Job Description: Build Technician

Rodeo Adventure Labs · Lakewood, CO

About Rodeo Labs

Rodeo Adventure Labs is a small, independent bicycle company in Lakewood, Colorado. For thirteen years we have designed and built gravel, adventure, and endurance bikes for people who want to ride further and into stranger places than the industry expects. Every bike that leaves our building is assembled by hand, one at a time, to a standard we are willing to put our name on. We are a lean team, which means the work is real, the ownership is real, and what you do shows up directly in a customer’s hands.

Location

On-site at our headquarters in Lakewood, CO, in the greater Denver metro area. This role cannot be performed remotely — the bikes, the parts, and the tools are all here.

Hours and Classification

Full-time, 40 hours per week, on-site. Our schedule is Monday through Friday, eight-hour days. Evening and weekend work is very rare and reserved for genuine emergencies. This is an hourly, non-exempt position and is eligible for overtime.

Reporting

This role reports directly to the CEO. Day to day you will work closely with the leads of our product, paint and finishing, and shipping departments.

Role Overview

We are hiring a Build Technician to be our primary bike builder and the primary owner of the parts flow that makes those builds possible. Other people here can build and other people can order, but this is the role where both live day to day.

You do not need to arrive as a senior technician on our products specifically. We will train you on our products, our standards, and our processes. What you do need is genuine mechanical competence — you have built bikes from bare frame to finished machine, you understand how modern drivetrains, brakes, cockpits, and standards fit together, and when a build fights you, you can diagnose why and find a way through. As a rough calibration of the standard here: a competent builder assembles a complete gravel bike, done properly, in about four hours – but that target is flexible based on the specifications of the build. Some builds are easier than others, and as a custom bike company, our builds are always changing.

The second half of this job is just as important as the first: parts ordering, parts intake, and keeping the build side organized. Custom bikes are a logistics problem wearing a mechanical disguise. A build that stalls because the wrong bottom bracket was ordered, or because a box was signed for and never checked in, is a customer waiting and a promise not met. We need someone who treats that side of the work with the same care as a torque wrench, and who keeps it current even in a busy week when the bench is full. Other team members here build bike specs and configurations with customers. You are the last line of defense for parts compatibility before a build kit is fully ordered and assembled.

Sharing what you know

Because you work with our products every day, you may end up knowing some of them better than anyone else here. Which spec belongs with which frameset. Which combinations play nicely and which ones look fine on paper but fail on the stand. Where the tolerances actually sit as opposed to where the manufacturer says they do. Over time that becomes encyclopedic, and it is one of the most valuable things this role produces.

It is only worth something if it leaves your head. Part of this job is teaching. You will regularly walk other team members in parallel or supporting roles through proper assembly practices, correct specifications, and compatibility questions, sometimes because they asked and sometimes because you saw something coming that they did not. Or, perhaps, you need to help correct someone else’s errors and teach them how to improve outcomes. How that gets done matters as much as the fact of it. We want it patient, plainly explained, and free of condescension, with the assumption that the person asking is trying to get it right. Someone who hoards knowledge to stay indispensable is the wrong person for this role. Someone who makes the people around them more capable is exactly the right one.

A note on attitude, because it’s so important to our culture.

Building custom bikes at a world-class level is finicky, technical work. Parts arrive wrong. Tolerances fight you. Two components that should work together do not. A build you finished yesterday needs rework today. Systems that seemed to work once upon a time no longer fit the ever changing scope of what we do. None of that is unusual — it is the job. In a way, the word “Rodeo” describes this perfectly. This horse is always bucking. It’s never tamed. Sometimes we get thrown off. We always dust ourselves off and get back on.

So the thing we are screening hardest for is how you meet that. We want someone who treats a stubborn problem as interesting rather than insulting, who asks a teammate for a second set of eyes without it costing them anything, who says “I got this one wrong” plainly and moves on, and who makes the people around them better at their jobs. Strong opinions are welcome here — we have plenty. Ego is not. If you have ever been the person in the shop everyone quietly routes around, this is not the right fit. If you have ever been the person who makes a hard day lighter, please apply.

Key Responsibilities

Building

• Assemble complete Rodeo Labs bikes from frameset to finished build, to exacting and repeatable standards
• Troubleshoot build problems, component incompatibilities, and fitment issues, and develop solutions that hold up over the long term
• Document what you learn so that a problem solved once is solved for good
• Perform final quality inspection and road-readiness checks before a bike moves to packing and shipping
• Maintain a clean, organized, professional build area and keep tools and equipment in good working order. If new or better tools are needed, you advocate for that.

