Senior Automation and Integration Engineer

The Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) is a leading scientific and technology research organisation that researches, develops, localises and diffuses technologies to accelerate socio-economic prosperity in South Africa. The organisation's work contributes to industrial development and supports a capable state.

The CSIR has a vacancy for a Senior Automation and Integration Engineer in the Aerospace Systems Impact Area, within the Defence and Security cluster. The incumbent will be responsible to provide hardware and software engineering development, integration, support and management services to the Aerospace Engineering and Wind Tunnel (WT) Facilities Groups, from high‑level systems architecture to low‑level software and hardware design, development and testing.

This position is based in Pretoria and will report to the Research Group Leader.

For more info about the impact area or cluster, please visit  and  respectively.

• Conduct automation and integration activities applicable to the suite of wind tunnel facilities’ plant control systems, and wind tunnel facilities' test model support systems, with a strong focus on automation, control, and data acquisition activities;
• Responsible for hardware and software development and implementation (requirements definition, design, development, testing and integration) of wind tunnel facility plant control systems, testing environment control systems, wind tunnel test article positional control systems, and wind tunnel test article data acquisition systems;
• Plan and manage all software engineering (projects and tasks) within Aerospace Engineering and Wind Tunnel Facilities Groups using CSIR ERP systems;
• Resource planning and allocation;
• Lead the development of concept and technology demonstrators, derived from requirements;
• Generate documentation for the developed products and applications in terms of system engineering processes and project reports;
• Research the latest technical developments i.e. researching and proposing new software and hardware solutions for diverse application areas within the Wind Tunnel Facilities and Aerospace Engineering groups;
• Collaborate and network with tertiary academic institutions, user groups and forums, locally and internationally;
• Work in the wind tunnel environment as part of a wind tunnel testing team on wind tunnel systems;
• Provide software and hardware systems support and troubleshooting during Wind Tunnel test campaigns;
• Evaluate and analyse the software, hardware, and ICT systems currently in the Wind Tunnel Facilities, while identifying areas for modification, improvement and upgrades;
• Create and manage Wind Tunnel Facilities ICT roadmap;
• Provide coaching and mentoring to junior engineer/s and technologists.

• A Bachelor’s degree in electrical/electronic/computer/mechatronic engineering with at least five years’ experience in real time server and desktop operating system environments focusing in/on the following:
  • Development, automation, interfacing and control of electro‑mechanical systems;
  • Software architecture, object‑oriented software development and software systems engineering processes;
• Must have experience in the following:
  • Working with multidisciplinary teams;
  • Supervision of junior engineers and technologists;
  • UML and related software development and planning methodologies;
  • XML markup language and file format for storing, transmitting, and reconstructing data;
• The following training, knowledge and/or experience is required:
  • Embedded software development;
  • MATLAB;
  • Programming languages FORTRAN, C, C++, JAVA;
  • Network communications;
  • PLCs (Siemens and Allen‑Bradley) hardware and programming;
  • Data acquisition systems;
  • Ability to read and draw PLC Ladder Logic diagrams.

• Learning and development opportunities.
• Competitive and market-related remuneration packages.
• Total guaranteed salary packages which encompass contributions to the pension fund, risk insurance and medical scheme.
• We openly acknowledge and reward our employees' contributions and accomplishments through our…