Principal – Electrical & Controls / Automation Engineer

Flex•Buffalo Grove, IL

About The Position

The Principal – Electrical & Controls / Automation Engineer is a senior individual contributor and technical subject matter expert providing enterprise-level leadership across electrical, controls, industrial networking, PLC, SCADA, and automation systems. This role serves as one of Engineering’s highest technical authorities for complex automation and electrical systems, personally resolving the organization’s most difficult technical problems while establishing standards, mentoring engineering and technician resources, and improving the reliability, maintainability, and performance of automated manufacturing equipment. The Principal Engineer is expected to enter difficult manufacturing situations, quickly understand the systems involved, bring technical resources together, set a logical troubleshooting strategy, and lead teams toward root cause and permanent resolution. The role also focuses on developing the technical capabilities of the broader Engineering organization through coaching, documented standards, troubleshooting guides, lessons learned, and training expectations.

Requirements

Bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering, Controls or Automation Engineering, Mechatronics, or Mechanical Engineering is strongly preferred; an equivalent combination of education and extensive demonstrated industrial controls expertise may be considered.
At least 6 years of progressive experience in industrial automation, controls engineering, electrical engineering, or related manufacturing engineering disciplines.
Extensive hands-on experience supporting highly automated manufacturing equipment.
Demonstrated history of personally resolving complex controls, electrical, networking, and automation problems.
Expert-level understanding of Ethernet/IP, industrial Ethernet, TCP/IP, VLANs, managed switches, network segmentation, routing fundamentals, addressing, communication diagnostics, and industrial network architecture.

Nice To Haves

Experience serving as a senior technical authority, Principal Engineer, Staff Engineer, Lead Engineer, or equivalent technical subject matter expert.
Experience in high-volume, highly automated manufacturing environments such as medical device, electronics, pharmaceutical, automotive, packaging, or food and beverage manufacturing.
Experience with Rockwell, Siemens, and Beckhoff controls platforms.
Experience with industrial Ethernet and Ethernet/IP.
Experience with industrial network architecture and troubleshooting.
Experience with Grafana and Power BI visualization platforms.
Experience with VMware or virtualized automation infrastructure.
Experience with vision systems and robotics.
Experience with advanced motion and servo systems.
Experience with manufacturing historians and data acquisition, including SQL and industrial data architecture.
Experience with machine safety circuits and safety PLC concepts.
Experience with electrical troubleshooting, schematics, and machine-control systems.
Experience with VFDs, motors, and motor-control systems.
Experience with automation-system backup, recovery, and lifecycle management.
Experience integrating PLC/OT systems with higher-level manufacturing systems.

Responsibilities

Serve as the senior technical escalation point for complex electrical, controls, PLC, SCADA, networking, and automation issues across manufacturing operations.
Lead troubleshooting and root-cause analysis of difficult or recurring equipment failures that cannot be resolved through normal maintenance and engineering escalation paths.
Diagnose complex interactions among electrical systems, PLC logic, industrial networks, drives, motion systems, instrumentation, safety systems, SCADA, and equipment controls.
Use structured, data-driven troubleshooting to identify root causes rather than relying on component replacement or trial-and-error methods.
Provide hands-on technical support during critical equipment failures and high-impact production events.
Identify systemic technical weaknesses and develop permanent corrective actions that improve equipment reliability and reduce repeat failures.
Troubleshoot complex electrical problems involving control power, power distribution, motors, VFDs, servo systems, safety circuits, sensors, instrumentation, grounding, noise, and communication systems.
Troubleshoot, modify, optimize, and validate complex PLC programs and machine-control architectures.
Serve as a technical authority for industrial networking and operational technology communications, diagnosing complex network and communication failures across manufacturing systems.
Work collaboratively with IT and cybersecurity teams to maintain secure, reliable connectivity between operational technology and enterprise systems.
Provide technical leadership for SCADA and HMI architecture, configuration, troubleshooting, and integration.
Troubleshoot communication and data-flow issues between equipment controls, SCADA, historians, databases, and manufacturing information systems.
Support standardized approaches for equipment connectivity, tag structures, alarms, data collection, and system integration.
Partner with Digital Transformation and Manufacturing Intelligence resources to enable reliable acquisition and use of equipment data.
Partner with Reliability Engineering and factory engineering teams to identify recurring failure modes using downtime, alarm, maintenance, and equipment-performance data.
Develop engineered solutions that eliminate failure modes rather than repeatedly restoring equipment to operation.
Identify opportunities for condition monitoring, predictive diagnostics, improved alarming, and automated fault detection.
Mentor Controls Engineers, Electrical Engineers, Controls Technicians, Engineering Technicians, and other engineering resources.
Develop plant engineering teams’ troubleshooting capabilities through structured coaching and hands-on problem solving.
Document knowledge from complex troubleshooting events in standards, troubleshooting guides, and lessons learned.
Help establish technical competency expectations and training requirements for controls and electrical disciplines.
Promote disciplined engineering practices and a culture of technical excellence.