First Solar · 2 months ago
Manager- Controls Engineering USA
United States
Full-time
Onsite
Senior Level, Lead/Staff
$128K/yr - $182K/yr
8+ years expFirst Solar is a leading renewable energy company, and they are seeking a Manager for their Controls Engineering team. The successful candidate will manage automation projects and provide operational support for manufacturing equipment, ensuring efficient production processes and team performance.
Clean EnergyManufacturingSolar
Responsibilities
Manage the day-to-day operations of the Automation Technician Supervisors and Automation Technicians for the Manufacturing Plants to ensure 24x7 services availability and SLA
Manage team consisting of Automation Technicians Supervisors as direct reports and Automation Technicians as indirect reports including resource requirements are staffed to appropriate levels
Provide annual and quarterly goal planning, manage work assignments and load balancing, manage performance assessments, pay planning
Participate in a leadership role in interviewing, hiring of new team members, including interns and candidates for the MES Controls department
Build partnership with key business stakeholders in Manufacturing Engineering, Quality & Reliability, IT, Manufacturing Operations, MES Software, and Global Controls teams to support and drive operational improvement under global continuous improvement initiatives and contributes to improved KPIs for the Global Manufacturing operations
Project management of Controls scope within project and close interface with NPI/HRST team on change request plan, scope, costs, schedule and quality of deliverables are all agreed upon SLAs and KPIs
Participate in coordination of new equipment installation, implementation, continuous improvement projects, change requests, and tasks
Responsible for adherence to strategic alignment of global goals by partnering with other global controls teams/sites
Own and ensure that all operational issues related to control systems are resolved in a timely and effective manner
Responsible for maintaining and updating of manufacturing process tool electrical drawings; ensuring the tracking of equipment changes are documented and drawings are kept current
Responsible for controls related MES integration events and data collection and ensuring SLA’s are achieved
Prepare data using SQL and JMP to create presentations and documentation for SLA/project reporting
Maintains the focus of team projects and key change requests and communicates the status of each (both internally and externally if applicable)
Responsible for fostering collaboration, open communication, and team building
Drives a culture of critical thinking, innovation & continuous improvement
Responsible for professional training and career development of assigned direct and indirect reports
Lead and mentor team members by encouraging creativity and innovation
Ability to handle conflicts, set priorities, attract/ nurture/ coach/ grow talent
Responsible for coaching and enacting appropriate disciplinary actions for assigned direct and indirect associates
Safety & Compliance: Ensures adherence to all safety and environmental procedures and good housekeeping standards. Execute Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) controls for software source code management
Takes responsibility for understanding client requirements, collecting data, delivering analysis and problem resolution. Identifies, evaluates and recommends options, implementing if required. Collaborates with, and facilitates stakeholder groups, as part of formal or informal consultancy agreements. Seeks to fully address client needs, enhancing the capabilities and effectiveness of client personnel, by ensuring that proposed solutions are properly understood and appropriately exploited
Contributes to research goals and builds on and refines appropriate outline ideas for the evaluation, development, demonstration and implementation of research. Uses available resources to gain an up-to-date knowledge of any relevant IT field. Reports on work carried out and may contribute significant sections of material of publication quality. Contributes to research plans and identifies appropriate opportunities for publication and dissemination of research findings
Maintains awareness of opportunities provided by new technology to address challenges or to enable new ways of working. Within own sphere of influence, works to further organizational goals, by the use of emerging technologies and products. Contributes to briefings and presentations about their relevance and potential value to the organization
Specifies user/system interfaces, and translates logical designs into physical designs taking account of target environment, performance requirements and existing systems. Produces detailed designs and documents all work using required standards, methods and tools, including prototyping tools where appropriate
Designs, codes, tests, corrects, and documents moderately complex programs and program modifications from supplied specifications, using agreed standards and tools. Conducts reviews of supplied specifications, with others as appropriate
Assists with the collection of safety assurance evidence, undertaking all work in accordance with agreed safety, technical and quality standards, using appropriate methods and tools. Documents the results of hazard and risk analysis activities
Investigates and recommends components and subsystems that meet sustainability criteria
Reviews requirements and specifications, and defines test conditions. Designs test cases and test scripts under own direction, mapping back to pre-determined criteria, recording and reporting outcomes. Analyses and reports test activities and results. Identifies and reports issues and risks associated with own work
Performs, analyses and documents evaluations according to a plan, excluding expert reviews
Defines the integration build and produces a build definition for generation of the software. Accepts software modules from software developers, and produces software builds for loading onto the target hardware from software source code. Configures the hardware environment, produces integration test specifications, conducts tests and records the details of any failures. Carries out and reports fault diagnosis relating to moderately complex problems
Configures software and equipment and tests platform-specific versions of one or more software products. Reports the outcome of testing and identifies potential improvements to the process and to the software products according to agreed designs and standards
Installs or removes hardware and/or software, using supplied installation instructions and tools including, where appropriate, handover to the client. Conducts tests, corrects malfunctions, and documents results in accordance with agreed procedures. Reports details of all hardware/software items that have been installed and removed so that configuration management records can be updated. Provides assistance to users in a professional manner following agreed procedures for further help or escalation. Maintains accurate records of user requests, contact details and outcomes. Contributes to the development of installation procedures and standards
