Automation Controls Engineer II - PLCs & Manufacturing

BLUE ORIGIN; United States; Remote; USD 125,000 - 173,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Medical, dental, vision insurance

401(k) with company match

Stock options

Paid time off

Job summary

Blue Origin is seeking an Automation Controls Engineer to join its Factory Automation team. You will design, build, and deploy automated manufacturing controls across manufacturing units, spanning R&D through commissioning, applying first principles to solve complex automation challenges.

You will collaborate with applications engineers, develop control architectures, and support safety systems, PLC/HMI programming, and offline simulations to ensure robust, scalable production capabilities.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree or higher in Electrical, Mechanical, Mechatronics, Controls, or related engineering field
• Minimum 2 years of hands‑on experience developing or integrating industrial controls and automation systems, including PLC and HMI programming as core competencies
• Exposure to one or more industrial automation platforms such as robots, material handling systems (gantries, AGVs, conveyors), CNC machine integration, NDT, assembly, testing, or process tools (torque, welding, grinding, or similar) — breadth across all areas is not expected
• Demonstrated ability to interpret and review electrical and mechanical drawings
• Experience with industrial safety system design including functional safety devices, safety PLCs, and safety‑rated circuits
• Must be a U.S. citizen or national, U.S. permanent resident (current Green Card holder), or lawfully admitted into the U.S. as a refugee or granted asylum

Responsibilities

• Collaborate with applications engineers on conceptual automated manufacturing equipment, contributing controls architecture input from concept through detailed design
• Design and support control system architectures including network topology, I/O distribution, safety systems, and communication protocols
• Participate in the industrial controls and electrical design of bespoke automation systems
• Apply engineering first principles to analyze system behavior,identifyroot causes, and develop technically sound solutions to novel automation challenges
• Develop offline simulations of automated systems tovalidatecontrol logic, robot paths, cycle times, and system behavior prior to hardware availability
• Support and execute online debugging and commissioning of PLC, HMI, robot, and similar industrial controls programs
• Integrate auxiliary equipment, machines, and tools into unified control systems
• Work with panel fabricators and field installation teams; provide technical support during system integration and commissioning
• Support and lead factory and site acceptance testing, and contribute to the build, installation, commissioning, and start‑up of automated manufacturing systems
• Create controls documentation packages including sequence of operations, I/O lists, network diagrams, and program documentation

Skills

PLC programming

HMI programming

Industrial controls

Electrical drawings

Mechanical drawings

Safety systems

Functional safety

IEC 61131

ANSI B11

NFPA 79

RIA R15.06

PlantSimulate

ProcessSimulate

RobotStudio

KUKA.Sim

Cognex

AutoCAD Electrical

EPLAN

Education

Bachelor’s degree in Electrical/Mechanical/Mechatronics/Controls

Tools

Robotics platforms

Material handling systems

CNC integration

NDT tools

Torque tools

Welding tools

Grinding tools

Job description

Blue Origin is seeking an Automation Controls Engineer to join its Factory Automation team. You will design, build, and deploy automated manufacturing controls across manufacturing units, spanning R&D through commissioning, applying first principles to solve complex automation challenges.

You will collaborate with applications engineers, develop control architectures, and support safety systems, PLC/HMI programming, and offline simulations to ensure robust, scalable production capabilities.