AI - Automation Engineer

Essential Functions And Responsibilities

• Research, evaluate and analyze emerging technology trends and manufacturing methods to identify opportunities for innovation in IT and across the organization that drives improved productivity, cost reduction and/or enhanced product quality.
• Evaluate the potential of new tools, methodologies, and practices to improve operational efficiency and business outcomes.
• Lead innovation projects from concept to implementation.
• Collaborate with engineering, production, quality, and finance teams to identify process inefficiencies and develop innovative solutions.
• Support digital transformation initiatives such as automation, robotics, IoT integration, and data-driven manufacturing.
• Collaborate with cross-functional departments to generate and manage pipeline of innovation ideas.
• Scout vendors and recommend buy-vs-build paths.
• Develop and maintain documentation for innovation projects, prototypes, and intellectual property considerations.
• Build and maintain an IT innovation roadmap.
• Collaborate with internal stakeholders to understand business challenges and propose technology-driven solutions.
• Facilitate brainstorming sessions, workshops, and innovation labs to promote a culture of innovation.
• Collect and analyze data to measure the effectiveness of new technologies and solutions.
• Map current processes, baseline KPIs.
• Work closely with development, infrastructure, and security teams to ensure feasibility, compliance, and scalability of solutions.
• Prepare presentations, reports, and business cases to communicate findings and recommendations to leadership.
• Aid in change management and communication efforts to ensure adoption of new technologies.
• Maintain confidentiality and adhere to company compliance and IT security standards.

Minimum Experience And Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Information Technology, Computer Science, Business, or a related field (or equivalent experience).
• 5 plus years of experience in an innovation, IT transformation, or technology-focused role (internship or co-op experience acceptable).

Core Competencies

• Strong understanding of IT systems, digital tools, and project lifecycles.
• Exposure to data analysis, automation tools, or continuous improvement concepts is a plus.
• Familiarity with governance, privacy and security practices.
• Excellent communication, presentation, and stakeholder engagement skills.
• Manufacturing exposure; understanding of shop-floor adjacent processes and integrations (ERP/MES).
• Ability to critically evaluate technical designs, vendor proposals, and solution architectures to identify risks, gaps, feasibility issues, and unrealistic assumptions.
• Ability to translate business needs into clear technical concepts, high-level requirements, or prototype workflows.
• Comfort digging into technical details, diagnosing issues across applications, integrations, data flows, and automation platforms, and proposing pragmatic solutions.
• Strong analytical thinking with the ability to evaluate ROI, scalability, long-term maintainability, and operational impact of new technologies.
• Ability to objectively assess third-party work for quality, completeness, and alignment with IT standards and best practices.

Preferred Technical Skills

• Exposure to modern programming/scripting such as Python, C#/.NET, SQL, or similar for automation and integrations.
• Experience with AI/ML platforms.
• Experience with supporting or implementing Azure services and Microsoft Power Platform (Power Apps, Power Automate, Power BI, Dataverse).
• Familiarity with AI agent frameworks.
• Understanding of REST APIs, JSON structures.
• Experience with OCR, Intelligent Document Processing, or AI-assisted workflow automation.

Job Requirement

• Willingness to travel occasionally to manufacturing sites to provide on-site support. (10% - 20%).