Control Systems Engineer

Cleveland area or Chicago area, hybrid. Pittsburgh considered remote

$120,000 to $140,000 plus performance bonus

Full time, permanent, around 25% travel

If you have spent your career putting new drive systems into rolling mills, this is a chance to build the practice rather than join one.

An independent automation and control systems integrator is starting a metals drives capability from scratch. They do not have one today, and that is deliberate. The engineer who joins first leads the coordinated drive system design and commissioning work and has a team built around them as it grows.

The company has been independent since 1989, is employee owned, has around 900 engineers and has never had a layoff. Independent means no vendor allegiance: they pick the platform that suits the job rather than the one they are contracted to sell. Engineers tend to stay long term because the work is steady, the benefits are strong, and people are trusted to get on with their jobs.

What you'll do

You will own coordinated drive system work on steel and aluminum rolling lines: hot strip, cold rolling, tandem cold mills, pickling lines, galvanizing and coating lines, temper and reversing mills. Platform is open, AC and DC, TMEIC, ABB, Siemens SINAMICS, Nidec, Rockwell, Schneider, GE or Toshiba. You will lead design and commissioning, run startups, and work directly with customer engineering and operations teams at the mill. Between drives projects there is PLC and DCS work. Over time you will mentor the engineers who join behind you.

What you'll need

Real coordinated drives experience on steel or aluminum processes, done more than once, replacing old systems with new. Hot strip or cold rolling matters most. Tension and gauge control understanding. Enough PLC or DCS capability to be useful when there is no drives project running. Around 7 to 20 years, and a BS in Electrical Engineering is preferred though a strong project history can stand in its place. You do not need to tick every box, and you do not need to have used every platform on that list.

Why this role is worth considering

Most drives groups in this industry are old, flat and full of people who have been there twenty years. If you are technically strong and there is nowhere above you, this is the alternative: the same work, on the same lines, with the standards and the direction in your hands instead of someone else's. There is live project work with large metals clients waiting, so it is not a bench role.

Reasons engineers join include:

• Building a capability rather than maintaining one
• Independence from any single drives vendor
• Performance bonus, travel incentives and per diem
• Medical, dental and vision cover
• 401(k) with company match
• Generous PTO
• Training and professional development

The working setup

Hybrid, based out of an office in the Cleveland area or the Chicago area, in when the work needs you there. If you are in the Pittsburgh area they will consider you as a remote employee, with periodic time in Cleveland working alongside the engineering team. Around 25% travel, taken in blocks rather than spread thin: a typical shape is several months configuring the system in the office, then a few weeks on site installing it. Travel is mostly regional.

The kind of person who will do well

Someone comfortable with an unfinished job. No team underneath you on day one, no standards document waiting, no playbook. If you want a defined scope to slot into, this will frustrate you. If you have looked at how your current employer runs mill projects and thought you would do it differently, this is where you get to.

Sponsorship is not available for this position.