Automation Engineer

Location: Smart parc, Spondon, Derby DE21 7HW

Shift: Suez Shift Pattern rotating days and nights, 0600-1800 and 1800-0600.

Benefits:

• 70% off HelloFresh or Green Chef boxes
• Free onsite parking (including ~90 EV spaces)
• Gym membership
• Bupa private medical insurance (including dental & family cover options)
• Nursery support scheme (save up to 40% on your nursery fees)
• Earn up to £500 with our Referral Program
• Electric vehicle scheme
• Cycle to work scheme
• Group Life Assurance
• Company pension scheme
• Mental health first aiders and an employee assistance programme

Play a key part in supporting our Employee Resource Groups: FreshVets, Black Heritage Network, NEU Network (Neurodiversity), GET (Gender Equality Team) and FreshPride.

About The Team:

As an Automation Engineer you will be the site Subject Matter Expert (SME) within the team, for all controls systems, maintenance engineering, sensors, PLCs, communication protocols, and automation for the site. You will work with the facilities and maintenance teams and colleagues to maintain and repair conveyance, automation and facilities equipment to support operations uptime and improve reliability of our systems.

What You Will Be Doing:

• Work in a hands-on manner to actively monitor, fault find and repair systems in order to provide a high level of equipment availability to internal customers.
• Perform preventive maintenance and routine inspections on assigned automation, robotics and control panels.
• Perform troubleshooting of assigned out of service equipment and correct issues, act as an escalation point for lower level technicians, and escalate to leadership and/or vendors as needed for additional troubleshooting.
• Document all work in the computerized maintenance management system (CMMS) and ticketing systems as appropriate.
• Mentor all maintenance personnel in developing appropriate skill sets and knowledge of equipment specializing in automation, controls and robotics.
• Lead root cause analysis of major downtime events.
• Act as a network resource for technical issues and lead network-wide root cause analysis.
• Develop maintenance personnel knowledge on intermediate to advanced automation, controls and robotics.
• Partner with engineering on commissioning of new controls systems.
• Audit vendor work to provide feedback to leadership on quality of work and SLA performance.
• Write and/or modify PMs to standardize across the network and increase effectiveness.

Who You Are:

• Qualified or solid practical understanding in Mechatronics, Electrical & Electronic, Mechanical, or Manufacturing Engineering.
• Experienced in Automation, Mechanical, or Maintenance Engineering, ideally within a manufacturing or production environment such as FMCG.
• Proficient in PLC-controlled systems and automated processes, including programming, troubleshooting, repair, and maintenance of PLCs, HMIs, VFDs, and related control systems.
• Comfortable interpreting technical manuals, engineering drawings, and schematics to support diagnostics and solutions.
• Skilled in both reactive and preventative maintenance, with a track record of handling second-line escalations and completing CMMS tasks.
• Adept in material handling systems, with exposure to flow analysis, capacity visualization, and process monitoring.
• A confident communicator and mentor, capable of coaching junior engineers and stepping in as proxy for senior automation engineers when required.
• Experienced in leading Root Cause Analysis, supporting Continuous Improvement initiatives, and familiar with DIQ and WMS systems.

To be considered for this role, you’ll need to have the independent right to work in the UK, as we are unfortunately unable to provide sponsorship at this time.

Next steps: Your application will be reviewed and if successful, a member of the Talent Acquisition Team will be in touch within 2 weeks.

You are required to cooperate with HelloFresh in all health and safety matters. You are responsible for ensuring you take reasonable care of your own health, and safety as well as others who may be affected by the work activities you undertake. You must report incidents immediately and actively raise health and safety-related concerns to your Line Manager. As part of our commitment to maintaining a safe and secure environment, we will process Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) checks to the successful individual. Failure to disclose relevant information at application or throughout the process could affect your employment with the company.

If you are currently a HelloFresh employee, please make sure you have discussed your application with your Line Manager.