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Iowa · week of October 19, 2026

Iowa plant jobs: 174 open roles at 62 manufacturers

Who's hiring plant engineers, technicians and supervisors in Iowa, what it pays, and what they ask for.

See all 174 Iowa roles →What Iowa plants ask for →

174
open plant roles
30
posted in the last 7 days

17% of all openings

62
manufacturers hiring

Smithfield Foods, Magna, LGI

$84k–$115k
typical engineering base

-10% vs the US

The takeaways

  1. 1

    Reliability has the most openings in Iowa: 59 roles, ahead of production (40).

  2. 2

    $99k–$117k is the typical base for manufacturing engineers, the best-paid team here (3 postings list pay).

  3. 3

    10% below the US typical engineering base: Iowa pays $84k–$115k.

  4. 4

    Smithfield Foods is hiring the most, with 21 open plant roles, 2 of them new this week.

Explore by team

Openings and pay, team by team

Tap a team to see its skills and hirers.

Open roles

openposted this week

Typical base pay (engineers and senior engineers)

  • ManufacturingBest paid$99k–$117k
  • Process$71k–$107k
  • Reliability$63k–$95k
$60k$90k$120k

Skills plants name most

  • Team leadership#1 ask51%
  • Root cause22%
  • Lean21%
  • EHS / safety18%
  • PLC17%

Top 5 shown. See all of them →

Hiring the most

  1. 1Smithfield Foods21
  2. 2Magna15
  3. 3LGI11
  4. 4Tyson Foods9
  5. + the rest of the top hirers with a free account

By state

Where the plant jobs are

Iowa: 174 open roles · #25 of 51

Top 5:1. California 1,4362. Texas 9693. Ohio 5574. Michigan 4655. North Carolina 407

AKMEVTNHWAIDMTNDMNILWIMINYRIMAORNVWYSDIAINOHPANJCTCAUTCONEMOKYWVVAMDDEAZNMKSARTNNCSCDCOKLAMSALGAHITXFL
FewerMore open rolestop 5this report

Who plants are hiring

Engineers, techs and supervisors

73 engineering and Lean / CI roles; 101 technician and supervisor roles on the same teams.

33%Technician
  • Engineer43 · 25%
  • Senior5 · 3%
  • Manager / lead25 · 14%
  • Supervisor43 · 25%
  • Technician58 · 33%

How fresh

When these roles went up

Roles posted in the last two weeks get the fastest replies from teams.

  • This week30
  • 8–14 days19
  • 15–30 daysMost98
  • 30+ days9
  • Date not listed18

Where

Top cities

  • Cedar Rapids, IAMost roles13
  • Davenport, IA9
  • Mason City, IA9
  • Montezuma, IA8
  • Muscatine, IA7

Industries

Which industries are hiring

Openings by industry

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Go deeper: what moves pay

Belt and license premiums, pay by years asked, skills that come as a package, and the unusual perks plants offer.

See the findings →The pay model →

Source and method

Source
ShopFloorJobs analysis of 174 live plant job postings from 62 manufacturers' own careers sites (Workday, SuccessFactors, Oracle, iCIMS, Greenhouse and others), not job boards.
Collected
Week of October 19, 2026. Postings are re-checked daily; closed roles drop out.
Method
Each posting is counted once per role and city. Teams and levels are read from the job title; pay is the middle of each posting's listed range, for engineer and senior engineer levels, shown where at least 3 postings list one; skills are counted when the posting names them.

Cite this report

ShopFloorJobs, "Iowa plant jobs report, week of October 19, 2026," Week of October 19, 2026. https://shopfloorjobs.com/reports/iowa

Free to quote and share with a link to this page.

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