Sr. Engineer, Controls and Automation

Mitsubishi Chemical Group•Chesapeake, VA

About The Position

The Sr. Engineer, Controls and Automation provides senior-level plant engineering leadership for electrical power, controls, automation, operational technology (OT), SCADA, and equipment reliability in a continuous manufacturing environment. The role partners with Engineering, Maintenance, Production, HSE, Quality, Information Technology, corporate digital resources, vendors, and contractors to troubleshoot failures, design and execute upgrades, establish and support secure OT infrastructure, implement and sustain the plant SCADA platform, improve equipment availability, and ensure systems are documented, recoverable, and aligned with company standards. The position combines hands-on field support with engineering analysis, network and control-system architecture, project execution, commissioning, cybersecurity coordination, and technical stewardship of production assets and facility systems. Responsibilities span electrical and controls engineering; OT network infrastructure and SCADA; reliability and maintenance support; projects, installation, and commissioning; safety, risk, and compliance; and documentation, standards, and team capability.

Requirements

Bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering, Electrical Engineering Technology, Controls Engineering, Automation Engineering, or a closely related field from an accredited institution.
Five or more years of progressively responsible electrical, controls, automation, OT, SCADA, or plant-engineering experience in manufacturing or a comparable industrial environment.
Demonstrated experience troubleshooting industrial electrical and controls systems and supporting equipment installation, modification, and commissioning.
Hands-on experience supporting industrial Ethernet networks, managed switches, connected PLC/HMI systems, and SCADA infrastructure in an operating manufacturing environment.
Experience leading complex technical projects, coordinating cross-functional stakeholders, and providing technical direction to technicians, contractors, or system integrators.
Knowledge of industrial electrical fundamentals, power distribution, motors, motor controls, instrumentation, control panels, and electrical schematics.
PLC programming and troubleshooting, with strong proficiency in Allen-Bradley ControlLogix, CompactLogix, MicroLogix, Studio 5000/RSLogix, and PanelView/FactoryTalk or RSView environments.
Working knowledge of Mitsubishi and Siemens PLC platforms and industrial drive systems.
Knowledge of industrial network architecture and communications, including Ethernet/IP, managed switches, VLANs, segmentation, IP addressing and subnetting, fiber and copper media, commissioning, and diagnostics.
Working knowledge of SCADA architecture, PLC-to-SCADA communications, alarms, trends, historians, time synchronization, tag structures, backups, and commissioning.
Understanding of IT/OT coordination and foundational OT cybersecurity practices, including least privilege, secure remote access, asset inventory, configuration control, recovery, patch or firmware risk planning, and change management.
AutoCAD or comparable drafting software skills and ability to maintain field-usable electrical and network drawings.
Knowledge of root-cause analysis, structured troubleshooting, risk assessment, management of change, disciplined documentation, project leadership, and effective cross-functional communication.

Nice To Haves

Experience implementing or administering Ignition SCADA, including gateway configuration, tag integration, alarms, historian functions, visualization, and deployment support.
Experience with SQL/data integration, OPC UA, manufacturing information systems, or approved interfaces between OT and enterprise systems.
Experience designing or commissioning managed switches, VLANs, firewalls, and network monitoring.
Experience with reliability engineering, predictive maintenance, CMMS data, and lifecycle or obsolescence planning.
Knowledge of NFPA 70, NFPA 70E, machine safety, arc-flash principles, and applicable OSHA requirements.

