Engineer- Controls II USA

First Solar reserves the right to offer you a role most applicable to your experience and skillset.

Basic Job Functions:

• Mid-level corporate controls engineering position.

• Requires taking a lead role in the global implementation and development of electrical controls systems/designs, PLC/HMI programing, performing equipment check-out (PDD) at Vendor site, Commissioning equipment & systems including FAT, and integration of systems into FSLR infrastructure (networking, data collection and reporting)

Education/Experience:

• Associate's degree in engineering technology or a related field of study with equivalent years of work experience required.

• Bachelor's degree in electrical engineering or a related field of study preferred.

• Minimum 6 years of manufacturing equipment controls engineering experience.

• Experience in an industrial, high volume manufacturing facility is desirable.

Required Skills/Competencies:

• Proven understanding/knowledge and experience in controls engineering techniques and practices which would be required for global facilities including North America, Asia, and Europe.

• Proven understanding/knowledge and ability to trouble-shoot electrical/electronic control systems.

• Proven understanding/knowledge of global manufacturing processes and safety requirements.

• Proven experience using Auto Desk AutoCad drafting software to create electrical schematic and panel layouts.

• Good understanding/knowledge programming of Rockwell Automation Logix platform PLC's, including ladder, structured text, and function block diagram.

• Good understanding/knowledge programming Rockwell Automation Human Machine Interfaces (HMI) including PanelView Plus, PanelView Plus CE, and Factory Talk View ME & SE.

• Good understanding/knowledge designing, programming, and commissioning at least two control networks including EtherNet I/P, DeviceNet, ProfiNet, ControlNet, Profibus and Ethernet TCP.

• Proven understanding/knowledge of robotic systems including programming, safety requirements, and optimization practices.

• Good understanding/knowledge of motion controls including Servo Controllers, Variable Frequency Drives, and Stepper controllers.

• Good understanding/knowledge of vision inspection configuration and programming experience (Cognex & Keyence).

• Proven understanding of computer hardware, controls applications and the Microsoft Office family.

• Knowledge of working in server environment.

• Knowledge of Microsoft SQL Server Database navigation, data inquiry, and configuration experience.

• Experience in at least one multi-tiered architecture using C#, VB.NET, HTML, XML and SQL.

• Understanding/knowledge of Ethernet network architectures and configuration.

• Excellent oral and written communication skills.

• Proven problem-solving skills utilizing structured methods.

Essential Responsibilities:

• Responsible for global support of manufacturing facilities.

• Responsible for assisting with global coordination of new equipment installation and implementation.

• Responsible for assisting with global communication between manufacturing process equipment and SQL database.

• Responsible for maintaining and updating manufacturing process tool electrical drawings globally, ensuring the tracking of equipment changes is documented and drawings are kept current.

• Responsible for the successful design and theory behind the majority of manufacturing control systems, ensuring new process tools adhere to corporate controls standards and best practices.

• Responsible for global troubleshooting and problem-solving equipment controls related issues and recommending controls policy/standard changes, if possible, to prevent future issues with new manufacturing process tools.

• Responsible for interfacing with multiple departments within the organization and external suppliers to ensure corporate controls policies/standards are understood and enforcing compliance.

• Evaluates new proposed equipment controls systems to MES requirements and provides recommendations to vendor and/or internally.

• Maintain an effective global communication cadence, foster team building and promote collaboration.

• Ensures adherence to all safety procedures and good housekeeping standards.

• Responsible for designing, programming, and coordination of small, mid, and some large-scale control systems and projects.

• Job description subject to change at anytime.

• Other duties as assigned.

Key Competencies:

• 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 implemented.

• Maintains knowledge of specific technical specialisms, provides detailed advice regarding their application and executes specialized tasks. The specialism can be any area of information or communication technology, technique, method, product, or application area.

• Agrees to research goals and generates original and worthwhile ideas in a specialized IT field. Develops, reviews, and constructively criticizes ideas, possibly leading a small research team, making necessary observations and tests and carrying them through to a full practical demonstration, wherever viable and feasible. Where necessary, designs data collection tools and techniques for both qualitative and quantitative data. Presents papers at conferences, writes papers of publication quality, and presents reports to clients.

• Actively monitors and seeks opportunities utilizing new methods and trends in control system capabilities and products for the advancement of the organization. Clearly articulates, and formally reports their benefits.

• 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.

• Recommends/designs structures and tools for systems which meet business needs. Delivers technical visualization of proposed applications for approval by customer and execution by system developers.

• Translates logical designs into physical designs and produces detailed design documentation. Maps work to user specification and removes errors and deviations from specification to achieve user-friendly processes.

