Process Engineer III

Kite Pharma•Frederick, MD

1d•Onsite

About The Position

At Kite, we are united by one mission: curing cancer. Every day, our teams connect their work to this purpose, developing innovative cell therapies that bring hope to patients with serious and life‑threatening cancers. If you are motivated by meaningful, mission‑driven work and want to make a real impact, we invite you to explore a career with Kite. Kite, a Gilead Company, is a biopharmaceutical organization focused on the development and commercialization of breakthrough cancer immunotherapies. Our therapies harness the power of a patient’s own immune system by engineering T cells to fight cancer. As our manufacturing network and digital capabilities continue to expand, we are building a strong automation organization to support our growth. We are seeking a Process Automation Engineer III to join our biotechnology manufacturing facility in Frederick, Maryland. This is a hands‑on technical leadership role responsible for supporting and enhancing automation and data platforms that enable compliant, reliable GMP manufacturing operations. You will work closely with Manufacturing, Quality, Engineering, IT, and global automation teams to ensure our systems are robust, scalable, and inspection‑ready.

Requirements

Master’s degree in Engineering, Computer Science, or a related field with at least 3 years of relevant experience, or Bachelor’s degree with at least 5 years of relevant experience.
Experience supporting automation or manufacturing systems in a GMP-regulated environment.
Strong understanding of industrial automation platforms and system integrations.
Experience troubleshooting complex system issues in production environments.
Familiarity with change control, deviations, and CAPA processes.
Proven ability to work effectively in cross‑functional teams.

Responsibilities

Serve as the primary technical owner for key automation and manufacturing data platforms, including AspenTech Inmation – Operational Technology Data Management System (OTDMS) and Site Data Historian (OSIsoft PI).
Own the overall health, performance, availability, and compliance of OTDMS and historian platforms.
Design and implement integrations between manufacturing systems such as MES (Werum PAS|X), LIMS, historians, and future digital solutions.
Manage system configuration, upgrades, patches, and ongoing maintenance within a regulated GMP environment.
Define and maintain data ingestion, contextualization, and distribution strategies to enable secure OT‑to‑IT data flow.
Author and maintain system documentation, including SOPs, user requirements, functional specifications, and impact assessments.
Manage system access and user accounts in alignment with security and compliance requirements.
Partner with Quality, Validation, and IT to support system qualification, audits, and regulatory inspections.
Provide technical support and integration for additional manufacturing systems, including Manufacturing Execution System (Korber, PAS|X), Real Time Modeling System (Emerson, RTS), Cytiva Chronicle / Gateway platforms, and Identity and access management systems.
Support OT network architecture, including VLAN segmentation and manufacturing networks.
Implement changes to automation hardware and software as needed.
Lead vendor‑managed system modifications, including specifications, testing, and acceptance activities.
Support and lead automation-related capital and operational projects.