AI Automation Engineer

The AI Automation Engineer is instrumental in identifying evaluating developing and implementing new technology solutions processes and products that align with the organizations strategic goals. This person enhances efficiency improves quality and drives competitive advantage in a manufacturing environment. The Innovation Specialist monitors emerging trends supports pilot projects and collaborates with cross-functional partners to drive digital transformation across the business. Successful candidates blend creativity with technical rigor and able to experiment rapidly while ensuring solutions can scale within enterprise IT standards.

Essential Functions and Responsibilities

• Research evaluate and analyze emerging technology trends and manufacturing methods to identify opportunities for innovation in IT and across the organization that drives improved productivity cost reduction and/or enhanced product quality.
• Evaluate the potential of new tools methodologies and practices to improve operational efficiency and business outcomes.
• Lead innovation projects from concept to implementation.
• Collaborate with engineering production quality and finance teams to identify process inefficiencies and develop innovative solutions.
• Support digital transformation initiatives such as automation robotics IoT integration and data-driven manufacturing.
• Collaborate with cross-functional department to generate and manage pipeline of innovation ideas.
• Scout vendors and recommend buy-vs-build paths.
• Develop and maintain documentation for innovation projects prototypes and intellectual property considerations.
• Build and maintain an IT innovation roadmap.
• Collaborate with internal stakeholders to understand business challenges and propose technology-driven solutions.
• Facilitate brainstorming sessions workshops and innovation labs to promote a culture of innovation.
• Collect and analyze data to measure the effectiveness of new technologies and solutions. Map current processes baseline KPIs
• Support the planning execution and evaluation of pilot projects proof-of-concepts and innovation initiatives.
• Work closely with development infrastructure and security teams to ensure feasibility compliance and scalability of solutions.
• Prepare presentations reports and business cases to communicate findings and recommendations to leadership.
• Assist in change management and communication efforts to ensure adoption of new technologies.
• Maintain confidentiality and adhere to company compliance and IT security standards.
• Other duties as assigned.

Minimum Experience and Qualifications

Education and Experience

• Bachelors degree in Information Technology Computer Science Business or a related field (or equivalent experience).
• 5 plus years of experience in an innovation IT transformation or technology-focused role (internship or co-op experience acceptable).

Core Competencies

• Strong understanding of IT systems digital tools and project lifecycles.
• Exposure to data analysis automation tools or continuous improvement concepts is a plus.
• Familiarity with governance privacy and security practices
• Excellent communication presentation and stakeholder engagement skills.
• Manufacturing exposure; understanding of shop-floor adjacent processes and integrations (ERP/MES).
• Ability to critically evaluate technical designs vendor proposals and solution architectures to identify risks gaps feasibility issues and unrealistic assumptions.
• Ability to translate business needs into clear technical concepts high-level requirements or prototype workflows.
• Comfort digging into technical details diagnosing issues across applications integrations data flows and automation platforms and proposing pragmatic solutions.
• Strong analytical thinking with the ability to evaluate ROI scalability long-term maintainability and operational impact of new technologies.
• Ability to objectively assess third-party work for quality completeness and alignment with IT standards and best practices.

Preferred Technical Skills

• Exposure to modern programming/scripting such as Python C#/.NET SQL or similar for automation and integrations.
• Experience with AI/ML platforms
• Experience with supporting or implementing Azure services and Microsoft Power Platform (Power Apps Power Automate Power BI Dataverse).
• Familiarity with AI agent frameworks. Understanding of REST APIs JSON structures
• Experience with OCR Intelligent Document Processing or AI-assisted workflow automation Job Requirement
• Willingness to travel occasionally to manufacturing sites to provide on-site support. (10% - 20%)

Required Experience:

IC