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Job Summary
Position Summary:
The Principal – Electrical & Controls / Automation Engineer is a senior individual contributor and technical subject matter expert responsible for providing enterprise-level technical leadership across electrical, controls, industrial networking, PLC, SCADA, and automation systems. This position serves as one of Engineering’s highest technical authorities for complex automation and electrical systems. The Principal Engineer is expected to personally solve the organization’s most difficult technical problems while establishing technical standards, mentoring engineering and technician resources, and improving the reliability, maintainability, and performance of automated manufacturing equipment.
Key Responsibilities:
Technical Leadership & Troubleshooting
- 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 between electrical systems, PLC logic, industrial networks, drives, motion systems, instrumentation, safety systems, SCADA, and equipment controls.
- Use a structured, data-driven troubleshooting methodology to identify root causes rather than relying on component replacement or trial-and-error troubleshooting.
- 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.
PLC & Controls Systems
- Serve as a senior technical resource for industrial electrical systems and machine-control hardware.
- 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.
Industrial Networking
- Serve as a technical authority for industrial networking and OT communications.
- Troubleshoot complex network and communication failures involving PLCs, SCADA systems, HMIs, drives, remote I/O, vision systems, instrumentation, servers, and manufacturing equipment.
- Demonstrate expert-level understanding of Ethernet/IP, industrial Ethernet, TCP/IP, VLANs, managed switches, network segmentation, routing fundamentals, addressing, communication diagnostics, and industrial network architecture.
- Work collaboratively with IT and cybersecurity teams to maintain secure, reliable connectivity between operational technology and enterprise systems.
SCADA, HMI & Manufacturing 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 development of 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.
Reliability & Root Cause Engineering
- 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.
Technical Mentorship
- Serve as a technical mentor to Controls Engineers, Electrical Engineers, Controls Technicians, Engineering Technicians, and other engineering resources.
- Develop the troubleshooting capabilities of plant engineering teams through structured coaching and hands-on problem solving.
- Transfer knowledge from complex troubleshooting events into documented 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.
Qualifications:
Education
- Bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering, Controls or Automation Engineering, Mechatronics, or mechanical Engineering with demonstrated competencies strongly preferred.
- Equivalent combination of education and extensive demonstrated industrial controls expertise may be considered.
Experience
- Minimum 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.
- Experience serving as a senior technical authority, Principal Engineer, Staff Engineer, Lead Engineer, or equivalent technical SME strongly preferred.
- Experience in high-volume, highly automated manufacturing environments such as medical device, electronics, pharmaceutical, automotive, packaging, or food & beverage manufacturing preferred.
Preferred Technical Experience:
Experience with the following is highly desirable:
- Rockwell, Siemens and Beckhoff controls platforms
- Industrial Ethernet and Ethernet/IP
- Industrial network architecture and troubleshooting
- Grafana and Power BI visualization platforms
- VMware or virtualized automation infrastructure
- Vision systems
- Robotics
- Advanced motion and servo systems
- Manufacturing historians and data acquisition (SQL and industrial data architecture)
- Machine safety circuits and safety PLC concepts
- Electrical troubleshooting, schematics and machine-control systems
- VFDs, motors, and motor-control systems
- Automation-system backup, recovery, and lifecycle management
- Integration of PLC/OT systems with higher-level manufacturing systems
Leadership Expectations:
The Principal Engineer is expected to demonstrate significant technical leadership and must be capable of entering a difficult manufacturing situation, rapidly understanding the system, bring technical resources together, establish a logical troubleshooting strategy, and drive the team toward root cause and permanent resolution.
The Principal Engineer should be recognized throughout the entire Engineering organization as a trusted technical authority—someone engineers and technicians seek out when conventional troubleshooting has failed.
Just as importantly, the Principal Engineer must develop the capabilities of others. The objective is not to become the person who fixes every problem, but to raise the technical capability of the entire Engineering organization while personally leading resolution of its most difficult problems.
What you'll receive for the great work you provide:
- Full range of medical, dental, and vision plans
- Life Insurance
- Short-term and Long-term Disability
- Matching 401(k) Contributions
- Vacation and Paid Sick Time
- Tuition Reimbursement
Application Deadline:
Applications for this job position will be accepted for at least five days following the job posting start date below and continuing until the end date below or until the position is filled. This posting may close sooner due to application volume.
Job Posting Start Date 10-15-2026 Job Posting End Date 12-20-2026
The base pay range for this position is provided below. The final base rate offered will be determined using job-related, non-discriminatory criteria, including but not limited to experience, qualifications, geographic location, education, external market data, and internal equity.
$99,900.00 USD - $137,400.00 USD Annual
Job Category
Production Engineering
Is Sponsorship Available?
No
Flex is an Equal Opportunity Employer and employment selection decisions are based on merit, qualifications, and abilities. We do not discriminate based on: age, race, religion, color, sex, national origin, marital status, sexual orientation, gender identity, veteran status, disability, pregnancy status, or any other status protected by law. We're happy to provide reasonable accommodations to those with a disability for assistance in the application process. Please email accessibility@flex.com and we'll discuss your specific situation and next steps (NOTE: this email does not accept or consider resumes or applications. This is only for disability assistance. To be considered for a position at Flex, you must complete the application process first).