Automation Engineer

Foundational Industries

2d•Onsite

About The Position

Foundational is building a network of AI-native, autonomous factories for modern contract manufacturing — reshoring critical supply chains so companies can produce high-quality products domestically, quickly, and at competitive cost. Recent breakthroughs in robotics and physical AI have shifted autonomous manufacturing from theoretical to deployable, and we're focused on operationalizing these capabilities at scale during a decisive decade for American industrial leadership. At Foundational, we're building with people who want to own something — to do work that matters, in an environment where what you ship is what counts. The people who thrive here: Take ownership before they're asked. They see the gap and close it. Operate with a high degree of judgment. We move fast, and good judgment travels farther than a playbook. Communicate directly — concise, clear, and candid, especially when stakes are high. Hold a high bar for themselves first, then for everyone around them. Are genuinely energized by hard problems in physical, real-world environments. Energized — not just interested. Stay effective when things are ambiguous, changing, or under pressure. That's the job. This is a place for people who want to build something that has never existed before and leave a clear mark on it.

Requirements

Hands-on robotics integration (6-axis and/or collaborative): cell layout, reach/payload sizing, end-effector and fixture design, path optimization, and machine-tending integration.
Controls and PLC programming (ladder/structured text), HMI development, servo/motion, sensor and vision integration, and tying cell data into higher-level systems.
Machine safety: risk assessment, safeguarding design, and functional safety conforming to recognized standards — you design it in, not bolt it on.
Capital justification: building the cost/takt/yield/payback case for an automation investment and defending it to people who control the money.
Commissioning discipline: FAT/SAT, acceptance criteria, debug methodology, and the documentation that lets someone other than you keep the cell running.
Accountability — You own outcomes. If something's off track, you say so and fix it.
Bias for action — You ship. You iterate. You move toward the hard thing.
Clarity of communication — Direct and concise, especially when it counts.
Learning agility — You get up to speed fast in unfamiliar territory.
Resilience — You stay sharp when things are hard, ambiguous, or moving fast.
High standards — You raise the bar rather than match it — and hold yourself to it first.
Building from zero — You can stand up a mechanical engineering function from scratch — drawing standards, analysis practices, release discipline — and run it yourself until there’s a team to hand it off to.

Responsibilities

Build and own the automation layer that turns FI's floor from manual cells into instrumented, autonomous capacity — designing, integrating, and commissioning robotic and controls systems that hold takt, feed our data backbone, and pay back the capital that bought them.
First 90 days — First automated cells scoped, justified, and on order — robots, end-effectors, safety architecture, and material presentation defined against a real bottleneck, with a healthy payback.
First 6 months — Cells commissioned and running at rated takt with first-pass yield and uptime instrumented and streaming data.
By 12 months — A repeatable cell-design and commissioning playbook in place: standard robots/controls/safety stack, fixturing conventions, FAT/SAT acceptance criteria, so the next cells are a configuration. Cells live across distinct process steps, with measured OEE gains and a prioritized automation roadmap tied to where labor, variability, or ergonomics are optimized.