Automation and Controls Manager, Batch Chemical Manufacturing + New Plant Build-Outs | 3644200

Pave Talent; Piscataway Township (NJ); On-site; USD 180,000 - 280,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Generous performance-related annualBON

401(k) with company match

Employee stock purchase plan at a DIS

Medical, dental, vision, life and disa

Paid time off 25+ days + 9 holidays

Job summary

Pave Talent in the United States seeks an experienced Automation Engineering leader to establish plant-wide standards and guide an expanding automation program. You will integrate chemistry with controls, mentor a growing team, and own capital projects from scope to start-up, ensuring safe, scalable, and compliant operations.

The role requires deep hands-on experience across PLC/DCS, SCADA, HMI, instrumentation, and batch systems, blending process understanding with equipment design for scale.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's or Master's degree as specified with significant automation experience.
• 15+ years in process automation engineering or related field.
• 3+ years in a leadership or managerial role.
• Authorization to work in the United States without sponsorship.

Responsibilities

• Lead automation standards across the plant network and ensure consistency across sites.
• Own control philosophies focusing on operating windows, risks, cleaning, batch sequencing, and safety responses.
• Manage capital projects from scope through vendor coordination and commissioning.
• Scale-up from lab recipes to pilot and full production, partnering across R&D, process engineering, production, and EHS.
• Provide hands-on depth in PLC/DCS, SCADA, HMI, instrumentation, and alarm management.
• Mentor and grow a team, budgeting and coordinating automation workstreams end-to-end.

Skills

Leadership

Mentoring

Process control

Team collaboration

Communication

Education

Bachelor's degree in Automation Engineering or Electrical Engineering

Master's degree with 10+ years experience

Tools

OSI PI

SQL

Python

MES

LIMS

ERP

ISA-88

Batch systems

PLC/DCS

HMI/SCADA

Job description

Most automation manager roles are one of two things. Either you inherit a mature plant and keep it running, or you are the lone controls person on a startup line with no standards and no support.

This is both halves at once, which is rare. The function is established and global, with a long-tenured incumbent's body of work to build on, so you are not inventing from zero. And the plant network it governs is actively being built out right now, so the standards you set get applied to new factories as they come online instead of being filed away.

The materials involved go into AI datacenters, electric vehicles, high-power electronics, and advanced semiconductor packaging. The company is at the pilot-to-volume inflection on a first-to-market platform, with capacity investment already committed and customer qualification underway.

• You are as comfortable talking reaction chemistry with a process engineer as you are debugging batch logic in a controller.
• You want to set the standard, not apply someone else's. This seat defines what every site does.
• First-of-kind processes energize you, where the chemistry is still moving and the automation has to support experimentation before it can be locked down.
• Safety is instinct, not paperwork. You think in interlocks, LOPA studies, and abnormal-condition response.
• You want a team and a budget, and you still want to get into the code.
• This is not the role for a pure systems integrator, a panel-shop programmer, or someone who wants to advise rather than build. If you would rather not work around industrial chemicals, this is not your role either.
• The full controls stack: PLCs, HMIs, SCADA, DCS, instrumentation, control panels, historians, alarms, interlocks, and batch systems, for new processes and existing ones.
• The automation standards themselves, written once and applied across the plant network.
• Control philosophies grounded in real process chemistry: operating windows, reaction risks, cleaning requirements, batch sequencing, and abnormal-condition response.
• Process and functional safety, including LOPA and SIL verification and safety-instrumented function design.
• Automation workstreams on capital projects end to end, including scope, budget, schedule, and vendor coordination.
• Scale-up from lab recipe through pilot to full production automation, partnering with R and D, process engineering, production, and EHS.
• Commissioning: FAT, SAT, start-up, and on-site commissioning, plus root cause analysis using process data and first-principles troubleshooting.
• A team you will mentor and grow.
• Industrial networking: EtherNet/IP, PROFINET, Modbus
• Batch: ISA-88 recipes, phases, equipment and control modules
• Data: OSI PI, SQL, Python, with integration into MES, LIMS, and ERP
• Advanced control: MPC, cascade control, SPC, and applied AI/ML for anomaly detection and batch-to-batch consistency
• A bachelor's degree in Automation Engineering or Electrical Engineering with 15 or more years in process automation engineering, or a master's degree with a minimum of 10 years.
• At least 3 years in a leadership or managerial role.
• Hands-on depth across PLC/DCS, SCADA, HMI development, instrumentation, batch control, industrial networking, safety interlocks, and alarm management.
• Real time in a chemical, process, or industrial manufacturing environment.
• Experience supporting capital projects and managing technical interfaces.
• Authorization to work in the United States without sponsorship, now or in the future.
• A degree or a strong demonstrated background in Chemical Engineering, Process Control, or Process Systems Engineering. This is the real differentiator on this search. Plenty of strong automation leaders can run the controls stack. Far fewer can also read the chemistry, size the equipment, and judge what a process will actually do at scale. Candidates who bridge automation, chemical process understanding, and equipment design go to the top of the list.

• Generous performance-related annual bonus plan
• 401(k) with company match plus an additional company contribution on top of the match
• Employee stock purchase plan at a discount
• Medical, dental, vision, and company-paid life and disability coverage
• Paid time off starting at 25 days, growing with tenure, plus 9 holidays
• Full time, on site

Pave Talent and our client are equal opportunity employers. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, age, disability, genetic information, protected veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by applicable law.