Senior Controls Engineer,Innovation Job Doncaster area,England UK,Engineering

What You’ll Do - Create What’s Next

Find the opportunity. Work with customers and commercial, field, and engineering teams to uncover unmet needs and turn them into clear use cases and technical requirements.
Shape the concept. Create solutions that balance customer value with feasibility, safety, reliability, cost, manufacturability, serviceability, and scale.
Build and program prototypes. Design, integrate, and test controls using PLCs, HMIs, motion, vision, sensors, drives, safety systems, and industrial networks.
Explore emerging technology. Assess new tools and platforms for technical fit, risk, and business value.
Prove what works. Create test plans, run structured experiments, analyse results, and make evidence-led recommendations to advance, refine, redirect, or stop a concept.

Engineer, Integrate & Deliver

Integrate complete systems. Connect primary machinery with third party equipment and optimise sequences, motion profiles, and cycle times.
Design safety in. Apply machine safety requirements and configure controllers, zones, guarding interfaces, light curtains, interlocks, and safety-rated monitored stops.
Take solutions from build to start-up. Support debug, validation, FAT, installation, SAT, commissioning, and optimisation.
Solve the hard problems. Troubleshoot complex issues, identify root causes, and implement robust fixes.

Turn Ideas into Scalable Products

Transfer technology. Partner with Product and Engineering Operations to convert successful concepts into reusable architectures, software modules, standards, and implementation guidance.
Support pilots and first installations. Demonstrate prototypes, support pilot builds and customer launches, and feed real world learning into future solutions.
Own your delivery. Plan controls activities, meet agreed requirements and schedules, and communicate progress, risks, and trade-offs clearly.

Collaborate & Raise the Standard

Connect teams. Work across Innovation, Product, Engineering Operations, Manufacturing, Project Management, Field Service, Applications, and Commercial teams to keep development focused on real customer and business value.
Engage externally. Collaborate with customers, suppliers, and technology partners to evaluate solutions and gather feedback.
Make knowledge usable. Keep programs, electrical documentation, configurations, test records, and backups accurate and under version control, then share learning across teams.
Keep improving. Strengthen development methods, testing practices, reusable content, and technology standards using lessons from prototypes, pilots, and field applications.

What Success Looks Like

You anchor innovation in a clear customer, market, or operational need.
You turn promising ideas into functional, testable prototypes.
You use evidence to decide what to advance, reshape, or stop.
You move winning concepts beyond proof of concept into products, platforms, standards, or reusable modules.
You build controls architectures and software that are safe, reliable, maintainable, and ready to reuse.
You surface technical issues early, solve them at root cause, and equip other teams to adopt and sustain the solution.

Requirements

You will work across engineering offices, laboratories, manufacturing and test areas, and customer sites.
You will work safely around moving machinery and industrial electrical systems, using required PPE.
Domestic and international travel of up to 25% is expected for projects, pilots, training, and customer support.
Occasional extended or non-standard hours may be needed during testing, start-up, field installation, or critical project deadlines.
A bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering, Electrical Engineering Technology, Computer Engineering, Mechatronics, Automation/Controls, or a related field—or an equivalent blend of technical education and experience.
5+ years designing, programming, integrating, testing, or commissioning industrial automation and controls.
Strong PLC and HMI development experience.
Hands-on experience with servo motion, VFDs, sensors, industrial networks, and machine-safety technologies.
The ability to read, create, and update electrical schematics, panel layouts, and bills of material using AutoCAD Electrical, EPLAN, or similar tools.
Experience supporting automated equipment through debug, FAT, installation, start-up, commissioning, and SAT.
A talent for translating customer challenges into technical requirements, experiments, and practical concepts.
Clear communication, sound judgement, and the…

Senior Controls Engineer, Innovation