Senior Engineering Manager

Description

The Sr. Engineering Manager is a senior leadership role responsible for guiding CLX Engineering’s technical execution, developing future engineering leaders, and maturing the engineering organization’s systems, standards, and workforce capabilities. This role owns day to day engineering performance—people, delivery, processes, readiness—and serves as the bridge between engineering execution and strategic technical direction.

The Sr. Engineering Manager supervises individual contributors and will progressively manage Engineering Managers as the department grows. This position requires an excellent understanding of project scope, goals, schedules, and underlying technical requirements, along with the leadership capacity to design, implement, and sustain engineering systems at scale.

This role is designed to evolve into a key organizational pillar, responsible for developing future engineering leaders, elevating engineering quality, standardizing processes company wide and building a scalable technical organization capable of supporting long term growth.

Engineering Leadership & People Management

• Serve as the functional leader for engineers, technicians, and (as the team grows) Engineering Managers, overseeing workload distribution, skill development, resourcing, and performance.
• Build a culture of engagement, psychological safety, accountability, craftsmanship, and continuous learning.
• Make hiring, promotion, corrective action, and termination recommendations; serve as manager of record for performance reviews and career development.
• Mentor engineering staff in both new and legacy technologies, devices, and practices.
• Support succession planning and leadership pipeline development within the Controls Engineering organization.

Technical & Project Execution Oversight

• Own engineering execution across assigned programs and projects—resourcing, schedules, milestones, change management, and risk mitigation.
• Oversee implementation of standardized engineering practices including PLC standards, HMI standards, testing protocols, and documentation quality.
• Provide guidance on system design, PLC programming standards, HMI development, testing methodology, and commissioning support (without taking on routine programming duties).
• Ensure operational readiness across engineering (SOPs, tools, work instructions, documentation, dashboards).
• Partner with technical authorities, R&D, and Software teams to align architecture, design approaches, and implementation strategies.

Cross Functional Alignment & Collaboration

• Coordinate engineering activities with Project Management, Manufacturing, R&D, Software, and CAD to ensure seamless project delivery from concept to field deployment.
• Ensure interdepartmental tasks—especially between Controls and Software—are synchronized and effectively executed.
• Represent engineering in executive level reviews, providing clear communication of risks, decisions, tradeoffs, and corrective actions.

Standards, Processes, and Continuous Improvement

• Own continuous improvement for engineering workflows—from part selection to panel design to programming—ensuring processes scale with organizational growth. 
• Guide the maintenance and evolution of internal PLC coding standards, HMI guidelines, and engineering documentation frameworks.
• Drive the development of internal user manuals, implementation guides, and engineering knowledge assets.
• Lead or coordinate creation of training materials across engineering, R&D, and Software.
• Support development and maintenance of the internal searchable knowledge base capturing lessons learned, commissioning methods, known issues, and accelerators.
• Regularly host post project debriefs to gather insights and refine processes.

Training, Development, & Knowledge Management

• Ensure onboarding, skills development, and engineering training programs meet department needs.
• Coordinate hands on instruction for Controls Engineering, expanding internal capability across PLC programming, HMI development, system testing, field commissioning, and project execution.
• Work with R&D to define and track competencies, identify skill gaps, and guide resource allocation based on strengths and development needs.

Project Support & Oversight

• Validate engineering status across active projects; ensure deliverables meet quality and readiness expectations.
• Assist engineering teams as needed during high risk, highly technical, or schedule critical phases of project implementation.
• Provide oversight—not ownership—of PLC code quality, HMI development, testing processes, and commissioning readiness.

Travel & Other Duties

• May travel up to ~50% as required for commissioning support, team development, customer engagement, or high priority initiatives.
• Perform other duties as assigned to support organizational growth and strategic objectives.

Requirements

Requirements

• Demonstrated leadership experience supervising engineering teams in an industrial automation, controls engineering, or related technical environment 
• Proven ability to manage both individual contributors and, as the organization grows, Engineering Managers
• Strong understanding of engineering project scope, goals, schedules, and technical requirements, with the ability to guide execution across multiple concurrent projects 
• Experience with resource planning, workload distribution, staffing decisions, and performance management
• Ability to build and maintain a high engagement culture focused on psychological safety, accountability, continuous learning, and technical 
• Strong technical understanding of PLC programming standards, HMI principles, testing workflows, and system commissioning practices (oversight-focused, not hands on)
• Demonstrated ability to implement, maintain, and improve engineering SOPs, documentation, tools, and processes to support operational readiness and scalability.
• Experience coordinating engineering activities across functions such as R&D, Software, Manufacturing, and Project Management
• Strong communication skills to support cross functional decision making, risk escalation, and executive level updates
• Ability to mentor, coach, and develop engineers at multiple levels, including onboarding, skills development, standards training, and leadership pipeline cultivation
• Experience supporting or leading post project reviews, lessons learned processes, and continuous improvement initiatives
• Ability to support field work or commissioning efforts as needed; willingness to travel up to ~50% depending on project demand
• High level of technical problem solving ability and comfort working in a fast paced engineering environment

Desired (but not required):

• Bachelor’s degree in engineering, computer science, or related technical field
• Training or certification in leadership development, Lean, Six Sigma, or process improvement