• 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.

• Contributes to the identification, analysis, and documentation of hazards, and to the capture, evaluation and specification of safety requirements. Analyses and documents safety validation results. Contributes to the development and maintenance of project safety assurance plans and gathers safety assurance evidence for safety case preparation.

• Designs systems, services and components that meet required levels of sustainability and specific profiles of materials consumption.

• Accepts responsibility for creation of test cases using own in-depth technical analysis of both functional and non-functional specifications (such as reliability, efficiency, usability, maintainability, and portability). Creates traceability records, from test cases back to requirements. Produces test scripts, materials, and regression test packs to test new and amended software or services. Specifies requirements for environment, data, resources, and tools. Interprets, executes, and documents complex test scripts using agreed methods and standards. Records and analyses actions and results and maintains a defect register. Reviews test results and modifies tests if necessary. Provides reports on progress, anomalies, risks, and issues associated with the overall project. Reports on system quality and collects metrics on test cases. Provides specialist advice to support others.

• Plans and performs all types of evaluations. Interprets and presents the results of evaluations.

• Defines the integration build, accepts software modules from software developers, and produces software builds for loading onto the target environment. Configures the hardware environment, produces integration test specifications, and conducts tests, recording details of any failures and carrying out fault diagnosis.

• 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.

• Monitors service component capacity and initiates actions to resolve any shortfalls according to agreed procedures. Applies techniques to modify demand for a particular resource or service.

• Contributes to the availability management process and its operation and performs defined availability management tasks. Analyses service and component availability, reliability, maintainability, and serviceability. Ensures that services and components meet and continue to meet all performance targets and service levels. Implements arrangements for disaster recovery and documents recovery procedures. Conducts testing of recovery procedures.

• Reviews system software updates and identifies those that merit action. Optimizes system software to maximize hardware functionality. Installs and tests new versions of system software. Investigates and coordinates the resolution of potential and actual service problems. Prepares and maintains operational documentation for system software. Advises on the correct and effective use of system software.

• 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, including network configuration, installation, and maintenance. Uses network management tools to collect and report on network load and performance statistics. Contributes to the implementation of maintenance and installation work. Uses standard procedures and tools to carry out defined system backups, restoring data where necessary. Identifies operational problems and contributes to their 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.

• Participates in assessments up to IEC 61508 Safety Integrity level 3 (or equivalent standard), and undertakes safety analyses on initial designs using HAZOPS, FMEA or similar methods.

Reporting Relationships:

• This position will not have direct reports.

Travel:

• 20% - 30%

Estimated Salary Range:

• $75,100-$107,000 annually.

US Physical Requirements:

Manufacturing Space Physical Requirements:

• Will sit, stand or walk short distances for up to the entire duration of a shift.

• Will climb stairs on an occasional basis.

• Will lift, push or pull up to 27 pounds on an occasional basis.

• Required to use hands to grasp, lift, handle, carry or feel objects on a frequent basis.

• 20/40 vision in each eye, with or without correction, is required.

• Must be able to comply with all safety standards and procedures.

• May reach above shoulder heights and below the waist on a frequent basis.

• May stoop, kneel, or bend, on an occasional basis.

• Ability to wear personal protective equipment is required (including but not limited to; steel toed shoes, cut resistant gloves, safety glasses, hearing protection, & 70E ARC Flash Electrical PPE).

• May be required to wear a respirator at any given time and thus, the ability to wear a respirator is a condition of employment and continued employment (requires little or no facial hair).

Office Physical Requirements:

All positions in our office require interaction with people and technology while either standing or sitting. To best service our customers, internal and external, all associates must be able to communicate face-to-face and on the phone with or without reasonable accommodation. First Solar is committed to compliance with its obligations under all applicable state and federal laws prohibiting employment discrimination. In keeping with this commitment, it attempts to reasonably accommodate applicants and employees in accordance with the requirements of the disability discrimination laws. It also invites individuals with disabilities to participate in a good faith, interactive process to identify reasonable accommodations that can be made without imposing an undue hardship.

Potential candidates will meet the education and experience requirements provided on the above job description and excel in completing the listed responsibilities for this role. All candidates receiving an offer of employment must successfully complete a background check and any other tests that may be required.

Equal Opportunity Employer Statement: First Solar is an Equal Opportunity Employer that values and respects the importance of a diverse and inclusive workforce. It is the policy of the company to recruit, hire, train and promote persons in all job titles without regard to race, color, religion, sex, age, national origin, veteran status, disability, sexual orientation, or gender identity. We recognize that diversity and inclusion are a driving force in the success of our company.