Sr. Engineer, Controls and Automation

MCA • Chesapeake, VA

3d

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, support secure and maintainable OT infrastructure, implement and sustain the plant SCADA platform, improve equipment availability, and keep electrical, controls, and OT systems 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. The engineer supports industrial electrical and control systems; serves as the plant engineering lead and long-term technical owner for OT infrastructure supporting SCADA; leads or supports reliability investigations, projects, installations, and commissioning; and coordinates safety, risk, compliance, documentation, standards, and team capability activities.

The role requires a bachelor's degree in a relevant engineering or technology field and at least five years of progressively responsible industrial or manufacturing experience. The listed salary is $120,000, subject to factors including scope, experience, education, skills, internal equity, market and business considerations, and possible geographic adjustment.

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 proficiency, including 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.
• Experience with AutoCAD or comparable drafting software 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, program, configure, troubleshoot, 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.
• Support legacy control systems and develop migration and obsolescence plans; maintain validated backups and control access and changes to PLC, HMI, drive, SCADA, server, and network-device configurations.
• Develop and maintain OT network architecture, including managed switches, fiber and copper backbone requirements, network cabinets, UPS needs, addressing conventions, VLANs, segmentation, 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.
• Maintain an OT asset inventory and device/IP register; configure and troubleshoot industrial communications and isolate network and communications faults.
• Coordinate IT/OT boundary requirements, including architecture, segmentation, firewall rules, secure vendor access, accounts, patch and firmware planning, endpoint protection, logging, monitoring, and incident response.
• Develop and maintain backup, restore, disaster-recovery, configuration-management, migration, cutover, and OT/SCADA standards; periodically verify recoverability.
• Partner with maintenance and production personnel to troubleshoot breakdowns, restore equipment safely, investigate recurring failures, verify corrective actions, and improve preventive and predictive maintenance.
• 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.
• 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; lead or support upgrades from concept through startup, commissioning, and turnover.
• Coordinate multidisciplinary project work and review technical quotations, purchase requisitions, change orders, invoices, contractor deliverables, project cost, and schedule.
• Integrate safety through hazard reviews, risk assessments, management of change, pre-startup reviews, safe-work planning, and safeguard verification; reinforce applicable safe-work practices and escalate safety, environmental, process-control, or OT-security concerns.
• Support incident investigations, corrective actions, audits, cybersecurity response activities, and closure of findings; ensure contractor and integrator work is 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, backups, and as-built documentation.
• Develop troubleshooting guides, procedures, standards, job plans, recovery instructions, and training materials; coach technicians in troubleshooting, PLC/HMI navigation, drive diagnostics, drawings, SCADA, industrial-network diagnostics, documentation, and safe work practices.
• Communicate technical and cybersecurity risks, options, recommendations, and project status to stakeholders; participate in reliability, capital-planning, manufacturing-systems, SCADA, and OT roadmap activities.
• Perform other duties as assigned by the department manager.

What This Job Offers

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