Senior Principal Engineer - Automation Engineering – Systems and Digital Integration

Role Summary

The Senior Principal Engineer - Automation Engineering will work as a member of the Automation Engineering Department at Eli Lilly, Foundry. The engineer will provide automation support for one or more operating areas across site and/or for capital projects. Process Automation is core to delivering a right first time facility start up and continued support of ongoing manufacturing operations into the future. The Senior Principal Engineer is responsible for the productivity and mentorship of the employees to ensure reliable and compliant control applications and systems are used in manufacturing at Foundry. They will serve as a key technical expert with partners to influence and implement within the process control organization and across functional disciplines to support the process control technical agenda, business plan priorities, and compliance objectives. In the project delivery and startup phases (startup expected 2025–2028), automation engineering roles will be fluid and dynamic to support project delivery, build a new organization, develop and implement systems and processes to support GMP operations, and build site culture.

Location: Initial at Lilly Technology Center, Indianapolis; Permanent location at Lilly Medicines Foundry, Lebanon, Indiana.

Responsibilities

• Technical Leadership
• Mentor process control team, including design, controls philosophy, implementation and commissioning
• Process control work implementation and coordination
• Develop and implement the Automation Engineering Project Plan
• Technically lead and oversee the work of Site Area leads and System Integrator including Functional Requirements, Design Specifications, DCS Application Software, Test Specifications
• Lead/Participate in design reviews and Automation application software reviews, attend equipment and software FATs
• Lead a team of automation engineers supporting commissioning
• Provide periodic status updates to Project Management
• Devising functional requirements and process control strategies for control systems in collaboration with Process Engineering
• DCS software design, coding/configuration and testing (sequence logic, graphics, batch software, etc.)
• Automation Engineering including design, tuning and troubleshooting of system integration across platforms and sites
• Implementing and supporting electronic systems (such as plant historians) used to capture process automation related production data
• Maintain the validated state of the site control systems in line with Lilly quality standards including validation strategies and documentation
• Automation support for capital projects including new product introductions
• Promoting the use of automation to improve productivity, operational efficiency and compliance
• Developing a network of corporate contacts and leveraging corporate expertise when needed

Qualifications

• Required: Minimum B.S. in Engineering and experience in Automation Engineering, preferably in major pharmaceutical manufacturing with system integration of applications, systems and platforms
• Required: 8+ years working experience in Biopharma engineering, operations, or manufacturing
• Preferred: Experience in design, development, commissioning and qualification of highly automated greenfield manufacturing sites utilizing SCADA, DCS, MES, LIMS, Site Historian systems, middleware applications (DeltaV, Rockwell, Syncade, LabVantage, OSI PI, OPC)
• Preferred: Experience in developing native and custom application interfaces for data communication, ETL and data parsing for non-standard equipment and protocols
• Preferred: Experience in commissioning, qualifying and supporting systems between SCADA, DCS, MES, LIMS, Historian and other applications for interconnectivity
• Preferred: Experience in facilitating and driving decision-making at an organizational level

Skills

• Process control design and implementation
• DCS/SCADA/MES/LIMS/Plant Historian systems
• GMP knowledge and regulatory/compliance awareness
• Computer system validation and related documentation
• Strong written and verbal communication for technical and non-technical audiences
• Leadership, mentorship, and cross-functional collaboration

Education

• Required: Bachelor’s degree in Engineering