About Vale
Vale is a design-led company building the future of autonomous retail. We blend automation, robotics, and premium food & beverage to create beautifully crafted matcha experiences through fully automated kiosks and mobile carts.
Our mission is simple: Make Magic. **
We combine technology and hospitality to create experiences that feel effortless, intuitive, and memorable. We operate a café in Seattle's South Lake Union and are expanding our event-based Matcha Bar business across the region. **
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The Role
The Quality Technician / FSQA Analyst will support the development, implementation, and maintenance of Vale's Food Safety and Quality Assurance program. This role will be responsible for conducting pre-operational inspections, environmental monitoring, documentation review, product quality checks, and assisting with the creation of policies, procedures, SOPs, and food safety programs.
This is a hands-on role ideal for someone who is comfortable working both in quality assurance and on the production floor. The right candidate will be detail-oriented, proactive, collaborative, and willing to support production activities as needed while helping strengthen Vale's food safety culture.
Key Responsibilities
Food Safety & Quality Assurance
- Perform pre-operational inspections to verify equipment, utensils, production areas, and sanitation conditions are acceptable prior to production.
- Conduct routine in-process and finished product quality checks according to established specifications.
- Support environmental monitoring activities, including swabbing, sampling, documentation, and follow-up on results.
- Assist in allergen control verification, sanitation checks, GMP inspections, and facility hygiene audits.
- Monitor compliance with food safety, quality, sanitation, and regulatory requirements.
- Document non-conformances and assist with corrective and preventive actions.
- Support investigations related to quality issues, foreign material concerns, customer complaints, or food safety deviations.
- Maintain accurate and organized quality and food safety records.
FSQA Program Development
- Help develop, write, review, and maintain food safety and quality policies, procedures, SOPs, work instructions, forms, and logs.
- Assist with building and maintaining programs related to GMPs, sanitation, allergen control, supplier approval, traceability, recall, pest control, environmental monitoring, preventive controls, and HACCP-based systems.
- Support preparation for third-party audits, regulatory inspections, customer audits, and certification programs.
- Assist with SQF program development and implementation, as applicable.
- Help identify gaps in existing procedures and recommend improvements.
- Support employee training on GMPs, sanitation, allergen control, food safety procedures, and quality standards.
Production Support
- Assist with production activities as needed, including staging, packaging, labeling, cleaning, and general production support.
- Work closely with production team members to ensure food safety and quality expectations are met during daily operations.
- Promote a strong food safety culture across the facility.
- Communicate effectively with operations, sanitation, maintenance, and leadership teams.
Required Qualifications
- Minimum of 2 years of experience in a food manufacturing, food processing, or food production environment.
- Experience with GMPs, sanitation, allergen control, and food safety documentation.
- Strong attention to detail and ability to follow written procedures.
- Ability to accurately complete records, forms, logs, and reports.
- Comfortable working in a production environment and supporting hands-on operational tasks.
- Strong communication, organization, and problem-solving skills.
- Ability to work independently and collaboratively with cross-functional teams.
- Ability to lift 50lbs.
Preferred Qualifications
- Bachelor's degree in Food Science, Microbiology, Biology, Chemistry, or a related field.
- PCQI certification.
- HACCP training or certification.
- SQF Practitioner certification or experience supporting SQF programs.
- Experience working in a facility that handles allergens.
- Experience with environmental monitoring programs.
- Experience writing or developing SOPs, policies, procedures, and food safety documentation.
- Experience with third-party audits, regulatory inspections, or food safety certification programs.
Relocation support may be available to candidates outside of Seattle.