Lead Automotive Painter – Body Repair

Position Summary

The Lead Automotive Painter is responsible for leading paint operations within the Body Repair team while maintaining the highest standards of quality, efficiency, safety, and vehicle finish.

This position is a hands-on leadership role. The Lead Painter will perform refinishing work while providing technical direction, training, and daily support to painters and other Body Repair team members. The role requires extensive knowledge of modern automotive refinishing systems, color matching, surface preparation, paint application, polishing, and repair procedures.

The ideal candidate is an experienced automotive refinishing professional who takes ownership of quality, helps develop others, and can support a fast-paced repair environment while consistently delivering OEM-level finishes.

Key Responsibilities

• Weekly Meetings with the Body Repair Paint Manager.

• Help establish and maintain standardized paint processes and best practices.

• Support workflow planning and help prioritize vehicles based on production needs and delivery commitments.

• Coordinate with Body Repair leadership, estimators, body technicians, parts personnel, and other departments to prevent production delays.

• Identify and correct paint defects such as dirt, runs, texture issues, color mismatch, poor blend transitions, and other finish concerns.

• Inspect completed work and ensure vehicles meet Body Repair quality standards before moving to the next stage of the repair process.

• Provide technical guidance and hands-on training to painters, apprentices, and other Body Repair team members.

• Communicate repair or paint-related concerns that may affect quality, cost, or completion time.

• Handle the day-to-day operations, workflow, quality control, and ordering of paint and body materials.

• Maintain compliance with PPE, environmental, hazardous-material, and workplace safety requirements.

• Assist leadership with continuous improvement initiatives related to quality, cycle time, material usage, productivity, and shop organization.

• Serve as a technical resource for difficult colors, complex refinishing procedures, and paint-related troubleshooting.

• Perform high-quality automotive refinishing on complete panels, repaired panels, replacement components, bumpers, plastic components, and other vehicle surfaces.

• Prepare vehicles and components for refinishing, including cleaning, sanding, feather edging, masking, priming, sealing, and final surface preparation.

• Perform accurate color matching, tinting, blending, and spray-out evaluations.

• Apply basecoat, tri-coat, tinted clearcoat, clearcoat, and other approved refinishing systems according to manufacturer and paint supplier procedures.

• Maintain paint booths, prep areas, mixing rooms, spray equipment, and related tools in clean and operational condition.

• Monitor paint and material usage and communicate inventory or supply needs.

• Follow all OEM repair procedures, paint manufacturer technical data sheets, and internal Body Repair standards.

• Ensure proper handling, storage, labeling, and disposal of paint materials and chemicals.

Minimum Qualifications

• Minimum 7 years of professional automotive refinishing experience in a collision repair, OEM, or high-quality automotive refinishing environment.

• Advanced knowledge of automotive paint preparation, application, blending, color matching, and finishing.

• Strong experience with modern waterborne basecoat and clearcoat systems.

• Experience spraying solid, metallic, pearl, tri-coat, and other complex automotive finishes.

• Strong understanding of plastic refinishing and proper preparation of automotive substrates.

• Ability to identify paint defects and determine appropriate corrective actions.

• Ability to read and follow paint manufacturer technical data sheets and OEM repair procedures.

• Experience using professional spray equipment, paint mixing systems, color tools, and refinishing equipment.

• Strong understanding of paint-shop safety practices, PPE, chemical handling, and hazardous-material requirements.

• Ability to work independently while also providing direction and support to other team members.

• Strong communication, organization, and problem-solving skills.

• Demonstrated commitment to quality and attention to detail.

Preferred Qualifications

• I-CAR certification/training preferred.

• Previous Lead Painter, Paint Team Lead, or similar leadership experience.

• OEM or OEM-certified collision repair experience.

• Experience working with luxury, high-end, or electric vehicles.

• Experience with advanced color-matching technology and spectrophotometers.

• Experience developing or supporting standardized paint processes and training programs.

• Knowledge of ADAS-related refinishing restrictions and OEM requirements for radar- or sensor-sensitive components.

Leadership Expectations

The Lead Painter is expected to set the standard for the paint team through workmanship, professionalism, accountability, and teamwork. This individual should be comfortable coaching others, addressing quality concerns, assisting with difficult repairs, and working with Body Repair leadership to continuously improve the department.

The Lead Painter should demonstrate the ability to balance quality, safety, productivity, and cycle time without compromising approved repair procedures.

Physical Requirements

• Ability to stand, walk, bend, kneel, and work around vehicles for extended periods.

• Ability to wear required respiratory protection and other PPE.

• Ability to safely operate automotive refinishing equipment and work in paint booth and preparation environments.

• Ability to lift and handle automotive parts, tools, and materials as required.

What Success Looks Like

Success in this position is demonstrated through consistent OEM-quality finishes, strong first-time quality, reduced rework, efficient paint-shop workflow, proper material usage, adherence to safety and repair procedures, and the continued development of the Body Repair paint team.