Senior Principal Engineer - Automation Engineering – Hybrid Manufacturing - Lilly Medicine Foundry

At Lilly, the work is demanding because patients are waiting. We unite caring with discovery to help make life better for people around the world, knowing that every decision, every detail, and every day matters. Headquartered in Indianapolis, Indiana, our over 50,000 employees around the globe take on complex challenges to discover and deliver life‑changing medicines, strengthen how health is understood and managed, and support the communities we serve.

This is hard, urgent, selfless work—but it’s work worth doing. If you’re driven by purpose and ready to bring your best to work that truly matters for patients, we invite you to join us.

Lilly recently announced a $4.5 billion investment to create the Lilly Medicine Foundry, a new center for advanced manufacturing and drug development. The first‑ever facility of its kind, combining research and manufacturing in a single location, the Medicine Foundry will allow Lilly to further develop innovative solutions to optimize manufacturing processes and increase capacity for clinical trial medicines, while also reducing costs and environmental impact.

The Senior Principal Engineer – Automation Engineering will work as a member of the Automation Engineering Department at Eli Lilly, Foundry. The engineer will provide automation support for one or more operating areas across site and/or for capital projects. Process Automation is core to delivering the right first‑time facility start‑up and continued support of ongoing manufacturing operations into the future.

The Senior Principal Engineer is also responsible for the productivity and mentorship of their peers with the purpose of ensuring that reliable and compliant control applications and systems are used in the manufacturing itionally, the Senior Principal Engineer is a key technical expert with partners to influence and implement within the process control organization and across functional disciplines to support the process control technical agenda, business plan priorities, and compliance objectives.

In the project delivery phase and startup phase of the project (startup expected 2026 to 2029), automation engineering roles will be fluid and dynamic as we endeavor to support the project delivery, build a new organization, develop and implement the necessary systems and business processes required to support GMP operations, and build the site culture. This will require significant collaboration, creativity and resilience as the site grows to a full‑scale GMP manufacturing through start‑up.

• Technical Leadership – Lead capital project execution, design, development, commissioning & qualification and support.
• Lead and oversee the work of Site Area leads and System Integrators.
• Lead/Participate in design reviews and DeltaV application software reviews, attend equipment and software FATs.
• Develop functional requirements and process control strategies for control systems in collaboration with Process Engineering.
• Translate technical concepts for executive audience and/or non‑technical stakeholders.
• Develop and implement the Automation Engineering Project Plan.
• Promote the use of Digital innovation and automation to enhance efficiency of team functions.
• Maintain validated state of the process control system application software.

• System level thinking and expertise working with multi‑disciplinary teams.
• Deep expertise working with DeltaV Distributed Control System, Rockwell Allen Bradley PLC and Batch Process Automation.
• Thorough understanding of 21
  
  CFR Part 11, GMP processes.
• Provide periodic status updates to Project Management.
• Lead/Participate in design reviews and Site system hardware reviews, attend equipment and FATs.
• Promote the use of Digital Innovation and automation to improve productivity, operational efficiency and compliance.
• Experience in clinical‑stage manufacturing with flexible, multi‑product capabilities is preferred.
• Thorough understanding of various process control communication protocols.
• Developing a ‘network’ of corporate contacts and leveraging corporate expertise when needed.
• Provide on‑call support for operations, as needed.

• Ment…