Your Impact at LILA

Lila is seeking a Controls Engineer on our Sustaining Engineering team to support the reliability and lifecycle performance of automated scientific equipment across our lab operations environment. This role works on deployed automation systems, including integrated robotics, PLCs, SCADA, instrumentation, and connected equipment.

You will troubleshoot multi-disciplinary issues, maintain and improve controls infrastructure, and support upgrades that keep laboratory workflows running reliably. The work spans incident response, preventive maintenance, root cause analysis, vendor software integration, documentation, and system lifecycle management.

This is an execution-focused engineering role for someone who enjoys hands-on problem solving in complex lab automation environments. Success means improving uptime, reducing recurring faults, and helping automation systems become safer, more reliable, and easier to maintain over time.

What You'll Be Building

• Maintain and improve deployed PLC, SCADA, and robotics control systems.
• Troubleshoot incidents across controls, robotics, instrumentation, networking, and integrated equipment.
• Perform root cause analysis and implement fixes that reduce recurring faults.
• Update wrappers connecting third-party equipment and vendor software to controls systems.
• Sustain PLC-based safety systems for equipment, robotics, and conveyance workflows.
• Plan preventive maintenance, patching, backups, upgrades, and component lifecycle work.
• Keep P&IDs, wiring schematics, control narratives, and IO lists current.
• Track uptime, MTBF, MTTR, and recurring faults to guide reliability improvements.

What You'll Need to Succeed

• 2 to 5+ years supporting, maintaining, or troubleshooting automated control systems.
• Hands-on experience with PLCs, HMIs, SCADA, and related automation platforms.
• Experience with OT networking, including routing, security groups, VPNs, or similar systems.
• Experience using Git or equivalent version control for engineering artifacts.
• Ability to create and maintain engineering documents using AutoCAD, SolidWorks Electrical, or similar tools.
• Experience with robotics integration, structured text, or related automation programming.
• Strong troubleshooting skills across hardware, software, networking, and integrated equipment.

Bonus Points For

• Ignition experience or Ignition Gold Certification.
• Structured text, TwinCAT, Python, C++, or similar programming experience.
• Experience with OPC-UA, MQTT, REST APIs, or related communication protocols.
• Familiarity with safety classifications such as SIL or PL.
• Experience with reliability methods such as FMEA, CAPA, RCM, or preventive maintenance strategy.