Animal Care Technician - Temporary

The Seattle Animal Shelter (SAS) is seeking a motivated and progressive Animal Care Technician to work with shelter animals and their owners. If you are a compassionate, motivated team player who is dedicated to providing top-level care to shelter animals and empathetic customer service to our community members, this is the job for you!

As an Animal Care Technician, your work will be exclusively in the shelter. You will provide daily cleaning, care, exercise, and enrichment to the animals in our custody. You will work with community members to reunite them with their lost pets, adopt animals to their new homes, counsel pet owners, foster parents, and potential adopters, provide education and resources, take in stray and surrendered animals and much more. You will work hand in hand with a dedicated team of staff and volunteers to provide our shelter pets and our community with exceptional care and support.

SAS is a nationally recognized animal welfare organization that promotes public safety and animal welfare and protects animals from cruelty and neglect in the City of Seattle. SAS runs animal sheltering and adoption programs to reunite lost animals with their owners and places animals in forever homes.

This is a non-benefitted temporary assignment expected to last approximately six months. The work schedule includes weekends.

ABOUT US
SAS is a division of the Finance and Administrative Services (FAS) department. FAS is often the public's first interaction with the City of Seattle, operating as a customer-focused front door that assists with everything from paying utilities or reporting a pothole to requesting public information or even adopting a new pet.

The 450-plus employees of FAS span across 10 divisions and work behind-the-scenes providing critical functions, like managing 120 City facilities—including police and fire stations—coordinating logistics and emergency management and making sure minority-owned businesses can equitably compete for City contracts. FAS is a collaborative workplace with collective accountability to promote equity, respect, civility, integrity, inclusiveness, and fairness for all employees.

• Provide high quality care to animals in the shelter system to maintain a healthy and humane environment for animals, employees, and visitors. This includes, but is not limited to:
  • Feeding, watering, walking, monitoring, and providing enrichment.
  • Disinfecting shelter areas, animal areas, enclosures, and equipment.
  • Following established animal care, cleaning, feeding and veterinary protocols.
  • Working with animals who may be ill, injured, stressed and/or aggressive.
• Committing to an inclusive culture rooted in commitment to racial equity and community engagement.
• Providing compassionate, equitable and professional customer service, education, and support.
• Building collaborative, respectful relationships with colleagues and volunteers.
• Maintaining composure and professionalism in stressful situations.
• Utilizing safe, humane, low stress animal handling skills.
• Processing animal intakes and outcomes.
• Detailed, accurate and consistent record keeping and data entry.
• Assisting in humane euthanasia of animals.

Minimum Qualifications:

• One (1) year experience in care, handling, and treatment of animals.

(Or a combination of education and/or training and/or experience which provides an equivalent background required to perform the work of the class.)

Desired Qualifications:

• Prior professional shelter or veterinary experience performing work comparable to this position is highly desired.
• Knowledge of proper animal husbandry.
• Experience in safe and humane animal handling techniques to reduce potential hazards to both handlers and animals.
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills.
• Multitasking skills in a fast paced and sometimes stressful environment.
• Experience with PetPoint.
• Bilingual or multilingual.

Physical Requirements:

• Must be able to stand, walk, bend, and stoop.
• Must be able to lift over 50 pounds.

License, Certification and Other Requirements:

• Current Washington State driver's license.
• A Washington State Euthanasia Technician Certification is required after hire. Training provided.

Work Environment:

• This position requires onsite work.
• The work involves frequent exposure to agitated and fearful animals who may be ill or injured, feces, bodily fluids, zoonotic disease, and parasites.
• Require regularly working on weekends, holidays, and evenings.

Under the City’s Personnel Rules, all non-benefitted temporary assignments begin compensation at step 1 - $30.18. Employees receive premium pay in lieu of benefits for the first 1,040 hours of the assignment; once benefit eligible, premium pay ends and salary advances to step 2 of the range. The salary rate for out-of-class employees is determined by the City’s Personnel Rules.
The full salary range for this classification is $30.18 - $32.55 per hour. 

Application Process
Applications are reviewed after the posting closes. You must submit the following items to be considered for this position no later than 4:00pm Pacific Time on the scheduled closed date.

1. Completed NEOGOV online application.
2. Cover letter describing how your skills and experience align with the stated job responsibilities and qualifications.
3. Current resume indicating relevant experience, knowledge, skills, and education.

Your application may be rejected as incomplete if you do not include the relevant information in the application. Cover letters and/or resumes are not accepted in lieu of a completed application. Applications and/or Supplemental Questionnaires that state “see my resume” or “see my personnel file” are considered incomplete and will not be accepted.

PLEASE NOTE: This job advertisement is not designed to cover or contain a comprehensive listing of activities, duties or responsibilities that are required of the employee for this job. Duties, responsibilities, and activities may change at any time with or without notice.

Background Check: Applicants must successfully pass a background check, which will be conducted in accordance with Seattle’s Fair Chance Employment Ordinance, SMC 14.17. Applicants will be given a chance to explain or correct background information and provide verifiable information of good conduct and rehabilitation.

Pre-Employment Physical: Successful candidates will be required to pass a pre-employment physical.

Why work at the City of Seattle?
The City of Seattle recognizes every City employee must play a role in ending institutional and structural racism. Our culture is the result of our behavior, our personal commitments, and the ways that we courageously share our perspectives and encourage others to do the same. To cultivate an antiracist culture, we seek employees who will engage in the Race and Social Justice Initiative by working to dismantle racist policies and procedures, unlearn the way things have always been done, and provide equitable processes and services.