| Location | Gainesville, GA |
This job is posted on behalf of Vitruvian Consulting, Inc. by Top Echelon.
Hourly Lead — Welding (2nd Shift)
Gainesville, Georgia area | 2nd Shift — 4×10, Monday–Thursday, 3:30 p.m. to 1:30 a.m.
Full-time · Hourly · Direct hire | Reports to the 2nd Shift Manager | Leads a crew of approximately six TIG Welders
Lead the second-shift welding crew — TIG work on stainless food-contact equipment, where weld quality is a food-safety requirement rather than a cosmetic one.
The hiring company builds stainless steel processing equipment used in food production — machines that run through daily washdown and have to hold up to food-safety audit. A second shift is being stood up from scratch, and these lead roles are among the first seats being filled.
Why this shift
• A three-day weekend, every week. Four ten-hour days, Monday through Thursday, and you are off Friday.
• You are building a crew rather than inheriting one. The shift starts with these leads, and the people who follow are hired around them.
• Overtime is expected to be minimal. The schedule is the schedule.
• Second shift runs against the traffic in both directions, which makes a longer commute far more workable than it looks on a map.
What you will be doing
• Work alongside the crew. This is a working lead role — expect to be welding for a good share of the shift.
• Set and hold the weld quality standard for the shift: fit-up, fusion, distortion control and finish, judged against what the part actually has to pass.
• Coach the welders on your crew, including strong fabricators who are new to sanitary stainless work.
• Keep stainless tooling dedicated and contamination controlled. On food equipment that is a warranty and audit issue, not a preference.
• Run the floor for your area: assign work against the schedule, keep people moving, and flag anything that will not make its date early enough for it to matter.
• Set the safety standard by how you work, not by what you say. Second shift runs with limited salaried presence on site, so what you accept becomes the standard.
• Train and coach your crew. Most of them will be newer to the operation than you are.
• Own in-process quality for your area: check work against the print before it moves, and stop and escalate non-conforming work rather than passing it down the line.
• Keep the paperwork straight — job travelers, counts, and whatever else gets recorded against the work.
• Hand off cleanly to first shift: what ran, what is staged, what broke, and what is waiting on someone.
What we are looking for
• Three to five years in a lead or supervisory role. Close counts. If you have been the person others come to when something goes wrong, say so.
• Industry matters less than the leading does. A manufacturing background is a plus, not a requirement.
• A stable work history. How long you stayed matters more here than how many places you have been.
• Comfortable with a tape measure and calipers, and able to read a print and work to it.
• Genuinely safety-minded, and willing to be the person who speaks up.
• Able to sustain the schedule and the commute. This is a night shift, four days a week, and it has to still work for you in month three.
• Strong hands-on TIG experience, with the judgment to tell good work from work that will not pass.
• Experience welding stainless — 304 and 316 — and managing thin material without warping or burning through.
• Familiarity with sanitary or food-grade weld requirements, surface finish expectations, and back-purging.
• Able to teach technique, not only perform it.
Selected candidates complete a Caliper assessment, consistent with how the company hires all leads and supervisors. Background screening and a five-panel drug screen are completed before start. The hiring company is an equal opportunity employer.