If you've been the most reliable person in every place you've worked and nobody ever built anything around you then this post is for you.
We're a 35-year-old family owned manufacturing shop in Addison.
We make the parts that spot-welding robots in car plants run on: electrodes, adapters, gun arms, bus bars.
Real parts, real customers, real deadlines. 2 generations, a small crew, one building.
This post is for a specific kind of person, so I'm going to be direct about who.
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WHO THIS IS FOR
You're organized.
Not "I can be organized when I have to."
You already are, and it bothers you when things around you aren't.
You've never had the title, but you've been the one holding things together. The shift ran smoother because you were on it. The manager leaned on you but never promoted you.
Maybe you didn't finish school. Maybe there's a gap on your resume. Maybe LinkedIn feels like it was built for somebody else. None of that matters here. What matters is whether you show up, figure things out, and get things done when nobody is standing over you telling you what to do next.
You're comfortable with computers, and you actually use AI tools (ChatGPT, Claude, whatever you like) to get things done faster; as a habit, not a party trick or a fad, but a took.
You want a place that will teach you a trade you can build a career on, and you're willing to earn it.
You want a place were you'll learn more than just one thing from one category of life.
We are a foundation and I am looking for a teammate to fit my ambitions and grow with.
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WHAT THE JOB ACTUALLY IS
The title is Operations Coordinator.
Here's what that means in a machine shop, because it isn't a corporate desk job, yet:
- Customer orders come in by email, through customer portals, sometimes as a photo of a purchase order. Sometimes its a photo of a napkin or a verbal handshake over the phone. You record them, get them into our system the same day, confirm them, and make sure nothing falls through the cracks.
- I create an airtable database so you know what's on the shop floor and what's due. You'll walk the floor. You'll communicate with machinists. You'll learn what a gun arm is and why a customer needs it by Friday. You'll learn about tooling, like why High Speed Steel (HSS) isnt the best option to cut into copper when we have solid carbide end mills. This is knowledge you can build a career on.
- When a customer asks "where's my order," you know, or you find out fast. You know when its the right time to include me and when it's ok to just do the appropriate thing.
- Packing slips, shipping labels, tracking numbers, invoices. Boring, essential, has to be right every time. Filling them away now, but as I finish the digital system you will be able to transition easily.
- Phones, email, filing, vendor paperwork: the general admin of a small business. You will be talking with utilities and such, and it is important to due diligence when it is needed and negotiate what its right for you/us.
- You help build the systems. We run on Airtable and AI tools, and we're rebuilding how this shop operates. You'll have a hand in that from day one. We are beginning to build applications, publish metals pricing on blockchain, and data analytics. You'll have a hand in building the systems along side me from the beginning, and on through until we are able to delegate.
Some days it's all paperwork. Some days it's helping figure out where a bar of copper went between the saw and the lathe. Some days we can't tell the difference between stainless steel bars and D2 steel bars because the paperwork got lost and its up to us to figure it out. It's a shop. There's noise, there's oil, there are chips on the floor. I've found that the true titles of our positions is "Problem Solver" because that's pretty much what we do every day.
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THE HONEST PART
This is a family business a father and two sons with 35 years of history and 35 years of habits.
Since COVID it's been run in survival mode.
I decided to change that and start growing again, and you'd be the first hire made with that plan in mind. So I am looking for the person that is ready, able, and more than willing.
Here's what that means for you: you will not get a detailed plan handed to you every morning. I'm the one you report to (I'm the son who runs operations), and I'm building the systems as fast as I can, but I'm also doing ten other things.
The person who wins here keeps their own list, notices what needs doing, and when two things don't line up, asks instead of guessing. They circle back when things get ignored. They got my back.
If you need someone to structure your day for you, this will frustrate you.
If you've always wished someone would just let you run with it, then this is that.
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THE MONEY, STRAIGHT
- $1,000 a week to start. That's $52,000 a year.
- No health insurance. I'm not going to dress that up. We're not there yet. When my father started in the late 80s and 90s it was a different world. I am the new generation, growing up working on the shop floor gave me a different perspective on how to compensate workers for their time and skill. I want to be offering these benefits sooner than later.
- Because we don't offer benefits, and because we currently run like its 1991, we do offer paid time off. Starting your second year you will receive 1 week of paid time off, per year and an additional week every year after until you've maxed out at 4 weeks paid vacation in your 5th year. I want to improve on this and make it more modern.
- Annual raise, reviewed against milestones we set for you and targets we set for the company.
- Bonus when the company hits its targets. When we grow, you grow. Even if we don't hit our targets (which only happened 2x and they were COVID years) we would pay a bonus out of pocket.
- Full-time, Monday–Friday, on-site in Addison, first shift, you can start at 5am, 6am, or 7am. Then you would end your day 1:30pm, 2:30pm, 3:30pm respectively. Weekend work is only for emergency orders or machine installations, they do not happen often. Overtime is available. If I hit my personal goals we will be able to do this remotely eventually.
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WHAT YOU GET THAT ISN'T MONEY
You'll learn quoting and pricing. Purchasing. Production scheduling. Customer account management.
How to run a company's systems.
You will learn manufacturing basics, measurements, operations, you will be able to talk in the language of manufacturing and engineering with confidence.
What you get when you work with a family business is the intangible benefits of being able to work in an environment that isn't constantly measured and regulated.
Every one of those is a career on its own in manufacturing, and most people never get taught them because they're kept in one lane.
I'll teach you all of it. Where you take it is up to you.
When you work for a family business you're own family gets to see you at home more.
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HOW TO APPLY
Reply to this post with:
1. A resume if you have one. If you don't, a few paragraphs about your work history is fine, but please include some things about you and your life that makes you right for this job.
2. An answer to this: tell me about a time you fixed something at work that wasn't your job to fix.
Be specific about what was broken, what you did, what happened.
3. Confirmation that you can get to Addison Monday through Friday.
If you skip #2, I'll assume you're mass-applying and move on. That's the first test. If you haven't had the opportunity to do anything like that then answer this: Why are you applying for a job in manufacturing? Be specific. There are no wrong answers. Just please don't leave it blank.
If you make it to an interview, part of it will be hands-on real orders, our actual system, see how you handle it.
No trick questions.
We'll talk to as many people as it takes to find the right one.
Principals only. Recruiters, please don't contact this job poster.