Automation Manager

Job Description

MEW is hiring an Automation Team Manager to lead the people and the workflow of our automation and programming team. This is a people-first leadership role. You will grow the careers of a team of PLC and SCADA programmers, balance their workloads, and keep programming tickets and projects moving to completion across a portfolio of digester and RNG facilities.

You will bring enough technical depth to sit in a troubleshooting conversation and contribute to solving the problem - but you will not set the team's technical direction. That responsibility belongs to the Technical Lead.

The ideal candidate has developed technical people before, holds a team accountable without micromanaging it, and takes satisfaction in removing obstacles so engineers can do their best work.

Scope of the Role - What This Role Owns and What It Does Not

This position pairs with a Technical Lead. Both roles report to the Director of PUMA Works as co-leads of the automation team. The division of responsibility is deliberate and explicit:

• This role owns: people development, performance management, hiring, work assignment and loading, capacity planning, ticket and project throughput, scheduling, on-call rotation, timesheet and PTO approval, cross-department coordination, and escalation.
• The Technical Lead owns: technical direction, architecture and platform decisions, programming standards and conventions, code and configuration review, and the technical approach taken on any given project or ticket.

The Automation Team Manager does not direct the team on technical strategy, override technical decisions, or serve as the final technical authority. When technical and delivery priorities conflict, the Manager and the Technical Lead resolve it together and escalate to the Director when they cannot.

Responsibilities

People Leadership and Development

• Manage, coach, and develop a team of automation programmers
• Hold consistent one-on-one meetings focused on growth, obstacles, and career direction
• Build individual development plans and identify training, certification, and stretch-assignment opportunities for each team member
• Write and deliver performance reviews; set clear expectations and address performance issues early and directly
• Build a team culture that reflects MEW's values - trustworthy, effective, generous, fulfilled, innovative

Work Loading and Capacity

• Assign programming tickets and project work across the team based on skill, development goals, and available capacity
• Maintain a clear view of who is working on what, and rebalance when priorities shift
• Forecast capacity against the incoming project pipeline and flag staffing gaps to the Director
• Coordinate with Project Management, Operations, Engineering, and Construction to sequence automation work against site schedules and commissioning dates

Delivery and Ticket Flow

• Own the health of the team's ticket queue in ClickUp - keep work visible, current, and moving
• Run recurring stand-ups and work-review meetings; identify stalled tickets and clear the blockers behind them
• Track project milestones and communicate status, risk, and schedule changes to stakeholders
• Partner with the Technical Lead to confirm work is scoped and sized realistically before it is committed
• Escalate resource conflicts, scope changes, and schedule risks to the Director early
• Report on team throughput, backlog, and delivery performance

Administration and Operations

• Review and approve timesheets, expenses, and PTO requests
• Build and manage team scheduling, including site travel and the on-call rotation
• Verify the team maintains program backups and site documentation to standard
• Support process improvement in how the team intakes, tracks, and closes work
• Contribute to team budget planning and software, hardware, and licensing needs

Technical Contribution

• Participate in troubleshooting and problem-solving sessions, contributing practical judgment and experience
• Perform automation and programming work where needed
• Understand the team's work well enough to size it, assess progress honestly, and hold credible technical conversations with team members and stakeholders
• Translate between technical staff and non-technical stakeholders across the company
• Defer to the Technical Lead on technical direction, standards, and final technical decisions

Qualifications & Skills

Required

• 3+ years managing or supervising technical staff - engineers, programmers, controls technicians, or a comparable team
• Demonstrated record of developing people: coaching, performance conversations, career growth, and retention
• Working technical background in industrial automation, controls, engineering, IT, or a closely related technical field - enough to follow the work, size it, and contribute in a troubleshooting discussion
• Experience managing a work queue or project portfolio and driving it to completion
• Strong organizational skills with the ability to track many parallel workstreams
• Excellent written and verbal communication; can adapt the message for a programmer, an operations manager, and a dairy owner
• Comfortable with task and project tracking systems (ClickUp or equivalent)
• Sound judgment on when to decide, when to delegate, and when to escalate
• Must be proficient in English.

Preferred

• Hands-on experience with PLC programming (Allen-Bradley, Studio 5000) or SCADA/HMI platforms (Ignition, Aveva, Wonderware, C-more, Automation Direct)
• Familiarity with industrial networking, VFDs, instrumentation, 4-20mA and 24V control, Modbus485, and Modbus TCP
• Experience in renewable energy, agriculture, manufacturing, utilities, or another field-service environment
• Background supporting geographically distributed sites and remote team members
• Working knowledge of electrical systems and safe work practices

Other Duties

Please note this job description is not designed to cover or contain a comprehensive list of activities, duties or responsibilities that are required of the employee for this job. Duties, responsibilities, and activities may change at any time with or without notice.

Physical Demand Requirements

Work Environment - Office Staff

This job partially operates in a professional office environment. The role routinely uses standard office equipment such as computers, phones, photocopiers, filing cabinets, and fax machines.

Physical Demands - Office Staff / Travel

This is largely a sedentary role with some travel required. This would require the ability to walk up and down stairs, and to enter, travel in, and exit vehicles and airplanes. Travel is required occasionally to project sites and regional offices. Site visits may involve walking on uneven ground and exposure to outdoor conditions and operating equipment.