Principal Controls Engineer

AM Batteries is seeking a Principal Controls Engineer to provide technical leadership in the architecture, development, and deployment of advanced automation and control systems for next-generation lithium-ion battery manufacturing equipment. This role will play a critical part in the industrialization and scale-up of AMB’s proprietary technologies and the development of robust, scalable, high-performance manufacturing platforms. AMB is a venture-backed startup moving this technology from R&D into commercial production.

The Principal Controls Engineer will serve as a company-level technical authority for controls and automation
, establishing system architecture, engineering standards, and technical direction across complex equipment and manufacturing platforms. This individual will work closely with mechanical engineering, process development, manufacturing, operations, and external equipment partners to ensure controls systems are designed for performance, reliability, scalability, and long-term maintainability.

This is a highly technical individual-contributor role requiring deep hands-on expertise combined with the ability to lead complex engineering initiatives, influence technical decisions across teams and mentor engineers. This role recommends and sets standards in controls architecture, platform and hardware selection, programming standards, and documentation approach.

Convert the heuristics operators and process engineers rely on today into defined, tested automation that scales, and free those people for the next technical problem.

Define and lead the overall controls and automation architecture for complex manufacturing equipment, pilot lines, and future production systems.

Establish and maintain AMB controls engineering standards, design practices, programming conventions to IEC 61131 practice, documentation requirements, and reusable architectures.

Lead the design, development, and optimization of advanced PLC-based automation and control systems.

Own the motion and drive architecture: servo sizing and tuning, multi-zone web tension control, line speed synchronization, and registration.

Architect and standardize SCADA systems supporting R&D, process development, equipment commissioning, and manufacturing operations.

Provide technical leadership for HMI architecture and development to ensure consistent, intuitive, and effective equipment operation and diagnostics.

Partner with mechanical, electrical, process, software, and manufacturing engineers to translate complex process requirements into scalable controls solutions.

Develop and implement advanced control strategies that improve equipment performance, process capability, reliability, uptime, and repeatability.

Size and specify the electrical package for each machine, including transformers, protection, grounding, and distribution, correct for the destination country's voltage, frequency, and code practice.

Compare competing brands of drives, actuators, sensors, safety devices, and data acquisition software through manufacturer and distributor channels on capability, lead time, lifecycle, and support. Build controls cost models and provide quote input.

Serve as the technical lead for controls integration with equipment manufacturers, system integrators, and other external engineering partners.

Review and provide technical direction on controls designs developed internally and by external vendors.

Lead controls strategy for system testing, validation, commissioning, startup, and production readiness of new equipment and manufacturing lines.

Lead machine and electrical safety: risk assessment, safety-rated control architecture, arc flash study and labeling, NFPA 79, NFPA 70E, UL 508A, and CE marking for equipment shipped outside the United States.

Diagnose and resolve highly complex controls, automation, and equipment integration issues.

Identify systemic technical risks and drive long-term solutions rather than short-term equipment fixes.

Define strategies for manufacturing data acquisition, equipment connectivity, SQL database integration, and controls-related data architecture.

Build secure remote access for diagnosing equipment at customer sites, and work with IT on OT network segmentation.

Utilize Python and similar programming languages to develop engineering tools, automate workflows, analyze equipment/process data, and accelerate troubleshooting.

Evaluate and introduce new controls, automation, sensing, data acquisition, and…