Director of Customer ServiceRheo Engineering

Compensation: $150,000 – $180,000

Reports To: Chief Commercial Officer

A system doesn't stop mattering the day it ships — for the pharmaceutical manufacturers who run Rheo's equipment, the relationship is just getting started. If leading the team that turns every sale into a lasting partnership sounds like your kind of ownership, keep reading.

Rheo Engineering designs and builds advanced powder handling equipment for the pharmaceutical industry — equipment used in the direct manufacture of life-saving medicine.

As Director of Customer Service, you'll grow Rheo's established Customer Care function into a full Service business unit — field service, spare parts, service agreements, and training.

What You’ll Do

Supervisory

• Scale the Service organization — field service technicians, service coordination, and spare-parts and documentation expertise — to grow effectively with the installed base

• Build a GMP-fluent field service team for on-site installation, commissioning, maintenance, and rapid response

• Recruit, develop, and retain a team that treats customer outcomes as the scorecard, fostering a culture of ownership, responsiveness, and follow-through

Non-Supervisory

• Deliver a smooth installation, commissioning, and startup, with a clear point of contact from day one

• Own every service case from open to close, with clear ownership, committed timelines, and proactive communication

• Resolve complaints and warranties with urgency, transparency, and fairness

• Champion the voice of the customer inside Rheo — feeding field experience back to Engineering, Quality, and Product Management to make every next system better

• Manage and scale Rheo's annual service-agreement offering — preventive maintenance, priority response, and support tiers

• Manage a warm, repeatable system-turnover process with the project organization

• Maintain a complete view of the installed base so Rheo reaches out to customers proactively — anticipating maintenance needs, parts requirements, and end-of-life planning

• Lead and scale the spare-parts capability — stocking strategy, service kits, and deep technical parts expertise

• Own as-built and service documentation quality

• Lead and maintain the training program that certifies Rheo technicians on Rheo and OEM partner equipment, and offers customers operator, maintenance, and train-the-trainer programs

• Make customers confident, self-sufficient operators — reducing downtime and deepening the partnership

• Own the business unit's plan and performance, growing at a sustainable pace aligned with demand

• Set fair, sustainable pricing for labor, parts, and agreements

• Lead the custom-modification and small custom-product offering — field mods, upgrades, and adapters

• Coordinate field scheduling, installation handoffs, and parts flow with Operations, and report Service performance to senior leadership on a regular cadence

What Success Looks Like

• Customers name Rheo's service as a reason they buy again — responsive, transparent, and committed for the life of the system

• Every service commitment is kept — named owners, committed dates, proactive updates, nothing goes quiet

• A growing share of the installed base is under a service agreement, with customers choosing proactive care because the offering earns it

• A GMP-fluent field service team supports installation, commissioning, and maintenance, scaling with the installed base, with system turnover flowing seamlessly into a supported relationship

• The service business is healthy and growing, with field insight feeding better products and documentation

What We’re Looking For

Experience

• Bachelor's degree required; engineering, business, or a technical discipline preferred, or equivalent experience

• Leadership experience in an aftermarket, field service, or customer support organization serving installed capital equipment, with accountability for the performance of the service business

• Hands-on experience running field-service operations — technicians, scheduling and dispatch, work-order management, and service-level performance

• Demonstrated success building or growing a service-agreement, maintenance-contract, or similar recurring service offering

• Track record of building and developing teams through a period of growth

Software

• Proficiency in Microsoft Office programs (Word, Excel, Teams, PowerPoint, Outlook)

• Comfort with service-management, CRM, and reporting/dashboard tools to manage performance

Traits

• Customer-First Orientation — treats customer outcomes as the scorecard and builds an organization around transparency and responsiveness

• Commercial & Financial Fluency — translates a service strategy into a sustainable business plan

• Excellent Communicator — collaborates effectively across Sales, Operations, Engineering, Quality, and project teams

• Comfort with Scaling — builds structure and discipline while keeping customers served every day

Values Alignment

• Initiative: instinct for taking action to improve, solve, and deliver.

• Collaboration: proactive communication with your stakeholders.

• Competence: ability to do your job well.

• Reliability: persistent follow-through on commitments.

• Bold Humility: courage to speak, act, and listen without arrogance.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience serving pharmaceutical, life-sciences, or other regulated (GMP) manufacturers with capital equipment or single-use/disposables products

• Experience standing up or significantly expanding a service organization or service line

• Familiarity with powder handling, containment, single-use systems, or adjacent process equipment

• Experience delivering customer training programs for technical equipment

Why Rheo

• Privately owned and operated for 30+ years and counting

• Excellent benefits – see section below

• Smaller team (~100 team members) with a strong, in-person work culture

• Real ownership — grow an established Customer Care function into a full-scale Service business unit, with accountability for its health as a business

• Direct customer impact — build the long-term relationships that keep pharmaceutical manufacturers running on Rheo equipment for the life of their systems

• Vertically integrated — see what your team services get engineered and built in the same building

• A growing company in a stable, regulated industry where trust and follow-through matter

Benefits

• Leading medical insurance — consistently low rates compared to other businesses in the area

• Health Savings Account with employer contributions (plan-dependent)

• Dental, vision, and life insurance

• Short-term and long-term disability

• Identity theft insurance

• 401(k) with 4% employer match

• Generous PTO

• Paid paternity and maternity leave

• Paid cell phone plan with stipend for a new phone every 2 years

• Employee referral program

This is an office-based role in Peoria, Illinois, with regular time alongside the service and production teams. Expect prolonged periods sitting or standing at a desk and working on a computer, along with the mobility to move about manufacturing and customer production floors, including exposure to manufacturing, cleanroom (GMP), and customer plant environments and compliance with gowning, PPE, and site-specific safety requirements. Travel is up to approximately 15% for installations, commissioning, service visits, and key-account relationships, and requires a valid driver's license and passport. This role keeps standard business hours with flexibility to support customer needs, field activity, and peak workload periods, including occasional after-hours or on-call availability for urgent customer service issues.

Rheo Engineering is an equal opportunity employer.