Principal Automation Engineer, Material Handling & Warehouse Automation (JDAS)

About the role

The Principal Automation Engineer, Material Handling & Warehouse Automation, Regional supports material flow to and from production through scalable warehouse and intralogistics solutions. This role works closely with site teams, third-party suppliers, and cross-functional stakeholders to ensure successful implementation and sustainment.

Responsibilities

• Drive execution of material handling and warehouse automation initiatives across multiple North America EMS sites.
• Support sites in prioritizing opportunities, structuring work, managing execution, and stabilizing deployed systems.
• Ensure implementation aligns with regional expectations, standards, and scalable approaches.
• Support site teams in aligning warehouse and material flow strategies with new product requirements.
• Evaluate the impact of new products on material flow, storage, staging, line-side delivery, and outbound processes.
• Ensure warehouse and material handling processes are ready to support production needs during product launch.
• Guide and support deployment of new automation systems, including:
• Requirements alignment
• Supplier engagement
• Technical evaluation
• Quotation and proposal review
• Installation
• Ramp
• Validation and handoff
• Work closely with site warehouse teams, facilities, industrial engineering, manufacturing engineering, and General Automation engineers to reinforce that warehouse automation is not separate from manufacturing execution and must integrate cleanly into production material flow.
• Provide training and guidance on warehouse and material handling automation concepts, supplier engagement and technical reviews, structured execution disciplines, troubleshooting approaches, standard methods, and lessons learned.
• Drive improvement initiatives related to material flow efficiency, labor reduction, throughput improvement, delivery performance, storage optimization, system reliability, and operational scalability.

Qualifications

• Strong experience in material handling, warehouse automation, and intralogistics systems.
• Strong understanding of warehouse operations and terminology, material flow in manufacturing environments, AMR/AGV/FMR systems, storage systems such as ASRS, VLM, and rack systems, and warehouse software interfaces such as WMS and fleet management systems.
• Ability to translate operational needs into practical technical solutions, work effectively with third-party integrators and suppliers, guide cross-functional execution across warehouse, IE, facilities, and manufacturing teams, and communicate clearly with site teams, customers, suppliers, and leadership.
• Strong project execution capability and program leadership discipline, strong troubleshooting capability and continuous improvement mindset, and working understanding of manufacturing automation environments and production system interfaces.
• Demonstrated experience driving automation deployment or multi-site implementations, supporting startup, ramp, troubleshooting, and sustainment, working across cross-functional technical and operational teams, and leading execution without relying on formal direct ownership of every task.

Additional Role Expectations

• Support regional execution priorities, standard methods, and scalable deployment approaches.
• Follow the Global Automation Process for New Automation Asset Delivery, including requirements definition and alignments, supplier engagement, deployment and startup support, validation and handoff discipline.
• Support New Product Introduction (NPI) and New Automation Asset Introduction, continuous improvement and sustainment.
• Work closely with the General Automation team to ensure warehouse and material handling solutions integrate effectively into production operations.
• Operate in a multi-site, matrixed environment with strong collaboration across technical and operational functions.