systems
- Bearings and linear systems
- Conveyors
- Robotics
- Filling and packaging equipment
- Product handling systems
- Stainless-steel machinery
- Mechanical fault finding
- Precision alignment and measurement
- Machine optimisation
- Cycle-time improvement
- Root cause analysis
- Reading mechanical drawings
- Understanding tolerances, fits and GD&T
- Practical machining and fabrication
- Machine installation
Experience within pharma, medical device, diagnostics, food, filling, packaging, robotics or special-purpose automation would be highly desirable.
Quality & Standards
- Maintain a zero-defect mindset across mechanical assembly
- Drive right-first-time machine build
- Reduce mechanical rework during commissioning
- Ensure machines are mechanically safe, stable and maintainable
- Maintain high standards of fit and finish
- Ensure guards, covers, cables, pneumatics and mechanical assemblies are professionally finished
- Ensure machines are properly cleaned and prepared before FAT
- Maintain inspection-ready workshop standards
- Ensure modifications are properly documented and communicated to Design
- Prevent undocumented workshop modifications becoming permanent machine solutions
Health, Safety & Environmental Responsibility
- Lead by example regarding safe workshop and commissioning practices
- Ensure machinery is assembled and commissioned safely
- Follow risk assessments and safe systems of work
- Apply LOTO procedures where required
- Ensure appropriate guarding and machine-safety principles are followed
- Stop unsafe mechanical or commissioning activities
- Ensure correct PPE is used
- Maintain safe customer-site conduct
- Promote good housekeeping and workshop organisation
Commercial Awareness
- Understand the commercial impact of delays, rework and commissioning downtime
- Minimise unnecessary assembly hours and rework
- Identify recurring mechanical issues and drive permanent improvements
- Balance engineering quality with practical project delivery
- Identify opportunities for component and assembly standardisation
- Reduce avoidable manufacturing and assembly costs
- Protect project margin through efficient machine build and commissioning
Brand Ambassador & Culture Expectations
The Mechanical Team Lead is expected to represent Machinelab's engineering standards at all times.
This includes:
- Leading from the front
- Taking ownership of problems
- Maintaining high workmanship standards
- Doing the job properly rather than accepting temporary fixes
- Respecting customer commitments
- Respecting tools, machines and facilities
- Maintaining calm under pressure
- Supporting other engineering disciplines
- Developing junior team members
- Driving a culture of precision and reliability
Communication & Reporting
- Provide clear project updates to the Managing Director and Project Management
- Escalate mechanical, schedule and resource issues early
- Communicate design issues clearly to Mechanical Design
- Coordinate effectively with Software, Electrical and Project teams
- Maintain clear commissioning punch lists
- Ensure mechanical changes and improvements are documented
- Participate in lessons-learned reviews following major projects
Key Performance Indicators
- Mechanical build delivered to project schedule
- Mechanical readiness for commissioning
- Reduction in assembly rework
- Reduction in mechanical commissioning downtime
- FAT success rate
- SAT success rate
- Machine reliability following installation
- Mechanical punch-list closure
- Build quality and workmanship
- Customer feedback
- Workshop organisation and safety
- Team productivity and development
- Reduction in recurring mechanical issues
Decision-Making Authority
The Mechanical Team Lead has authority to:
- Direct mechanical assembly activities
- Prioritise mechanical team resources
- Stop poor-quality or unsafe work
- Escalate design deficiencies
- Require mechanical issues to be corrected before FAT
- Recommend mechanical design improvements
- Recommend tooling and workshop equipment investment
- Recommend recruitment and training requirements
- Define practical mechanical assembly standards
Major commercial, contractual or strategic decisions remain with the Managing Director.
Success in the Role Looks Like
- Machines are mechanically complete before commissioning begins
- Mechanical build quality is consistently high
- Machines start up with fewer mechanical problems
- FAT and SAT activities run smoothly
- Mechanical commissioning time is reduced
- Problems are permanently fixed rather than repeatedly worked around
- Design becomes progressively easier to manufacture, assemble and maintain
- The mechanical team works with discipline and accountability
- Customer-site installations are professional and organised
- Engineers take pride in the quality of finished machines
- Machinelab develops a reputation for exceptional machine build quality and practical engineering
- The Managing Director has a trusted senior mechanical person capable of taking ownership of machine build, assembly and commissioning
Ideal Candidate Profile
The strongest candidate is likely to be an experienced toolmaker, mechanical fitter, machine builder or highly practical mechanical engineer who has spent significant time physically building and commissioning automated machinery.
Formal qualifications are valuable, but practical capability, engineering judgement and machine-building experience are more important.
This position would particularly suit someone who can look at a machine, understand how it is supposed to work, identify why it is not working correctly and then physically lead the team in putting it right.
This is fundamentally a hands-on engineering leadership role — not an office-based management position.
Pay: €50,000.00-€60,000.00 per year
Work Location: In person
