Senior Automation & Controls Engineer - Dairy & Ignition SCADA

Cayuga Milk Ingredients, LLC; City of Auburn (NY); On-site; USD 120,000 - 160,000; Full time

Job summary

Cayuga Milk Ingredients, LLC is seeking an Automation and Controls Engineer to own the process control systems for its dairy plants and to lead the move to a data-driven operation built on Ignition. You’ll tune loops, write sequences, and commission systems on a running line, including nights and on-call rotations.

This senior role requires hands-on experience with PLCs, SCADA, and MES tools, plus a track record of sustaining production and improving control performance in a regulated

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree or equivalent hands-on experience in Electrical/Controls/Mechatronics/Computer Engineering
• Ignition Gold certification preferred (Core at minimum, within 6 months)
• PE/CAP, ISA/IEC 62443 training, and NFPA 70E awareness are a plus
• 7+ years of hands-on process controls and automation in a manufacturing plant (dairy/food/pharma)

Responsibilities

• Own the control systems for continuous and batch dairy processes
• Design, program, and tune control loops (PID, cascade, ratio, feed-forward)
• Write and maintain ISA-88 batch logic
• Own instrument and valve specification, calibration, and loop checks
• Set and enforce controls standards: templates, tagging, alarm management, backups
• Senior escalation point for line stoppages, alarms, and equipment faults
• Lead root cause analyses on recurring downtime and implement permanent fixes
• Lead Ignition SCADA: gateway, alarming, historian, and migration from legacy HMIs
• Deliver MES functions in Ignition: OEE, downtime tracking, batch genealogy
• Integrate plant data with Dynamics 365 BC, LIMS, CMMS, and Power BI
• Support FSMA, SQF compliance with auditable process data
• Apply OT cybersecurity per ISA/IEC 62443 with network segmentation and patching
• Lead controls scope on capital projects: specs, I/O lists, FAT/SAT, commissioning
• Mentor controls engineers and technicians and train maintenance/operators

Skills

Rockwell ControlLogix/CompactLogix

Ladder logic

Structured text

Function block

Studio 5000

Process instrumentation

Flow control

Industrial networking

EtherNet/IP

Modbus TCP

OPC UA

SQL

Python scripting

ISA-88/ISA-95

Unified Namespace (MQTT/Sparkplug B)

Dairy equipment knowledge

Education

Bachelor’s degree in Electrical, Controls, Chemical, Mechatronics, or Computer Engineering; Equivalent hands-on experience

Ignition Gold certification preferred (Core at minimum)

PE or Certified Automation Professional (CAP); ISA/IEC 62443 training; NFPA 70E awareness

7+ years of hands-on process controls and automation in a manufacturing plant (dairy/food/pharma)

Tools

Ignition

FactoryTalk View

MQTT/Sparkplug B

OPC UA

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central

Power BI

Job description

Cayuga Milk Ingredients, LLC is seeking an Automation and Controls Engineer to own the process control systems for its dairy plants and to lead the move to a data-driven operation built on Ignition. You’ll tune loops, write sequences, and commission systems on a running line, including nights and on-call rotations.

This senior role requires hands-on experience with PLCs, SCADA, and MES tools, plus a track record of sustaining production and improving control performance in a regulated