SHEQ Associate

About Lyka:

Lyka was founded in 2018 by Anna Podolsky, inspired by her dog, Lyka, who was suffering from chronic health issues despite being on “premium” kibble. Together with Gabriel Guedes (COO) and Dr. Matthew Muir (Integrative Veterinarian), they built Lyka from the ground up with one core belief: better food can radically improve a pet’s healthspan and quality of life.

Lyka’s meals are vet-formulated and gently cooked from real food ingredients. Delivered via a flexible subscription model, Lyka meals have driven remarkable improvements for tens of thousands of customers, supporting gut health, reducing intolerances, improving energy and mobility, and even promoting hair growth.

What began as home-cooked meals has since scaled into one of Australia’s fastest-growing consumer companies, a vertically integrated, tech-enabled brand that is transforming pet health nationwide.

Lyka now operates from two offices, Sydney (HQ) and Melbourne, with three state-of-the-art food production facilities (two in Sydney, one in Melbourne) and a growing national footprint.

At Lyka, we’re not just selling pet food, we’re pioneering a new standard of wellness for pets. With strong product-market fit, deep customer love, and a track record of rapid growth, we’re now entering our most ambitious chapter yet: building a generational brand and category-defining business with global impact.

About the role:

This is a supporting and enabling role at heart, less about enforcing standards from the sidelines, and more about teaching, coaching and mentoring the frontline and operational teams who make our product, so that safety, environmental and food safety practice becomes second nature across the network.

You’ll work closely with the SHEQ Manager, stepping in as backup when needed, and you’ll be the person who digs into root cause when something falls short of standard, then drives the corrective and preventative action that stops it happening again.

Alignment with FSSC 22000 and Prime Safe sits at the centre of the role, and you’ll play a genuine part in building and continuously improving Lyka’s Food Safety Management System as our sites mature.

What you will do:

• You’ll lead the rollout of HACCP and GMP compliant quality standards on site, working from initial certification through to internationally recognised standards as our facilities grow, and you’ll embed frontline SHEQ activity that every Pack member is expected to take part in.
• Quality control runs through the whole operational process on your watch, receivals, product preparation, manufacturing, storage, packaging, fulfilment and dispatch, and you’ll be inspecting equipment, testing product and monitoring facility cleanliness to keep us meeting international food safety requirements.
• You’ll set and monitor supplier requirements for raw materials and intermediate products, track and investigate customer complaints and non-conformances through to resolution with the relevant teams, and keep accurate, fully traceable quality records throughout.
• Documentation is a real part of the job too, building out new SHEQ processes and creating the training materials that help the standard stick.

What we expect from you

• You’ll bring at least two years of QA/QC experience in a food manufacturing environment, ideally including meat production and cooking, along with a solid grounding in ISO quality systems, HACCP and GMP, experience with FSSC 22000 will put you ahead of the pack.
• Formal HACCP and GMP certification is expected, and certification in other systems is a bonus.
• Beyond the technical grounding, we need someone with a genuine eye for detail, strong written and verbal communication, and the relationship-building skills to work effectively with internal teams and external clients and service providers alike.
• You’ll be comfortable across multiple sites, confident using the Microsoft Office suite and picking up new systems, and ready to flex your hours when an emergency calls for it.
• Above all, we’re looking for someone self-motivated and reliable, genuinely committed to human safety, food safety and the environment, who can hold their ground on standards while still being a proactive, easy team player to work alongside.

Benefits

• Work in a fast-growing start-up, experiencing what goes on behind the scenes to sustain hyper-growth for a start-up with a physical product!
• Growth and Development – Lyka is growing extremely quickly, which means you will have the opportunity to experience different challenges every day and progressively acquire more responsibilities as our facility and team expand. We provide an annual L&D budget for you to continue your personal development.
• Work for a sustainability-focused company – we care about the health of our dogs and our planet. We’re proud to be Australia’s only carbon-negative and plastic-negative pet wellness company and we’re always looking at ways for us to improve sustainability practices.
• Be part of a diverse top-talent team, coming from widely different backgrounds and geographies.
• Up to 18 weeks of paid parental leave top-up
• Wellbeing assistance and tools to take care of your mental and physical wellbeing so you can do your best work
• Pupper parent support to care for your furry friends – flexible arrangements for new pets, pet-friendly offices, discounts, and financial allowance for dog training and care to help them live their best life!

We are committed to building inclusive and diverse teams

Lyka is an equal-opportunity employer devoted to providing a working environment that embraces and values diversity and inclusion. We celebrate diversity, are devoted to creating an inclusive environment for all staff and encourage people of all backgrounds to apply. If you have any support or access requirements, we encourage you to advise us at the time of application.