Lead Automation Engineer

About the role

Our Frederick Manufacturing Center (FMC) creates life‑changing medicines for people around the world and has been recognized by the local community as a Top 50 Business in Frederick and awarded Frederick County’s “Best Place to Work”. This distinctive biologic manufacturing facility, with over 800 employees, makes a direct contribution to treating people with cancer, respiratory and autoimmune conditions across the globe. The Lead Automation Engineer provides technical leadership for automation engineering activities supporting capital projects, technology transfers, lifecycle management, continuous improvement, and small‑to‑medium control system upgrades at a biopharmaceutical manufacturing facility.

Responsibilities

• Serve as the automation technical lead for assigned capital projects, process improvements, technology transfers, equipment installations, and control system lifecycle initiatives.
• Develop, review, and approve automation concepts, system architectures, control narratives, functional specifications, software design specifications, instrument indexes, I/O assignments, network diagrams, alarm philosophies, and control strategies.
• Lead the design, configuration, programming, testing, commissioning, troubleshooting, and lifecycle management of Emerson DeltaV DCS applications, including control modules, equipment modules, phases, unit procedures, recipes, graphics, alarms, historian interfaces, batch functionality, and system infrastructure.
• Provide technical oversight for Rockwell PLC and FactoryTalk applications, including ControlLogix and CompactLogix platforms, FactoryTalk View, FactoryTalk Batch (where applicable), HMI applications, communication networks, safety systems, VFD interfaces, and packaged equipment integrations.
• Independently scope and execute control system changes such as recipe updates, sequence modifications, alarm changes, HMI enhancements, instrumentation changes, equipment integrations, software upgrades, reports, historian tags, network changes, and obsolescence replacements.
• Ensure effective integration among DeltaV, Rockwell PLCs, FactoryTalk applications, MES/electronic batch record systems, historians, building management systems, laboratory systems, enterprise applications, and third‑party equipment.
• Establish and maintain site automation standards for hardware, software, programming, graphics, alarm management, batch configuration, networking, cybersecurity, naming conventions, source‑code management, and system documentation.
• Evaluate system health, reliability, capacity, maintainability, cybersecurity, vendor support, and obsolescence; develop and implement lifecycle strategies, including upgrades, migrations, backups, disaster recovery, spares, and replacement plans.
• Lead automation engineering scope for capital projects from concept development and feasibility through design, procurement, construction, commissioning, qualification, operational handover, and closeout.
• Define automation scope, deliverables, resource requirements, schedules, cost estimates, risks, assumptions, interfaces, and execution strategies.
• Lead or participate in design reviews, including process automation, instrumentation, electrical, network, cybersecurity, data integrity, maintainability, operability, and safety reviews.
• Provide technical direction to system integrators, automation vendors, EPC contractors, equipment manufacturers, and commissioning organizations; review deliverables for technical quality, compliance, completeness, and alignment with site standards.
• Ensure that skids, process equipment, utilities, packaging systems, and