Description
Base Salary Range: $150K - $180K Reports to – VP of Engineering
Annual Bonus: Yes Direct Reports – Controls Engineers
Remote: No Status – Exempt
Company Website: www.schneiderequip.com
ABOUT SCHNEIDER
At Schneider Packaging Equipment Company, Inc. (“Schneider”), we believe innovation starts with the consumer. This approach has propelled our success in developing real-world solutions that allow us to automate the supply of life’s products. With over 50 years of industry problem-solving in end-of-line automation, Schneider is a leading manufacturer of case packing and robotic palletizing solutions. Headquartered in Upstate New York, we design state-of-the-art machinery for customers in industries such as: food and beverage, dairy, pharmaceutical, personal care, plastics, and paper.
Schneider is now a part of the Pacteon family of companies. Our continued growth has allowed us to really be our Customer’s one source for end of line packaging solutions.
ABOUT PACTEON
Pacteon Group provides one source for best-in-class automation focused on end of line packaging solutions, providing the highest-level customer experience. Through a broad range of robotic and non-robotic equipment, ability to integrate solutions seamlessly across portfolio companies, and full sales and service coverage, Pacteon is uniquely positioned to design flexible and custom solutions for your automation needs. For more information on Pacteon, please visit www.pacteon.com .
OUR CORE VALUES
We believe and live our Core Values, our IPACT:
Integrity
Pride
Accountability
Customer Service
Teamwork
Our Pacteon Promise is “We make it right”. As our customer’s one source for end-of-line packaging solutions, everyone plays an important role to make that happen. We provide internal growth paths for our employees and support them in their professional development goals. Diversity is important to us; we are proudly an Equal Opportunity Employer striving for innovation and growth both for our employees and our Company.
SUMMARY AND PURPOSE
The Senior Controls Engineering Director provides strategic leadership, operational oversight, and technical governance for the entire controls and automation engineering department. This role transitions from executing individual projects to scaling engineering capabilities, standardizing global design practices, and aligning automation technologies with overarching business growth strategies.
KEY RESPONSIBILITIES
Strategic Leadership & Governance
- Define global standards: Establish, enforce, and evolve company-wide controls engineering design standards and safety practices.
- Technology roadmap: Identify, lead development, and integrate emerging automation technologies, robotics advancements, and industry 4.0 trends.
- Operational excellence: Continuously refine engineering processes to maximize production velocity, reduce defects, and streamline costs.
- Budget ownership: Manage Research and Development, capital expenditure, and operational expenditure (R&D/CapEx/OpEx) budgets for the controls engineering department.
Departmental & Project Oversight
- Portfolio management: Monitor engineering execution across all simultaneous projects to guarantee scope, timeline, and margin compliance.
- Resource allocation: Optimize workforce planning, assigning engineering talent effectively across concurrent machine builds and R&D efforts.
- Escalation authority: Serve as the final technical arbiter for complex engineering challenges, field failures, and design deadlocks.
- Talent cultivation: Build engineering capabilities through structured mentorship, continuous education programs, and performance management.
Cross-Functional Integration & Commercial Support
- Sales enablement: Partner with Applications Engineering to review high-risk pricing models, concepts, and technical proposals.
- Manufacturing alignment: Streamline workflows between applications, design engineering, electrical assembly, shop-floor commissioning, and final factory acceptance.
- Executive collaboration: Align engineering capabilities with corporate business strategies, product management, and supply chain operations.
- Key account management: Act as the senior technical representative during high-stakes customer consultations and critical site escalations.
Field Operations & Travel
- Global commissioning strategy: Oversee the site-acceptance testing (SAT) framework to ensure flawless customer handovers.
- Strategic field deployment: Travel to customer sites, trade shows, or vendors (approx. 15-20%) for high-level executive reviews or critical system resolutions.
- Compliance maintenance: Maintain a valid passport and enhanced driver’s license for frictionless international travel.