Responsibilities

Design, specify, modify, and support industrial electrical and control systems, including power distribution, motor-control equipment, PLCs, HMIs, drives, instrumentation, sensors, industrial networks, and machine-safety interfaces.
Develop control narratives, functional requirements, I/O lists, panel layouts, schematics, network architecture, bills of material, and installation work packages.
Program, configure, troubleshoot, and improve Allen-Bradley, Mitsubishi, and Siemens PLC/HMI platforms and associated drive systems; support legacy systems and develop migration and obsolescence plans.
Diagnose system issues using drawings, PLC logic, trend data, drive fault history, network diagnostics, and field measurements while preserving rollback capability.
Maintain validated backups of PLC, HMI, drive, SCADA, server, and network-device configurations, and control access and changes.
Serve as plant engineering lead and long-term technical owner for OT infrastructure supporting SCADA, coordinating governance, security, remote access, server, identity, and enterprise connectivity needs with IT and corporate resources.
Develop and maintain OT network architecture, managed industrial switches, fiber and copper backbone requirements, network cabinets, UPS needs, addressing conventions, VLAN and segmentation requirements, and resilient communications paths.
Lead or support design, configuration, testing, commissioning, and expansion of the Ignition SCADA platform, including gateways, clients, PLC connectivity, tags, alarms, trends, dashboards, historian functions, time synchronization, and approved interfaces.
Establish and maintain an OT asset inventory and device/IP register for connected production assets.
Configure and troubleshoot industrial communications and isolate addressing, port, cabling, switch, bandwidth, duplicate-device, time-synchronization, and communications faults.
Coordinate IT/OT boundary requirements, including approved architecture, segmentation, firewall rules, secure vendor access, accounts, patch and firmware planning, endpoint protection, logging, monitoring, and incident response.
Develop backup, restore, disaster-recovery, and configuration-management practices for SCADA and OT assets and periodically verify recoverability.
Plan cutovers and migrations with documented prerequisites, tests, communications, rollback points, production contingencies, post-startup monitoring, and turnover documentation.
Develop OT and SCADA standards for naming, addressing, switch configuration, network drawings, cabinet design, remote connectivity, alarms, historian tags, programming changes, and future expansion.
Partner with cybersecurity and IT resources to assess vulnerabilities and operational risk while protecting process safety, availability, vendor support, and validated functionality.
Partner with electricians, mechanics, planners, and production personnel to troubleshoot breakdowns, analyze failures, and restore equipment safely and efficiently.
Lead or support root-cause investigations for recurring electrical, controls, communications, network, and process-equipment failures and verify corrective-action effectiveness.
Improve preventive and predictive maintenance tasks for electrical assets, controls hardware, motors, drives, panels, field devices, SCADA components, servers, and network infrastructure.
Review CMMS history, downtime data, alarms, work orders, historian trends, network events, and spare-parts usage to identify reliability opportunities.
Develop critical-spare recommendations and lifecycle plans for obsolete or unsupported electrical, controls, SCADA, and OT equipment.
Provide technical escalation support during significant equipment events and support planned shutdown, weekend, or on-call needs.
Develop project scopes, alternatives, estimates, schedules, risk assessments, and technical justifications for capital and expense projects.
Lead or support upgrades from concept through startup, including design reviews, procurement, acceptance testing, commissioning, punch-list closure, and turnover.
Coordinate multidisciplinary work involving mechanical systems, process requirements, electrical installation, controls integration, OT networking, SCADA, utilities, cybersecurity, and production constraints.
Ensure projects include guarding, interlocks, alarms, maintainability, safe access, energy isolation, network and cybersecurity requirements, and required documentation.
Monitor project cost and schedule and review technical quotations, purchase requisitions, change orders, invoices, and contractor deliverables.
Integrate safety through hazard review, risk assessment, management of change, pre-startup review, safe-work planning, and safeguard verification.
Follow and reinforce lockout/tagout, electrical safe-work practices, arc-flash requirements, energized-work restrictions, PPE requirements, and machine-startup procedures.
Escalate conditions affecting safety functions, interlocks, protective devices, environmental controls, process control, SCADA visibility, or OT security; avoid leaving undocumented bypasses or temporary network equipment in service.
Support incident investigations, cause mapping, corrective actions, audits, cybersecurity response activities, and closure of findings.
Ensure contractor and integrator work is properly scoped, authorized, coordinated, monitored, documented, and completed to site standards.
Create and maintain electrical drawings, loop diagrams, OT network drawings, device/IP registers, asset inventories, revision records, equipment files, and as-built documentation.
Apply document control so field systems, drawings, code, configurations, network records, and backup repositories remain aligned.
Develop troubleshooting guides, procedures, standards, job plans, recovery instructions, and training materials.
Coach technicians in systematic troubleshooting, PLC/HMI navigation, drive diagnostics, electrical drawings, SCADA navigation, basic industrial-network diagnostics, controls documentation, and safe work practices.
Communicate technical and cybersecurity risks, options, recommendations, and project status to technical and nontechnical stakeholders.
Participate in reliability, capital-planning, manufacturing-systems, SCADA, and OT roadmap activities.
Perform other duties as assigned by the department manager.