Brewery Supervisor

About this job

The Supervisor of our Brewery will be a key member of Blue Bottle’s brewing operations and will be responsible for ensuring the brewing process runs smoothly and efficiently for each brewing cycle. You will assist in managing the day-to-day operations of the Berkeley, CA Brewery, helping maintain the facility and ensure quality standards are met from brewed coffee, to finished packaged products. 

You will be responsible for continuously improving our Gilman Brewery operations including production metrics and planning, inventory management, team development and training, quality assurance, and logistics. Leading our brewery team, you will work closely with many of our regional teams, and continue to raise the bar in production excellence and efficiency.

In the near term, you will be responsible for setting aspirational safety, quality, efficiency and personnel goals with the production department’s leadership team. Medium term focuses include remapping our brewery systems to better accommodate sustained growth in the Northern California market, and solving process logistics for expected regional growth. 

Your long term goal is to continue to develop our team members to enable Blue Bottle’s continued growth and purpose, and build a world class packaging facility.

You will:

• Oversee all brewery related activities at the Berkeley brewery. Leading a talented and dedicated production team, your systemic improvements will ease the workload of your team and bring clarity to increasingly complex scenarios.
• Continue to develop production strategies, processes, and systems that will scale easily as we continue to grow, driving down cost while maintaining the highest overall quality standards.
• Work with many of our regional teams including Supply Chain, Retail, Finance, CPG, and Information Technology to continually build and maintain strong partnership between the departments and support the continued success of all of our teams.
• Build cross functional redundancies within the brewery team to ensure expertise is always available at the brewery, and that will allow your team members the ability to move into other Blue Bottle opportunities as they become available.
• Create production plans, engaging with cross-company stakeholders in order to ensure that our brewery output levels match our customer demand.
• Calculate labor needs and hire, schedule, train, manage, and individually develop an incredible team dedicated to production excellence.
• Create SOPs (standard operating procedures) and best practices for achieving consistency in all of our production processes.
• Monitor and maintain inventory levels of production materials. Updating inventory low-level reorder points, and re-order quantities for production items as necessary. 
• Measure production performance and develop metrics to identify Key Performance Indicators and help devise a strategy towards continuous improvement.
• Define and oversee our brewing and packaging equipment calibration and maintenance schedules, ensuring our equipment is always in top performance to meet our production output needs.
• Manage all warehousing and shipping and receiving for the brewery, arranging shipments and deliveries by communicating with trucking companies and suppliers. 
• Ensure the necessary safety processes are defined and maintained, and that state labor regulations are strictly adhered to so your team is safe in their workplace, well rested throughout their workday, and prepared for fire, flood, earthquake, power outage, ect...
• Define and sustain production processes and quality standards, equipping your team with continuously improving tools and support to ensure our products and shipments are always accurate, delivered on time, and of the highest production quality.
• Work with our Food Safety team to ensure that all Good Manufacturing Practices and food safety rules and regulations are clearly defined and sustained throughout our packaging process.
• Advocate for the craft of brewing and packaging through observation, instruction and committed study.

You are:

• An experienced leader of people who empowers and trusts your team, delegates responsibility and finds teaching moments to continuously grow and improve your team’s skills.
• Empathetic and hospitable, always eager to listen, understand, learn and field questions for your team and coworkers. You are a quick reader of people and situations, who is able to accurately troubleshoot issues, gauge the capabilities of your team and deploy the right people to the right problem.
• An excellent communicator (clear, articulate, and hospitable) who is the nexus from which production, retail, e-commerce, quality, and logistics teams are able to gain valuable insight and confidence related to all collaborations between departments. You are a collaborator at your core, and a team player who is flexible to changes as our production demands shift.
• A strategic thinker who is never fully satisfied with the status quo and always looking for ways to improve your team’s efforts, but who is also is excited to roll up your sleeves and lead with integrity when required.
• Detail-oriented and a maniacal creator of lists, schedules, process diagrams, etc. yet flexible and ‘can do’ when the inevitable surprise pops up that requires urgency and creativity to resolve
• Always ahead of schedule: You anticipate problems beforehand and take preventive measures, actively communicate and ask for assistance, in order to resolve potential problems before they become an actual issue for our teams, team members, or guests.
• Highly observant of data and metrics and intent on using both to develop new ideas and opportunities for process improvement.

You have:

• 2+ years leading people in complex, production, or related environments.
• General mechanical knowledge and confidence with brewing systems, equipment, and software.
• Understanding of the many facets of production quality assurance.
• Broad knowledge of a range of leadership strategies and production processes.
• Previous experience in large-scale coffee production and/or cold brewing, preferred
• Zero tolerance for inhospitable behaviors and ardor toward providing feedback and working toward a resolution with any team members needing a course correction.
• Clear, articulate and hospitable communication skills.
• Comfort using online tools including Microsoft Suite and Google Suite.
• Last but not least, a deep love for great coffee, food, and exceptional customer experiences.

Physical Requirements:

• This role is a physical one and the physical demands outlined below are representative of those that must be met for a team member to be successful in the role. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions of the job which we’ve mapped out below. 
• You have: 
• The ability to stand, walk, sit for long periods of time (at least 8 hours per day and 5 days per week) 
• The use of hands to handle or feel and the ability to reach with hands and arm  
• The ability to stoop, kneel, or crouch 
•  The ability to squat, bend, twist and reach for items below waist level or above shoulders 
• The ability to lift, push/pull, carry and/or move up to 50 pounds 
• The ability to listen and speak 
• The ability to climb ladders, stairs, ramps and uneven floor and/or surfaces as needed 
• The ability to have close visual acuity to perform repetitive visual checking, counting, spotting small defects, determine accuracy of numbers and package 

A few benefits we offer:

• This position has a minimum salary of $65,000. This salary is a good faith estimate for this position. The final salary offer will be determined after reviewing relevant factors, which include a candidate's qualifications and experience, where appropriate. 
• Health, dental, and vision coverage for eligible employees starting on your first day
• 401(k) plan
• Paid time off
• Free drinks at any of our cafes 
• Discounts on any Blue Bottle food items and merchandise

At Blue Bottle Coffee, you’ll be a vital part of our guests’ experience and a crucial link in delivering the most delicious coffee we can find to every person who walks through our doors, be it in person or online. If you’re ready to bring beautiful and thoughtfully rendered experiences to life, please apply and join us.

Blue Bottle is an Equal Opportunity Employer. We value an open mind, dedication to work, and a collaborative spirit. We hire based on these qualities, a job’s requirements, our business’s needs, and an applicant’s qualifications. We do not tolerate discrimination or harassment of any kind—in the hiring process or in the workplace.

We comply with the ADA and consider reasonable accommodation measures that may be necessary for eligible applicants/employees to perform essential functions.

We may refuse to hire relatives of present employees if doing so could result in actual or potential problems in supervision, security, safety, or morale, or if doing so could create conflicts of interest.

We will consider for employment qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records.

We participate in E-Verify. We will provide the federal government with employees’ Form I-9 information to confirm authorization to work in the U.S. We will only use E-Verify once an employee has accepted a job offer and completed the Form I-9.

Blue Bottle requires that all of its team members are fully vaccinated (i.e., at least 14 days after the final dose of a Covid-19 vaccine) by the start of their first day of work, unless they qualify for an accommodation/exemption for medical, disability, or religious reasons.