Process Control Specialist (Water)

City of St. Louis

St. Louis (MO)

On-site

USD 70,000 - 100,000

Full time

46 hours ago

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Job summary

City of St. Louis is seeking a Process Control Specialist (Water) to oversee SCADA, PLC, and IT/OT security for drinking water facilities. The role supports 24/7 operations, collaborates with engineering and field teams, and ensures regulatory compliance and system reliability.

Responsibilities include maintaining control narratives, configuring networks, and participating in on-call incident response. A bachelor’s or equivalent in engineering/computer science is required, with experience in

Qualifications

Bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering, Computer Science, or a closely related field; plus two years of PLC programming experience.
Associate's degree in Electrical Engineering, Computer Science, or a closely related field; plus four years of PLC programming experience.
Equivalent combination of education, training and experience.

Responsibilities

Configure, maintain, and troubleshoot SCADA systems for drinking water facilities.
Develop and modify PLC/RTU logic to support treatment processes.
Manage SCADA IT/OT network security and backups; support FAT/SAT and field verification.
Coordinate with operators, engineers, and vendors for system upgrades and troubleshooting.

Skills

SCADA

PLC programming

OT cybersecurity

Regulatory compliance

On-call support

Education

Bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering or Computer Science

Associate's degree in Electrical Engineering or related field

Tools

iFIX

VMware/Hyper-V

Job description

Job Description - Process Control Specialist (Water) (260000NE)

Job Description

Process Control Specialist (Water) - (260000NE)

Description

Position Grade: 210G

Department: Water Division

Job Type: Full-Time (Permanent)

Examination Number: EX1790

Location: Water Division - St. Louis, MO

The SCADA Process Control Specialist – Drinking Water Systems is responsible for the administration, maintenance, and optimization of Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA), process control, and supporting IT/OT infrastructure for drinking water treatment, storage, and distribution facilities. This role supports 24/7 mission-critical operations and serves as a technical authority for control systems, industrial networking, and cybersecurity within a dedicated SCADA network environment. The position works closely with water treatment operations, engineering, and management to ensure regulatory compliance, system reliability, and safe delivery of potable water. Participation in on-call support and emergency response activities is required.

Essential Functions and Responsibilities

SCADA, Control Systems, and Treatment Process Support

Configure, maintain, and troubleshoot SCADA systems supporting drinking water treatment plants, booster stations, reservoirs, and distribution assets.
Develop, modify, and maintain PLC and RTU logic to support treatment processes including coagulation, filtration, disinfection, chemical feed, pumping, and storage operations.
Design and maintain HMI graphics, alarm management strategies, and trending to support operator situational awareness and regulatory monitoring.
Monitor system health, diagnose operational or control system issues, and coordinate corrective actions to minimize service disruptions.
Support commissioning, testing, and acceptance of new or upgraded treatment facilities and control systems.

Process Control, Automation, and Optimization

Collaborate with operations and engineering staff to evaluate treatment processes and implement automation improvements that enhance reliability, water quality, and energy efficiency.
Perform control strategy validation, factory and site acceptance testing (FAT/SAT), and field verification.
Maintain accurate documentation including control narratives, P&IDs, I/O lists, alarm rationalization records, and system configurations.

SCADA Network, IT Systems, and Infrastructure

Administer and support the dedicated SCADA/OT network, including servers, virtual environments, workstations, network switches, firewalls, radios, and communications infrastructure.
Manage Windows- and Linux-based SCADA servers and clients, including system hardening, patching, backups, and recovery procedures.
Configure and maintain industrial and IT networking technologies, including VLANs, routing, VPNs, firewalls, and remote access solutions.
Support system integrations with historians, laboratory systems, asset management platforms, reporting tools, and limited enterprise interfaces while maintaining network segmentation.

Cybersecurity and Regulatory Compliance

Implement and maintain OT cybersecurity controls consistent with industry standards and guidance (e.g., NIST, ISA/IEC 62443, AWWA cybersecurity guidance).
Support compliance with federal and state drinking water regulations, including requirements related to monitoring, reporting, and system integrity.
Manage user access controls, account reviews, logging, backup validation, and vulnerability mitigation within the SCADA environment.
Participate in incident response, system recovery, and business continuity planning for SCADA and supporting IT systems.

Operational Support and Collaboration

Provide technical support and guidance to water treatment operators and maintenance staff.
Participate in an on-call rotation and respond to after-hours SCADA or network incidents as required.
Coordinate with vendors, integrators, and consultants on system design, upgrades, and troubleshooting.
Develop and maintain standard operating procedures (SOPs), policies, and training materials related to SCADA and IT/OT systems.

Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities

Work is performed in an office, control room, and water treatment facility environment.
May require travel to remote treatment and distribution sites.
Data Utilization: Requires the ability to perform mid-level data analysis including the ability to audit, deduce, assess, conclude and appraise. Requires discretion in determining and referencing such to established criteria to define consequences and develop alternatives.
Human Interaction: Requires the ability to persuade, convince, influence, train and monitor computer users, in favor of a desired outcome. Requires the ability to provide guidance, assistance and/or interpretation to others, such as instrument technicians, on how to apply policies, procedures and standards to specific situations.
Equipment, Machinery, Tools and Materials Use: Requires the ability to operate, calibrate, tune and synchronize, and perform complex rapid adjustment on equipment, machinery and tools such as computer terminals, electronic test equipment, fiber optic test equipment, programmable controllers, instrumentation, telephone, photocopier and/or related materials used in performing essential functions.
Verbal Aptitude: Requires the ability to utilize a variety of reference, descriptive and advisory data and information such as computer documentation, schematics, product specifications, equipment proposals, SCADA reports, maps, activity logs, time sheets, computer software and hardware manuals, instrumentation manuals, procedures and guidelines.
Mathematical Aptitude: Requires the ability to perform addition, subtraction, multiplication and division; calculate percentage, fractions and decimals; perform mathematical operations involving advanced algebra.
Functional Reasoning: Requires the ability to apply principles of rational systems. Ability to interpret instructions furnished in written, oral, diagrammatic or schedule form. Ability to exercise independent judgment to adopt or modify methods and standards to meet variations in assigned objective.
Situational Reasoning: Requires the ability to exercise the judgment, decisiveness and creativity required in situations involving the evaluation of information against sensory, judgmental and/or subjective criteria, as opposed to criteria that are clearly measurable or verifiable.
Environmental Factors: Tasks may risk exposure to adverse environmental conditions, such as machinery and electric currents.
Physical Requirements: Requires the ability to lift, push and pull computers, computer monitors and test racks weighing up to fifty (50) pounds. Requires the ability to stoop, crouch, balance, climb, bend and twist to check equipment and enter manholes.
Sensory Requirements: Requires the ability to recognize and identify degrees of similarities or differences between characteristics of colors to distinguish color-coded wires, shapes to clearly distinguish objects and trace wiring, sounds to hear warning alarms on equipment and odors to detect overheating equipment.

Qualifications

A Bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering, Computer Science, or a closely related field; plus two years of experience with Programmable Logic Controller (PLC) programming and instrumentation/controls related to networks, PLC and SCADA systems. OR an Associate's degree in Electrical Engineering, Computer Science, or a closely related field; plus four years of experience with PLC programming and instrumentation/controls related to networks, PLC and SCADA systems. OR an equivalent combination of education, training and experience.

Preferences

Experience with drinking water treatment processes and regulatory monitoring requirements.
Familiarity with major SCADA platforms used in water utilities (iFIX Preferred).
PLC programming experience (GE Preferred).
Experience managing virtualized environments (e.g., VMware, Hyper-V).
Knowledge of industrial wireless and long-haul communications (licensed/unlicensed radio, cellular).
OT/IT cybersecurity experience, including network segmentation and secure remote access.
Relevant certifications (e.g., ISA, CompTIA, Microsoft, Cisco, or cybersecurity-related certifications).

Scoring Components and Their Weights

Experience and Training: 100%

May be Subject to

Background Investigation: Pass/Fail

Medical Examination: Pass/Fail

Documentation of Academic Credentials must be Submitted Upon Request

When completing the Employment History and the Educational/Training History sections of the Employment Application, please be as thorough as possible when describing your education, training and experience relating to this position. Applicants will only receive credit for their experience, training and education as shown on the application. Resumes will not be accepted as a substitute to a fully completed application. Incomplete applications will not be considered.

City Residence Preference Points

To be eligible for veteran's preference points, the applicant must submit a copy of their DD 214 Certificate of Release or Discharge from Active Duty with the Employment Application or upon request. The Director of Personnel may, in their discretion, accept alternate documentation.

City residents who pass an examination for a position in the classified service and do not receive any other preference will receive a five (5) point preference on a scale of 100 points on the exam. An additional one (1) point shall be added to the passing score of City residents who receive any other preference on a scale of 100 points.

City residents must have resided in the City for at least one (1) year at the time of filing their application to be eligible for the preference points.

Accommodations

If assistance with the job application is necessary based on a physical impairment, mental impairment, or otherwise, they should reach out to the Office on the Disabled with contact information. This office will not disclose any information that an applicant or employee has a disability or has discussed possible accommodations without the applicant's or employee's prior consent.