Automation Engineer Resume Examples & Writing Guide

This sample is for a controls and automation engineer with seven years of experience, first in a food and beverage plant and now at a control systems integrator. The person and companies are made up. This page covers industrial automation (PLC, HMI, SCADA, DCS, robotics); QA and test automation in software is a different job, covered in the note under the summaries.

Automation resumes are usually read by an engineering manager or a senior controls engineer, not HR. They are matching you to the platforms in their plant or their current backlog, and they decide on four things.

• Platforms, by name and version. "PLC programming" means nothing; "Studio 5000 v33, ControlLogix L8x, FactoryTalk View SE 13" means you can start Monday. The same for Siemens TIA Portal, Ignition, DeltaV, Experion or Beckhoff. List the ones you have really programmed, not the ones you have seen.
• Commissioning. Have you started up a system in a live plant, under a shutdown clock, and made it run? FAT, SAT, I/O checkout, loop tuning and start-up support are the words they look for. Office-only programmers are read differently.
• Project size and industry. I/O counts, number of lines or units, project dollars, and whether it was food, pharma, water, oil and gas, automotive or discrete manufacturing. Each has its own standards (ISA-88, 21 CFR Part 11, IEC 61511, robot safety) and the manager wants a match.
• Results and safety. Downtime reduced, OEE gained, cycle time cut, projects delivered on schedule, zero incidents on site. Travel availability matters at integrators; say what percentage you can do.

“When a resume says 'experienced with PLCs' and nothing else, it goes to the bottom. When it says ControlLogix, TIA Portal, Ignition, and then tells me how many I/O points they commissioned and on what schedule, that person gets a phone call the same day.”

Write a summary once you have commissioned something. Use a career objective as a new graduate or when changing specialty (for example, from maintenance technician to controls engineer). In both, name platforms, an industry and one number.

Most automation resumes list responsibilities ("developed PLC programs and HMI screens") instead of projects. A hiring manager wants project bullets: platform, scope, your role, and the result. Rewrite each duty as a project.

Group the skills so a manager can scan for their platform in two seconds, and list only what you have programmed or configured yourself. Applicant tracking software matches on exact product names, so write them out.

PLC, HMI, SCADA and DCS platforms:

• Rockwell Automation: Studio 5000 / RSLogix 5000, ControlLogix, CompactLogix, GuardLogix, FactoryTalk View SE and ME
• Siemens: TIA Portal, S7-1500 and S7-1200, WinCC, SIMATIC PCS 7
• Other control platforms: Beckhoff TwinCAT, CODESYS, Schneider Modicon M580, Mitsubishi GX Works, Omron Sysmac Studio
• SCADA: Ignition (Inductive Automation), AVEVA System Platform and InTouch, GE iFIX
• DCS: Emerson DeltaV, Honeywell Experion, ABB 800xA

Networks, drives, instrumentation and robots:

• EtherNet/IP, PROFINET, PROFIBUS, Modbus TCP and RTU, OPC UA, MQTT
• VFDs and servos: Allen-Bradley PowerFlex and Kinetix, Siemens SINAMICS, Yaskawa
• Instrumentation: flow, level, pressure and temperature transmitters, HART, loop tuning
• Robots: FANUC, ABB, KUKA, Universal Robots; vision systems (Cognex, Keyence); PackML packaging control

Standards, design and software skills:

• IEC 61131-3 languages; ISA-88 batch; ISA-95 MES integration; ISA-18.2 alarm management; ISA-101 HMI
• Safety: IEC 61511 (process SIS), ISO 13849 and IEC 62061 (machine safety), NFPA 70E and NFPA 79, UL 508A panel design
• Regulated industries: 21 CFR Part 11, GAMP 5 validation; cybersecurity: ISA/IEC 62443
• Drawings and documentation: AutoCAD Electrical or EPLAN, P&IDs, I/O lists, functional specifications, FAT and SAT protocols
• Data: SQL, Python, historians (AVEVA PI, Ignition), Power BI for OEE dashboards

No license is required to program a PLC in the US, but a few credentials change how a resume is read. List them with the issuing body and year, and do not list vendor training as a certification unless the vendor calls it one.

• The PE license is state-issued: an ABET-accredited degree in most states, the FE exam, about four years of experience and the NCEES PE Control Systems Engineering exam. It is expected in water, wastewater and process consulting where drawings are sealed, and rarely required at integrators or in plants. If you have passed the FE, list "EIT" with the state.
• Education: a B.S. in Electrical, Mechanical, Chemical or Computer Engineering, or Engineering Technology, with the year. Many strong controls engineers hold a two-year Electrical Engineering Technology or Instrumentation degree plus experience; list it and let the project bullets do the work.
• OSHA 10 or 30, NFPA 70E arc-flash training and the ISA/IEC 62443 Cybersecurity Fundamentals Specialist certificate help at integrators and utilities. UK readers: Chartered Engineer (CEng) through the IET or InstMC, and the document is a CV.

Integrators and manufacturers hire new controls engineers on evidence that you have touched real hardware and will travel. A senior design project, a co-op, a PLC lab and a willingness to commission at 2 a.m. matter more than GPA.

1. 1Header and objective: degree and graduation date, EIT if passed, the platforms you have used and your travel availability ("open to 50% travel for commissioning").
2. 2Projects section above experience: senior design, co-op projects and lab work. For each: platform, I/O or scope, what you built, and a measured result.
3. 3Co-op, internship and hands-on work with numbers: programs written, I/O points checked out, machines commissioned; maintenance technician, electrician's helper or robotics club work counts, because managers like people who have pulled wire and reset a fault at a machine.
4. 4Skills: exact software (Studio 5000, TIA Portal, TwinCAT, CODESYS, Ignition Maker Edition, MATLAB/Simulink, AutoCAD Electrical) and languages (ladder, structured text, Python, C). One page, no photo, PDF.

• One page up to about 5 years; two pages after that, because project lists are long. A separate one-page project list (platform, industry, scope, your role, year) is common in this field and can be offered.
• Order: header (with EIT, PE or CAP after your name), summary, skills grouped by platform, experience with project bullets, certifications and training, education. New grads put projects and education higher.
• Single column, plain fonts, no photo, no skill bars. Engineering managers dislike graphics that claim "90% PLC"; they want product names, versions and scale: I/O count, tags, lines, dollars, sites.
• State travel availability and on-call experience plainly; integrators screen on it. PDF unless the application asks for Word.

Words to mirror from postings when they are true for you: PLC programming, HMI, SCADA, DCS, ControlLogix, Studio 5000, FactoryTalk, TIA Portal, S7-1500, Ignition, DeltaV, EtherNet/IP, PROFINET, VFD, servo, robotics, FANUC, commissioning, FAT, SAT, start-up, P&ID, I/O list, functional specification, IEC 61131-3, ISA-88, IEC 61511, ISO 13849, safety PLC, OEE, downtime, alarm management, 21 CFR Part 11, UL 508A, historian, OPC UA, MES.