Controls Engineer

Sotera Health • Oak Brook, IL

47d • $92,000 - $149,000 • Remote

About The Position

Sotera Health, inspired by the Greek goddess of safety, is dedicated to its mission of Safeguarding Global Health®. As a leading global provider of mission-critical sterilization and lab testing services for the healthcare industry, Sotera Health combines nearly 200 years of expertise to ensure the safety of millions of patients and healthcare practitioners worldwide. With over 3,000 employees across 64 facilities globally, the company partners with over 5,800 customers in more than 50 countries, including many of the top medical device and pharmaceutical companies. The Controls Engineer role, reporting to the Controls Engineering Manager, is crucial for supporting industrial control system initiatives across the Sterigenics network. This fully remote position requires significant domestic and periodic international travel (40-60%) and involves collaboration with various internal and external stakeholders, including customers, sales, operations, and EHS teams. The engineer will manage contractors, demonstrate strong engineering and electrical competency, and play a key role in project execution, system upgrades, and facility reliability improvements.

Requirements

• Bachelor of Science in Engineering, Chemical, Electrical, Mechanical, and Mechatronic Engineering preferred.
• Six to ten years of experience in related field, with proven autonomous technical and project management responsibilities.
• Two or more years of current equivalent industrial control system integration experience.
• Comfort in executing responsibilities within a highly matrixed organization.
• Solid business acumen.
• Experience in the Pharmaceutical or Medical Device Industry dealing with FDA and/or other regulatory bodies.
• Extensive knowledge with PLCs (standard and safety); HMI/SCADA applications; hardware configuration; VFDs; basic manufacturing network architecture methodologies and instrumentation with Allen Bradley product line.
• Disciplined decision-making skills that considers and values project safety, quality, cost, schedules, and equipment performance requirements.
• Experience with designing, specifying and reviewing systems compliant to IEC 61511 (safety instrumented systems).
• Experience integrating multiple vendor systems into one conveyance control system.
• Experience with initial set-up of data acquisition and historian systems such as AVEVA PI Historian, Schneider Ecostruxure, Aspen InfoPlus.21, Ignition Historian or FactoryTalk Historian.
• Strong technical writing skills to develop applicable test documentation to support projects.
• Develop calculations in support of project design and equipment needs.
• Challenge third party technical designs.
• Strong interpersonal skills – ability to facilitate and resolve challenges/priorities amongst vested stakeholders.
• Ability to operate in a matrixed organization without direct report management responsibilities.

Nice To Haves

• Functional safety engineering certification a plus.

Responsibilities

• Evaluate and implement technology improvements/advances inclusive of controls.
• Work with project management and other engineering disciplines, managing the deployment of control systems for new processes and upgrades for existing systems as required.
• Assist facility Maintenance Supervisors, General Managers and Regional Maintenance Managers in troubleshooting facilities problems related to control systems and help develop solutions using data driven decision making.
• Improve facility reliability by managing and monitoring system controls and managing system lifecycles.
• Work with Contractors, Project Managers, Technology Engineers, and Regional Maintenance Managers in a team approach to improve facility operations and systems.
• Manage installation projects, to include budgeting, tracking, and providing purchase orders, and execute testing as needed to support objectives.
• Understand, read, create, and debug code programming logic into PLCs, SCADA and HMI.
• Develop, review, approve, and execute IQ and OQ documentation as related to software validation practices as required in the medical and/or pharmaceutical environment while ensuring compliance to all applicable standards related to technology including federal, state, local regulatory codes, and customer, operations, and corporate requirements.
• Execute projects utilizing available internal resources, suppliers, and key subcontractors, as required.
• Provide strategic oversight and management of applicable process control systems – PLCs, HMI applications, across all technologies in a scalable manner to ensure required upgrades to hardware and software are implemented and key project initiatives are supported.
• Develop, control, and critically monitor all cost, scheduling, quality, and safety activities related to capital projects.
• Liaison between different engineering groups – project management, R&D, EHS, and Quality personnel to support engineering initiatives.
• Manage several projects simultaneously of different sizes and complexities.
• Ensure all engineering and contractor activities are executed in consideration and compliance with applicable company EH&S standards.
• Exemplify company core values of Safety, Customer Focus, People, Integrity, Excellence.
• Serve as an Engineering ambassador.
• Ensure all projects are executed using defined Engineering Change Management methodology.
• Detect and prevent design errors.
• Apply Root Cause Analysis to eliminate recurring sources of failure, support CAPA investigations.
• Failure mode and effects analysis.

Benefits

• Medical, Rx, Dental, Vision, Disability, Life Insurance, Health Savings and Flexible Spending Accounts
• 401(k) program with Company match that immediately vests
• Paid holidays, vacation and sick time
• Free financial planning assistance
• Paid parental leave
• Education assistance
• Voluntary benefits including Critical Illness, Accident, Hospital Indemnity and Pet Insurance
• Employee Assistance Program (EAP)

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Senior