Uses system management software and tools to collect agreed performance statistics. Carries out agreed system software maintenance tasks
Identifies and resolves issues with applications, following agreed procedures. Uses application management software and tools to collect agreed performance statistics. Carries out agreed applications maintenance tasks
Carries out agreed operational procedures of a routine nature. Contributes to maintenance, installation and problem resolution
Identifies and resolves network problems following agreed procedures. Uses network management software and tools to collect agreed performance statistics. Carries out agreed network maintenance tasks
Initiates and monitors actions to investigate and resolve problems in systems and services. Assists with the implementation of agreed remedies and preventative measures
Receives and handles requests for support following agreed procedures. Responds to requests for support by providing information to enable incident resolution and promptly allocates unresolved calls as appropriate. Maintains records and advises relevant persons of actions taken
Other duties as assigned
Qualification
Required
Bachelor's or Master Electrical/Electronics or Instrumentation and Controls Engineering or Mechatronic (Robotic)
Minimum 8 years of manufacturing equipment controls engineering experience
3 – 6 years of team lead or supervisory experience or 2+ year of management experience
Excellent understanding/knowledge and experience in controls engineering techniques/practices/standards and ability to trouble-shoot electrical/electronic control systems
Excellent understanding and demonstrated competence in Industrial I/O networks
Excellent understanding and demonstrated competence in Corporate Ethernet architectures and systems used for integration of plant floor system to MES or Cloud layers
Excellent understanding and demonstrated competence in Automation system architecture including PLC based controls, Distributed I/O architectures, HMI server/client applications, PC based applications, and robotics
Excellent understanding and demonstrated competence in IO networking in the following network types: Ethernet/IP, Profibus, ModBus, DeviceNet, ProfiNet
Excellent understanding and demonstrated competence in Ladder based PLC programming and applications, including Allen-Bradley and Siemens brand systems
Excellent understanding and demonstrated competence in Programming Rockwell Automation Human Machine Interfaces (HMI) including Server/Client SCADA systems; Proface, WinCC, Ignition a plus
Excellent understanding and demonstrated competence in Robot systems including programming, safety requirements and design/implementation practices
Excellent understanding and demonstrated competence in Motion controls, including stepper motors, servo motors and AC/DC drives
Excellent understanding and demonstrated competence in Industrial vision inspection systems configuration and programming
Excellent understanding and demonstrated competence in Computer operating systems and software applications
Excellent understanding and demonstrated competence in LOTO procedures and safety
Excellent understanding and demonstrated competence in Relational databases and PC-based console applications
Excellent understanding and demonstrated competence in Microsoft SQL Server Database query and configuration
Excellent understanding and demonstrated competence in OPC Manufacturing connectivity
Excellent understanding and demonstrated competence in Lean Six-Sigma understanding
Excellent understanding and demonstrated competence in Theory-Of-Constraints (TOC) understanding
Excellent understanding and demonstrated competence in Failure-Mode Effects Analysis (FMEA) applied understanding
Excellent understanding and demonstrated competence in Experience with AGV system implementation and demonstrated competence with integration with plant floor systems and ERP systems
Excellent understanding and demonstrated competence in Understanding with principles of Digital Twin Model concepts for Simulation and Emulation of control systems
Excellent understanding and demonstrated competence in Understanding with principles of AI in manufacturing environment
Excellent understanding and demonstrated competence in Experience in at least one multi-tiered architecture using C#, VB.NET, HTML, XML and SQL
Leadership and Managerial Competency: Ability to lead, understand, empathize with, motivate, inspire, set and follow-up on goals, and resolve conflicts between direct reports
Proven Organizational and Managerial skills
Project and Portfolio Management Skills: Successful track record of project and program management and/or supervision of project managers for complex projects
Experience with customer driven SLA reporting and reaction
Accomplished Communication Skills: polished acumen in writing, speaking, hosting meetings and delivering presentations, demonstrated ability to effectively communicate with and convey technical information to both technical and non-technical audiences, assist with conflict resolution, and ability to display excellent relationship management across the organization and between cross-functional teams
Ability to consult, advise and support top customers at all levels of the organization while maintaining a calm and professional demeanor
Ensures operational levels are consistent with current business needs
Critical thinking skills a must
Ability to identify, attract, develop & retain talented personnel
Must be able to work in a fast paced, changing environment
Preferred
OPC Manufacturing connectivity (highly desired)
Lean Six-Sigma understanding (desired)
Theory-Of-Constraints (TOC) understanding highly desired
Failure-Mode Effects Analysis (FMEA) applied understanding desired
Company
First Solar
First Solar manufactures thin film photovoltaic modules and provides PV power plants and supporting services.
5001-10000 employees
H1B Sponsorship
First Solar has a track record of offering H1B sponsorships. Please note that this does not
guarantee sponsorship for this specific role. Below presents additional info for your
reference. (Data Powered by US Department of Labor)
Distribution of Different Job Fields Receiving Sponsorship
Represents job field similar to this job
Trends of Total Sponsorships
2025 (57)
2024 (34)
2023 (19)
2022 (15)
2021 (7)
2020 (16)
Funding
Current Stage
Public CompanyTotal Funding
$2.17BKey Investors
U.S. International Development Finance CorpMizuho Corporate Bank
2023-07-06Post Ipo Debt· $1B
2021-12-07Post Ipo Debt· $500M
2021-04-01Undisclosed
Leadership Team
Mark Widmar
CEO
Angela Younes
Office Manager/Assistant to the CTO
Recent News
2026-01-07
2026-01-07
Company data provided by crunchbase