Senior Automation Engineer

Are you ready to own the automation backbone of a high-impact manufacturing site and see your work translate into reliable supply for people with rare and devastating diseases? Step into a role where your decisions harden, scale, and future-proof the systems that keep our operations safe, compliant, and always on.

In this position, you will partner closely with an in-house automation team, engineering, operations, and trusted system integrators to configure, secure, and evolve our DCS, PLCs, historians, and server platforms. Your leadership will raise the bar on resilience, compliance, and speed to value. Do you thrive on turning complex automation estates into robust platforms for growth?

You will set the standards, guide delivery, and ensure qualification across the lifecycle of our automation systems at our Athlone manufacturing facility, helping multidisciplinary teams optimize equipment performance while protecting what matters most: product quality, patient safety, and continuity of supply.

Accountabilities:
-Automation System Implementation: Configure and implement automation systems across the Athlone manufacturing facility, working independently or with system integrators to deliver reliable, scalable solutions.
-Cybersecurity and Resilience: Lead hardening, patching, backup and restore testing, disaster recovery planning, obsolescence roadmaps, and access control reviews for DCS, PLCs, historians, and servers to safeguard operations.
-Vendor and Partner Management: Manage third-party vendors and system integrators for both project delivery and sustaining activities to ensure quality, timelines, and value.
-Technical Leadership: Provide guidance and direction to the in-house automation team across all automation platforms and technologies.
-Design Governance: Develop, review, and approve design documentation to ensure clarity, quality, and compliance.
-Standards Ownership: Develop, review, and approve project standards to drive consistency and excellence across implementations.
-Operational Consulting: Provide automation expertise to engineering and operations on design and sustaining decisions that improve performance and reliability.
-SOP Development and Compliance: Create and implement standard operating procedures for the compliant management of automation systems.
-System Qualification and Validation Support: Ensure automation systems are delivered and maintained in a compliant, qualified state; provide support for all validation activities.
-Cross-Functional Optimization: Participate in cross-functional teams to optimize equipment, improving throughput, availability, and maintainability.
-Training and Knowledge Transfer: Assist in training personnel on automation aspects of equipment to build site capability.
-Change Control Execution: Design and implement solutions across automation platforms in line with site automation and change control procedures.
-Project Leadership: Lead an automation project team, when required, to deliver in-house projects from scope to handover.
-Program Delivery and Prioritization: Work with project leads to deliver against priorities and timelines, balancing resources across competing needs.
-Delegated Leadership: When required, assume delegated responsibilities from the Senior Manager, Manufacturing Systems to maintain continuity of leadership.
-Continuous Contribution: Undertake additional duties as needed to support the site’s automation strategy and operational goals.

Essential Skills/Experience:
- Proven experience configuring and implementing automation systems, including DCS, PLCs, historians, and server-based platforms.
- Demonstrated ownership of hardening, patching, backup and restore testing, disaster recovery planning, obsolescence roadmapping, and access control reviews.
- Experience managing third-party vendors and system integrators for both projects and sustaining operations.
- Ability to guide and mentor an in-house automation team across multiple platforms.
- Track record developing, reviewing, and approving design documentation and project standards.
- Experience providing automation input to engineering and operations for design and sustaining decisions.
- Experience creating and implementing standard operating procedures for automation systems.
- Proven ability to deliver and maintain automation systems in a compliant, qualified state; support for validation activities.
- Experience working on cross-functional equipment optimization initiatives.
- Experience training personnel on automation facets of equipment.
- Delivery of automation changes through formal site and automation change control procedures.
- Experience leading automation project teams and collaborating with project leads on priorities and timelines.
- Willingness and capability to assume delegated responsibilities when required.

Desirable Skills/Experience:
- Experience in highly regulated manufacturing environments with strong qualification and validation practices.
- Familiarity with industrial cybersecurity best practices for control systems.
- Background in disaster recovery exercises and lifecycle/obsolescence management at site or network level.
- Experience introducing new automation platforms or migrating legacy systems with minimal disruption.
- Strong documentation discipline and comfort operating at both hands-on and strategic leadership levels.

Why AstraZeneca:
Here, bold problem solvers come together with a shared urgency to improve lives, especially for people with the greatest unmet needs. You will work with cutting-edge technologies and the strength of a global organization, while enjoying the agility and voice of an entrepreneurial environment. Expect unexpected teams in the same room unleashing bold thinking, where kindness sits alongside ambition and your expertise translates into therapies that reach those who need them most. Your contribution will directly strengthen the reliability, security, and scalability of systems that enable breakthrough medicines to reach patients faster.

Call to Action:
Bring your automation leadership to Athlone and shape systems that power life-changing medicines—step forward today and make your impact count!

Date Posted

05-Feb-2026

Closing Date

13-Feb-2026

Our mission is to build an inclusive and equitable environment. We want people to feel they belong at AstraZeneca and Alexion, starting with our recruitment process. We welcome and consider applications from all qualified candidates, regardless of characteristics. We offer reasonable adjustments/accommodations to help all candidates to perform at their best. If you have a need for any adjustments/accommodations, please complete the section in the application form.