Lead Scada Engineer - Ignition

When you join the Sandalwood team, you'll join an engaging and inclusive group with a mission to help our customers identify, assess, and reduce work-related risks to quality, productivity, and employee health. In your day-to-day activities, you'll work with multiple customers as a consultant and trusted partner in Sandalwood's areas of expertise including Systems Integration, Industrial Digitalization, and Systems Engineering. You'll help customers innovate, solve operational challenges, and leverage Sandalwood's deep technical expertise to improve manufacturing operations. Sandalwood's people are its greatest asset. We are seeking a technically driven professional who is ready to expand beyond application development and become a leader in industrial software and systems integration. The Lead SCADA Engineer - Ignition serves as a senior project contributor and emerging technical leader within the organization. This position is responsible for designing, developing, and deploying Ignition-based solutions while providing technical guidance on project architecture, customer engagement, system infrastructure, and development standards. This role is intended to develop into a future senior technical leadership position and offers opportunities to gain experience in enterprise architecture, infrastructure administration, team mentoring, and strategic technology planning.

Customer and Project Leadership

• Work remotely and/or onsite with customers to gather, document, and validate project requirements.
• Lead technical discussions with customer engineering, operations, maintenance, and IT teams.
• Translate customer requirements into maintainable and scalable system designs.
• Participate in project planning, estimating, and technical proposal development.
• Serve as a technical lead on assigned projects.

Training and Mentorship

• Provide technical guidance to junior engineers and developers.
• Perform code reviews and design reviews.
• Contribute to internal documentation, standards development, and knowledge-sharing initiatives.
• Deliver customer training and implementation support as needed.

System Architecture

• Design scalable industrial software architectures for manufacturing environments.
• Develop data models that support operational, reporting, and analytics requirements.
• Support high-availability and disaster recovery strategies.
• Participate in software design reviews and establishment of engineering standards.

Infrastructure and Platform Support

• Assist in the administration and maintenance of internal and customer development environments.
• Support virtualized development and testing environments utilizing Hyper-V and VMware.
• Assist with server configuration, deployment, backup, system monitoring, and performance tuning.
• Work with source control systems and software deployment pipelines utilizing GitLab.
• Participate in the maintenance and continuous improvement of Sandalwood's development infrastructure and deployment processes.

Ignition Development and Integration

• Design, develop, and support industrial applications utilizing Ignition Perspective and Vision.
• Develop reusable application frameworks, scripting libraries, and development standards.
• Create database-driven applications using SQL and Ignition scripting.
• Configure OPC-UA connections, device integrations, historians, alarming systems, and reporting solutions.
• Integrate Ignition with ERP, quality systems, maintenance systems, and other enterprise applications.
• Develop and troubleshoot Python/Jython and JavaScript-based functionality.

Successful Candidates Will Demonstrate

• Strong technical problem-solving abilities and attention to detail.
• Ability to work independently while managing multiple project priorities.
• Excellent customer-facing communication and consulting skills.
• Strong understanding of manufacturing operations and industrial automation systems.
• Strong understanding of ISA-95, ISA-88, and industrial networking concepts.
• Desire to learn system architecture, infrastructure management, and technical leadership responsibilities.
• Ability to mentor team members and contribute to engineering best practices.
• Professionalism and accountability when leading customer projects.

Requirements

• Four or more years of hands-on Ignition development experience.
• Five or more years of industrial automation, SCADA, IIoT, or manufacturing systems experience.
• Experience developing applications using Ignition Perspective and/or Vision.
• Experience with Python/Jython scripting.
• Strong SQL development and database experience.
• Experience integrating PLCs and industrial devices using common industrial communication protocols.
• Experience performing system testing, troubleshooting, and commissioning activities.
• Experience working directly with manufacturing customers.

Preferred Experience

• Experience leading technical portions of customer projects.
• Experience designing enterprise-scale Ignition architectures.
• Experience with Microsoft SQL Server and PostgreSQL.
• Experience with Git-based source control systems, preferably GitLab.
• Experience supporting server infrastructure and virtualized environments.
• Experience with Hyper-V and/or VMware administration.
• Familiarity with industrial networking concepts and cybersecurity best practices.
• Exposure to cloud-based technologies and modern software deployment practices.
• Ignition Gold Certification or equivalent advanced certification.
• Experience with MQTT architecture and Unified Namespace (UNS) implementations.
• Practical experience applying ISA-95 and ISA-88 principles within manufacturing, MES, SCADA, or IIoT solutions.

Please note:

We are an equal opportunity employer and do not discriminate against any employee or applicant for employment status because of race, color, sex, age, national origin, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, status as a veteran, and basis of disability or any other federal, state, or local protected class. Sandalwood Engineering & Ergonomics participates in E-Verify and will provide the federal government with your I-9 information to confirm that your are authorized to work in the U.S. E-Verify is an internet-based system operated by the Homeland Security in partnership with the Social Security Administration. If a candidate is not a U.S. citizen, they must be able to become legally authorized for work in the United States. Sandalwood does not offer H-1B visa sponsorship. Verification of employment eligibility is required at time of hire. If you need a reasonable accommodation for the online application process due to a disability please call 734-744-9705. Please provide your contact information and details about the posted position of interest.

Benefits

• Health Care Plan (Medical, Dental & Vision)
• Retirement Plan (401k)
• Profit Sharing
• Life Insurance (Basic, Voluntary & AD&D)
• Paid Time Off (Vacation & Sick)
• Short Term & Long Term Disability
• Training & Development