Car Wash Maintenance Technician (Technical Area Manager) in Charlotte, North Carolina at Royal Rinse Car Wash

Keep 26 car washes running across the Carolinas and Virginia. Company truck, modern tools, a professional maintenance program, and a team that covers for each other.

POSITION DETAILS

Title: Car Wash Maintenance Technician (Technical Area Manager)
Location: Greater Charlotte, NC (also hiring: Greensboro / Winston-Salem, NC; Raleigh / Durham, NC; Charleston, SC)
Job type: Full-time
Pay: Based on experience
Travel: Home market plus portfolio coverage across NC, SC, and VA
Reports to: Vice President of Operations

WHY TECHNICIANS CHOOSE ROYAL RINSE

- You work on equipment we own, at sites you'll see again next month. Good work compounds here instead of disappearing into someone else's invoice.
- We run maintenance the way an industrial plant does: asset-level preventive schedules in MaintainX, written SOPs, lockout/tagout as standard, required safety training before you touch a task, OEM training, and uptime that gets tracked and reviewed.
- We own our equipment and our buildings, and we're adding locations. The job gets bigger over time, not smaller.

ABOUT ROYAL RINSE

Royal Rinse Car Wash is the Southeast's largest self-service car wash operator: 26 locations across North Carolina, South Carolina, and Virginia, with more on the way. Our customers count on our equipment working every time they pull in. That promise lives with our Always Open team, the technicians who keep the equipment running.

THE ROLE

Our Technical Area Managers are the technicians behind every working bay. You'll be based in the greater Charlotte area, where most of your routine work happens, but the equipment belongs to one portfolio and the team covers it together. When the biggest problem is two hours away, that's where you go. The work is hands-on and in the field: pumps, in-bay automatics, pay systems, vacuums, and everything else that makes a wash run.

Because Royal Rinse owns and operates every car wash you'll service, there are no billable hours and no sales quota. The measure of the job is simple: are the bays open, and are we executing a preventive maintenance plan that maximizes uptime and extends equipment life. You'll report to the Vice President of Operations and work alongside a small, experienced team of technicians who share knowledge, parts, and coverage.

HOW WE WORK

- Safety first, every time. No task is so urgent that it can't be done safely; lockout/tagout, proper PPE, and a clean, organized site are the standard.
- An ownership mindset: discipline in the recurring work that keeps customers served, urgency when something breaks, and persistence on the problems nobody has seen before.
- Complete honesty. Problems will come up; we'd rather hear the ugly details early than a clean story late.
- Every visit ends with a documented site report: what you found, what you fixed, what you used, and what still needs attention.

RESPONSIBILITIES

- Work safely, every time: lockout/tagout, proper PPE, and a clean, organized site.
- Keep bays and equipment open and running across the portfolio, prioritizing by what's affecting customers most, wherever that is.
- Perform and document preventive maintenance on self-serve pump stations, in-bay automatics, vacuums, chemical delivery, water heating, and water treatment systems in MaintainX.
- Diagnose and repair low-voltage electrical, controls, and electronics: pay stations, card readers, bill changers, timers, relays, sensors, and wash controllers.
- Troubleshoot high-pressure pump systems, plumbing, solenoids, unloaders, hydraulics, and weep/freeze protection.
- Recognize high-voltage or specialized problems, make the site safe, and coordinate licensed electricians, plumbers, and OEM vendors to resolve them.
- Keep parts and supplies stocked on your truck and at the sites you cover so common repairs don't wait on a shipment.
- Coordinate with site attendants to work around customer traffic, and show them the basic preventive care they can handle between your visits.
- Respond to after-hours and weekend equipment emergencies.
- Support equipment installs, upgrades, and site transitions at new and existing locations.

QUALIFICATIONS

Required

- 2+ years of hands-on mechanical and electrical maintenance experience. Car wash equipment experience is strongly preferred; industrial maintenance, HVAC, pump and irrigation, field service, and fleet backgrounds are welcome.
- Strong low-voltage electrical and controls skills: wiring diagrams, multimeter, relays, sensors, control boards.
- Working knowledge of high-pressure pumps, plumbing, and basic hydraulics.
- Comfort with pay systems and electronics (card readers, pay stations, bill changers) and the willingness to learn ours.
- General understanding of three-phase power, motors, and VFDs, enough to diagnose, isolate safely, and direct a vendor. No high-voltage work.
- Ability to work independently, manage your own priorities across multiple sites, and communicate clearly by phone and text.
- Comfort using a tablet and laptop for work orders, photos, and parts ordering.

Preferred

- Experience with PDQ, Washworld, Petit, or similar in-bay automatics, and with self-serve pump stands.
- Experience with Dencar pay stations or CryptoPay card systems.
- Boiler, water heater, reverse osmosis, or water reclaim experience.
- Welding, fabrication, or small-engine skills.

REQUIREMENTS

- Valid driver's license with a clean driving record.
- 18 or older; able to pass a background check and pre-employment drug screen.
- Able to work outdoors and in wash bays and equipment rooms in all weather, including wet, noisy, and confined spaces; stand, kneel, climb ladders, lift up to 50 pounds, and handle wash chemicals with proper PPE.

WHAT TO EXPECT

- We measure success on safety first, then equipment uptime, customer satisfaction, and how well the preventive work gets done, across the portfolio and not just your home market.
- The schedule is full-time and variable. Car washes run every day, and equipment doesn't fail on a schedule, so early starts, occasional weekends, and emergency calls are part of the job.
- We rotate on-call across the team as business needs allow, and we route travel so drive days are reasonable and you're home at the end of the week whenever the portfolio allows. Occasional overnights are part of the role.

COMPENSATION AND DETAILS

- Company truck with fuel, insurance, and registration covered, plus an expense card for travel.
- The tools and technology you need to do the job, and a truck stocked with the parts the work calls for.
- Training on our equipment and systems, including time with the OEMs.
- Medical insurance with a company contribution, dental and vision plans, and a 401(k) retirement plan with a company match upon reaching required employment milestones.
- Paid time off and paid holidays for full-time team members.
- A growing company with more locations coming, and room to grow with it.
- Pay based on experience, reviewed as you grow.

HOW TO APPLY

Apply through Indeed or on our careers page at https://royalrinsecarwash.com/careers. Tell us about the equipment you've worked on; we care more about what you can fix than how your resume is formatted.

Royal Rinse Car Wash is an equal opportunity employer and a drug-free workplace. Employment is contingent on a background check, pre-employment drug screen, and a satisfactory motor vehicle record.