Parts and Inventory

• Own parts ordering across our vendor accounts, along with the purchasing authority and fiscal responsibility that comes with it: the right part, at the right time, for the right build, at a cost that makes sense. Precision when ordering parts is paramount, and so is fiscal prudence.
• Receive incoming shipments and check them in accurately against orders — catching shortages, substitutions, and damage before they become a stalled build. Defective parts? You run the return / warranty process for that part.
• Keep inventory records accurate and current, and flag reorder needs before we run out in keeping with systems that we’ve built for that purpose. Help us improve those systems with real world feedback.
• Track parts against specific customer builds so that every bike in progress has a known status
• Suggest and help implement improvements to how parts and inventory move through the building

Team

• Communicate clearly and proactively about build status, blockers, and timelines
• Rodeo roles are multi-modal. When situations call for it, team members step up outside their lane — helping with customer questions, shipping and fulfillment, frameset finish and prep, or general facilities upkeep. Everyone here represents the brand. When a customer is in the building the customer deserves our attention and enthusiasm. We all love bikes here.
• Contribute feedback from the bench into product development. You will see things about our bikes that nobody else sees.
• Cross-train over time into adjacent skills, including wheelbuilding, so that the shop keeps moving when someone is out
• Teach and advise the rest of the team on assembly practices, specifications, and compatibility, and write down the answers that come up repeatedly so they outlast the conversation

What You Bring

Required

• Demonstrated competence as a bicycle mechanic, including building complete bikes from the ground up
• Working knowledge of modern road, gravel, and adventure components and standards, and the appetite to keep learning as they change
• Real troubleshooting ability: you can isolate a problem, understand why it is happening, and engineer a solution rather than a workaround
• Exceptional attention to detail. Our bikes are built to a world-class level, and that standard lives or dies in small things. Bar tape. Rim tape. Handlebar angle. Tidy cables. You get it.
• Strong organizational skills and comfort with systems — spreadsheets, inventory records, order tracking. Google Workspace / Asana. We are happy to train but you can’t be afraid of tech.
• A positive, collaborative, low-ego approach to hard technical work
• A passion for riding, particularly gravel and multi-surface adventure riding. It is in our DNA and it informs how we design and build. Great bikes are borne out of riding.
• Sound judgment with company money. This role places orders against our vendor accounts, so we need someone who is careful, accountable, and comfortable owning that responsibility.

Helpful, but we can teach it

• Wheelbuilding. It belongs to another role here, but we care about redundancy, and a builder who can step in when needed is a real asset
• Experience with vendor ordering and distributor accounts
• Experience with inventory management software

Physical Requirements and Work Environment

This role is performed in a light manufacturing and workshop environment. Essential physical functions include standing and working at a bench for extended periods, repeated bending and reaching, fine motor work with small components and hand tools, and lifting and carrying items of up to 50 pounds such as boxed bikes, parts shipments, and framesets. The environment includes exposure to shop noise, degreasers and solvents, lubricants, and compressed air. The build area sits in passive proximity to sanding, blasting, and coating operations. Reasonable accommodations will be made for qualified individuals with disabilities.

Compensation and Benefits

• Pay: $24.00 to $31.00 per hour, depending on experience.
• All tools, equipment, and materials provided. You do not need to bring your own kit.
• Paid time off, accrued through the year at roughly 1.8 hours per 40-hour week worked. About 10 days a year for a full-time employee. Accrual is capped at 10 days held at any one time.
• We do not currently offer a group health plan.
• Paid sick leave, accrued separately from PTO at 1 hour per 30 hours worked, up to 48 hours per year, in keeping with Colorado law.
• Up to seven paid holidays a year: New Year’s Day, Memorial Day, Independence Day, Labor Day, Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve, and Christmas Day. When a holiday falls on a weekend, no substitute day is given.
• Employee pricing on all Rodeo products
• A Rodeo frameset of your own: FL60 Steel at 6 months, TD42 at 9 months, or Flaanimal 6.0 Ti at 12 months.
• Flexibility to collaboratively shift days and hours for a sane work/life balance
• Occasional company-sponsored travel to events and rides
• Company-supported professional development and skill building as identified, requested, and agreed on.
• A small team where your work is visible and your input matters

How to Apply

Send your resume and a short note to jobs@rodeo-labs.com with “Build Technician” in the subject line. In your note, tell us about a build or repair that went wrong and what you did about it. We would rather read three honest paragraphs than a polished cover letter.

We are looking for a real person, and real people are going to review resumes one by one.

Deadline

Applications will be accepted until the position is filled. The latest that we want to fill this role is the end of October, but sooner is ideal.

---

Rodeo Adventure Labs is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, veteran status, age, or any other characteristic protected by applicable federal, state, or local law.