Senior Automation and Controls Engineer

VVater is America’s Next Water Company, delivering the future of purification through its award-winning Farady Reactor (CES Best of Innovation 2025, World Future Award 2025, Time Best Invention Award 2025), proprietary ALTEP (Advanced Low Tension Electroporation Process), Advanced Dissolved Air Flotation, and Micro & Nano Bubble technologies. Unlike outdated chemical, filter, and membrane systems, VVater’s electric-field breakthroughs eliminate PFAS, microplastics, microorganisms, and other contaminants with record retention times, without toxic byproducts or costly consumables.

With over 4.3B gallons treated and validation from global leaders, VVater is scaling into municipal drinking water and wastewater, DPR/IPR, onsite reuse for data centers, commercial buildings, and resorts, residential purification, and consumer health water, delivering a 60% smaller footprint, 40% CapEx savings, 80% OpEx savings, and 40% less energy use.

Job Description:

THIS IS AN ONSITE POSITION BASED IN AUSTIN, TEXAS - NO REMOTE OR HYBRID AVAILABILITY FOR THIS POSITION

The Senior Automation and Controls Engineer owns the physical treatment module as it becomes a controllable, manufacturable, field-ready product. You take a proven process and turn it into a packaged system: layout, piping, structure, instrumentation, and control logic, validated in a digital twin and commissioned in the field. 

You will design the module, model and simulate it, instrument it, bring up its control logic, and stand beside it during build and commissioning. You connect the physical package to its sensors and controllers, validate the twin against real operating data to a defined tolerance, and feed field lessons back into the design. You collaborate with mechanical, electrical, process, and manufacturing teams. 

VVater moves at a fast pace to accelerate the development and adoption of cutting-edge technologies in the water industry. The right person will be energized by that pace rather than depleted by it. 

Key Responsibilities:

• Automate treatment modules: General arrangement and layout, piping, structural, and skid or trailer packaging, including the mechanical, hydraulic, and utility packages. 
• Develop fabrication-ready packages: piping and instrumentation drawings, structural details, bills of material, and assembly documentation. 
• Apply DFM/DFA and tolerance analysis so modules are built the same way every time and scale from prototype to production. 
• Select and integrate instrumentation: flow, pressure, level, conductivity, pH/ORP, and the sensors each unit operation needs for safe, observable operation. 
• Develop and commission basic control logic and interlocks across PLC/SCADA/HMI; define I/O lists, control narratives, and alarm and safety logic. 
• Define the operating envelope and the automated responses that keep the module inside it, including safe-state and shutdown behavior. 
• Partner with the electrical team on power delivery, panel layout, and field wiring. 
• Build and maintain the engineering digital twin of the module and validate it against bench, pilot, and field data to a defined tolerance. 
• Develop 3D CFD models (STAR-CCM+, Simcenter, or equivalent) of reactors and process units to guide hydraulic and thermal design. 
• Use simulation to size and de-risk the package before it is built, and quantify how much to trust each model. 
• Couple the twin to live instrumentation where it adds value, so the model and the as-built system stay in sync. 
• Support BOM creation, build, and shop assembly, and resolve fit, fabrication, and integration issues on the floor. 
• Lead or support Factory Acceptance Testing (FAT), Site Acceptance Testing (SAT), and field commissioning. 
• Troubleshoot mechanical, hydraulic, and control issues on deployed modules and feed every field lesson back into the design and the twin. 
• Provides support and system maintenance of DMS applications (SCADA, FISR, Self-Healing, Load Var Management, Powerflow, VMS, FMS, and database updates to ensure DMS matches field). 
• Develop and maintain SOPs, operating envelopes, commissioning checklists, and manuals for the modules that you own. 
• Conduct feasibility studies and cost analyses for automation projects. 
• Perform root cause analysis to identify and address system failures or malfunctions. 
• Collaborate with mechanical engineers on physical installation and with process engineers on performance intent. 
• Set packaging and controls standards and build reusable templates so the whole team moves faster. 
• Mentor junior engineers and designers in controls integration, packaging, and commissioning practice. 
• Collaborate with suppliers and vendors to source necessary equipment and components. 
• Create test environments and provide the necessary research and support required. 

Qualifications: Must Have

• BS or MS in Instrumentation/Controls/Mechanical Engineering, or a closely related field with equivalent depth, and 5+ years of equipment or package-system design. 
• Working knowledge of PLC/SCADA/HMI and the integration of instrumentation and basic control logic. 
• Digital-twin or model-calibration track record: building a model, validating it against test or field data, and using it to drive design or operating decisions. 
• CFD proficiency (STAR-CCM+, Simcenter, or equivalent). 
• Strong knowledge of Rockwell, Control Logix, Iconics, Siemens, Delta-V, Allen Bradley, WonderWare Intouch, Zenon, and others. 
• DFM/DFA experience taking hardware from prototype to production. 
• Field commissioning experience, including FAT/SAT. 
• Programming skills in Python (preferred), MATLAB, or similar for data processing and model-to-data integration. 
• Hands-on fluency with modern AI tools (Claude or equivalents). 
• Exceptional written and verbal communication; you can explain a design and a model, and how much to trust it, to engineers, operators, and customers. 
• Comfort with ambiguity and the judgment to decide what to design, model, and test next without waiting for direction 

**As a part of our process to ensure a comprehensive evaluation of all applicants, assessment tests are required as part of our recruitment process. Unfortunately, should you elect not to participate in completing the assessment tests, your application will not be able to progress to the next stage or taken into consideration during evaluation.