Requirements
PROFESSIONAL QUALIFICATIONS
- Education & Experience:
- BS in electrical engineering, automation engineering, or equivalent technical field.
- 10+ years of engineering experience within a design-build capital equipment manufacturing environment as a controls or electrical engineer.
- 5+ years of direct people management experience leading multi-disciplinary engineering teams.
- Project management experience preferred
- Core Skills & Competencies:
- Executive acumen: Proven track record scaling engineering departments, managing budgets, and executing corporate strategy.
- Project governance: Advanced understanding of Project Management Professional (PMP) principles or complex lifecycle management (PLM) systems.
- Technical mastery: Deep legacy knowledge of industrial automation architectures, advanced robot simulation, PLCs, HMIs, and SCADA systems.
- Experience with Rockwell Allen Bradley PLC and HMI platforms (Optix/Studio/ RSLogix5000, FactoryTalk View Studio) to program and control industrial machinery or processes.
- Experience with Fanuc robotics platform.
- Experience selecting and designing hardware to control and monitor industrial machinery and/or industrial processes
- Experience with integration into WES, MES platforms a plus.
- Experience with integration into track and trace systems a plus.
- Experience with industrial vision programming (i.e. Cognex/Keyance) a plus.
- Relevant codes such as NFPA 79, NFPA 70, and CE a plus.
- Ability to interpret and to generate electrical and pneumatic schematics in ACADE or equivalent
- Microsoft platform and relevant design and life cycle management software.
PHYSICAL REQUIREMENTS & WORK REQUIREMENTS
Physical Requirement Never Sometimes Frequently
Sitting X
Standing/Walking X
Lifting/Carrying Upto 10 lbs X
Lifting/Carrying Upto 30 lbs X
Pushing/Pulling X
Keyboarding X
Gross Manipulation X
Fine Manipulation X
Driving X
Stooping X
Speaking X
Hearing X
Near Visual Acuity X
Ability To Travel X
Skills Required
- BS in electrical engineering, automation engineering, or equivalent technical field
- 10+ years engineering experience in a design-build capital equipment manufacturing environment as a controls or electrical engineer
- 5+ years direct people management experience leading multi-disciplinary engineering teams
- Project management experience
- Proven experience scaling engineering departments, managing budgets, and executing corporate strategy
- Advanced understanding of PMP principles or complex lifecycle management (PLM) systems
- Deep knowledge of industrial automation architectures, advanced robot simulation, PLCs, HMIs, and SCADA systems
- Experience with Rockwell Allen-Bradley PLC and HMI platforms (RSLogix5000, FactoryTalk View Studio, Optix/Studio)
- Experience with Fanuc robotics platform
- Experience selecting and designing hardware to control and monitor industrial machinery and processes
- Experience with integration into WES and MES platforms
- Experience with integration into track and trace systems
- Experience with industrial vision programming (Cognex/Keyence)
- Familiarity with NFPA 79, NFPA 70, and CE standards
- Ability to interpret and generate electrical and pneumatic schematics in ACADE or equivalent
- Proficiency with Microsoft platform and relevant design and lifecycle management software
What We Do
Schneider Packaging Equipment Company, Inc. is an innovative end-of-line packaging machinery manufacturer and solutions provider to companies in the food, beverage, pharmaceutical, personal care, plastics, dairy, and paper industries. Our superior offerings include: cartoning, case packing, robotic palletizing, case sealing, automatic guided vehicles, material handling solutions, and completely integrated lines. Schneider is a Robotic Industries Association (RIA) Certified Robot Integrator. Schneider is also a Certified Servicing Integrator, Authorized System Integrator, Certified Vision Specialist, and Strategic Market Specialist for FANUC Robotics, and an authorized Rockwell Automation Machine Builder. Schneider is your one-stop end-of-line solution provider for products from the primary package to fully unitized loads ready for truck or warehouse. We are now part of Pacteon Group, making complete end-of-line system integration easier than ever. Pacteon is comprised of Schneider Packaging, ESS Technologies, and Phoenix Wrappers.
