Sr. Factory Automation Engineer

Location: Normandale, United States; onsite work in a cleanroom wafer fabrication environment. Travel up to 10%.

Base salary: $94,140–$134,625 per year, depending on work location, skills, experience, and education.

Company

hirify.global develops and manufactures data storage technology, with the Normandale campus focused on recording head development and manufacturing.

What you will do

• Own the performance, reliability, capacity, and lifecycle roadmap for autonomous mobile robots and wafer stockers.
• Evaluate, design, commission, qualify, and hand off new factory automation solutions.
• Define system requirements and integration strategies across automation equipment, manufacturing tools, control systems, industrial networks, and MES.
• Lead troubleshooting, root cause investigations, corrective actions, and data-driven improvements to material flow, uptime, throughput, and recovery time.
• Manage vendor technical deliverables, acceptance criteria, standards, documentation, maintenance, spare parts, training, and support.
• Collaborate with Manufacturing, Process Engineering, Equipment Engineering, Facilities, IT, Quality, Safety, and technician teams on site-wide automation projects.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree in engineering or a related discipline with 5+ years of experience, or a relevant master’s degree with 3+ years, PhD, or equivalent education and experience.
• Experience designing, integrating, commissioning, supporting, or improving industrial automation systems such as AMRs, automated material handling systems, wafer stockers, or robotics.
• Hands-on experience troubleshooting systems involving mechanical equipment, sensors, controls, software, and industrial communications.
• Experience translating operational needs into technical requirements and working with vendors or system integrators through acceptance testing, installation, and production handoff.
• Experience with data-driven reliability and productivity improvement, RCA, FMEA, risk assessment, or similar engineering methods.
• Experience with factory automation architectures, equipment interfaces, industrial networks, control systems, MES, or related manufacturing technologies.

Nice to have

• Semiconductor or wafer fabrication experience, especially cleanroom material handling or equipment integration.
• Knowledge of PLCs, robotics, motion control, sensors, machine vision, safety systems, fleet management software, and industrial communication protocols.
• Experience integrating automation with MES, dispatching, scheduling, equipment control, warehouse management, or other factory software.
• Experience with SQL, Python, Power BI, Lean Manufacturing, Six Sigma, TPM, or DMAIC.
• Experience delivering capital projects or contributing to automation standards and multi-year roadmaps.

Culture & Benefits

• Full-time onsite engineering role supporting an AI-enabled smart factory transformation.
• Medical, dental, vision, and life insurance, plus short- and long-term disability coverage.
• 401(k), employee stock purchase plan, health savings account, dependent care, and healthcare spending accounts.
• Paid time off, 12 holidays, at least 48 hours of paid sick leave, and 16 weeks of paid parental leave.
• Onsite café, fitness center, wellness programs, meditation rooms, indoor walking path, and community activities.