Staff Controls & Automation Engineer

Lydian • Boston, MA

1d

About The Position

Lydian is hiring for a Staff Controls & Automation Engineer that will design, build, and own a state-of-the-art controls architecture for our novel chemical process. You will begin with designing and implementing a sophisticated, operator-friendly control system on our pilot plant, but your ultimate goal is to enable an automated, remote operation of our plants at every scale. You are intimately familiar with classical control and automation equipment but also possess the skills and experience to push beyond PLCs and integrate advanced control techniques into a robust and maintainable control system.

Requirements

• Bachelor's Degree with 10+ years of experience designing and owning automation systems for continuous chemical or energy processes
• Strong foundation in control theory, process dynamics, multivariable interactions, and constraint management
• Practical experience with state estimation and inferential sensing
• Hands-on deployment of MPC or other model-based controllers on real industrial systems
• Expertise with PLC platforms and SCADA/HMI systems
• Deep experience with interlocks, permissives, safety logic, shutdowns, and high-temperature/high-pressure/flammable gas systems
• Ability to make advanced control practical and easy to understand
• Experience with thermochemical systems, especially catalytic systems
• Experience integrating advanced control with DCS platforms (DeltaV, PCS7, Honeywell Experion, Yokogawa Centum)
• Familiarity with Python or similar tools for prototyping estimation and control algorithms.
• Experience in FOAK hardware or fast-moving industrial startup environments where flexibility and autonomy are required

Responsibilities

• Architect the full control stack for pilot → demo → commercial plants, including PLCs, safety PLCs, SCADA/HMI, historian, networking, alarm philosophy, and mode/state logic
• Define a clear hierarchy linking base control, supervisory control, and advanced control (state estimation, MPC)
• Develop structured, modular control logic in PLCs and safety PLCs, including reusable AOIs/function blocks for valves, heaters, compressors, and reactors
• Own interlocks, permissives, fail-safe behavior, alarm logic, and safety instrumented functions
• Implement robust state-based control, including state estimators to infer unmeasured internal process variables and stabilize noisy measurements
• Build inferential “soft sensors” for reactor states, product composition, and equipment health. Implement diagnostics and anomaly/fault detection
• Over time, validate and tune advanced controllers through simulation, staged deployment, and coordinated field commissioning
• Identify multivariable, constraint-heavy loops suitable for MPC or other model-based controllers and implement MPC in a suitable environment
• Work with external software vendors and other team members to build analysis and tuning tools to support R&D campaigns, long-term performance evaluation, and algorithm refinement
• Develop simulation or digital-twin models to safely prototype new control strategies
• Collaborate with process, mechanical, electrical, and operations teams to translate process requirements into robust, maintainable control logic
• Support commissioning, plant bring-up, troubleshooting, and continuous optimization
• Drive rigorous version control, documentation, and management-of-change practices

Benefits

• Competitive salary commensurate with experience
• Meaningful equity compensation
• Generous PTO and expectation that all employees take significant time off to rest, recharge, and enjoy life outside work
• Excellent health insurance with 100% of healthcare, vision and dental premiums covered
• 401(k) with company match

What This Job Offers

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