Location: Sagana, Kenya
Founded in 2006, One Acre Fund equips 5.5 million smallholder farmers to make their farms more productive. Across nine countries that together are home to two-thirds of Africa's farmers, we provide high-quality farm supplies, tree seedlings, accessible credit, modern agronomic training, and a wide range of other agricultural services. On average, this model enables any farmer to increase their income and assets on supported land by more than 35 percent, while permanently improving their resilience. This is all made possible by our team of 9,000+ full-time staff. Our Kenya program, founded in 2006, operates under the local brand Tupande, with close to 500 staff in Kakamega headquarters supporting 1,747 field staff serving more than 1 million farmers.
About the Role: Seeking an exceptional Engineering Lead to lead factory machinery and equipment maintenance. The lead will establish engineering maintenance excellence across the Tupande Soko factories and reduce operational downtime for our processing operations.
Responsibilities: Build and own the maintenance management system — implement a CMMS across all three factories within 90-120 days of joining, owning the equipment hierarchy, PM job plans and work order lifecycle; design and standardize preventive maintenance schedules for all critical equipment, targeting an 80:20 planned-to-unplanned maintenance ratio within 12 months; own the cross-factory spare parts strategy; establish RCA processes for major failures; troubleshoot complex equipment failures directly; mentor the maintenance team. Drive management visibility through reporting and KPIs — design, maintain and present the Tupande Soko maintenance KPI scorecard to the Soko Director monthly; produce weekly factory-level maintenance reports; maintain a cross-factory equipment risk register; attend monthly Soko leadership meetings. Professionalize the maintenance workforce — lead the transition from operator-led to technician-led maintenance, defining job families, competency frameworks and career pathways; partner with HR to recruit dedicated Maintenance Technicians; deliver TPM autonomous maintenance training for machine operators; coach and assess technicians. Internal and external coordination — oversee maintenance vendor relationships and service contracts with Procurement; define scoping requirements and SLAs with Corporate Operations. Ensure safety and food safety compliance — comply with permit to work, LOTO, confined space and Kenyan regulatory requirements (KEBS, DOSH, NEMA); maintain HACCP-required equipment records; champion a zero-harm safety culture.
Qualifications: Degree in an appropriate engineering field; active registration as an engineer in Kenya; preventive/predictive maintenance programme design and implementation; experience with avocado oil machinery repairs preferred, and with industrial dehydrators, macadamia processing and industrial-level biochar production preferred; CMMS operation and administration; mechanical and/or electrical fault-finding and root cause analysis on industrial plant equipment; KPI dashboard development; spare parts inventory management. Required knowledge: food safety management systems and HACCP as applied to plant maintenance; Kenyan occupational health and safety legislation (OSHA, DOSH); TPM or World Class Manufacturing principles; Kenyan regulatory environment for food manufacturing (KEBS).
Career Level: Professionals. Preferred start date: as soon as possible. Contract duration: 2 years. Benefits: health insurance, housing, and comprehensive benefits.
Closing date: 17 November 2026
HOW TO APPLY:
Apply online via the One Acre Fund vacancy page: https://oneacrefund.org/vacancies/tupande-engineering-maintenance-lead-fixed-term. Applications are reviewed on a rolling basis until a hire is made; deadline 17 November 2026. One Acre Fund never asks candidates to pay any money or pay for tests at any stage of the interview process; official emails always arrive from an @oneacrefund.org address. This role is only open to citizens or permanent residents of Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Burundi, Malawi, Zambia, Ethiopia, Democratic Republic of Congo, Nigeria and Rwanda.