Sr Electrical Engineer

Posted Date: May 28, 2025

Requisition Number: 125505

Job Location: Stuarts Draft, VA

Summary:

The Hershey Company Stuarts Draft plant is a Non-Union plant producing products such as Reese's Pieces, Reese Cups, Reese Shapes, Reese Bars, Mr. Goodbar, Mounds, Almond Joy, NutRageous, Oh Henry, FastBreak, Whatchamacallit, Baking Chips, etc. in a high-speed complex environment.

The primary role and responsibility of the Control Systems Specialist is to provide technical support to ensure that production lines and plant processes are operational.

The Sr. Control Systems Specialist will provide technical expertise to troubleshoot, repair and maintain process instrumentation, PLC's, VFD's, servos, control systems and computers.

The Control Systems Specialist will primarily be assigned to 1st shift and work other shifts as necessary to support plant operations, shutdowns, and projects. The Control System Specialist will be on call every 5th week for after-hours support and to provide 24-hour weekend coverage at minimum.

Responsibilities:

• Troubleshoot, diagnose, and repair plant controls systems, PLC's, motion controllers, HMIs, and electrical systems.
• Read and interpret drawings, diagrams, manuals, schematics, and blueprints in order to maintain and improve equipment uptime.
• Setup, configure, program, modify and improve PLC programs.
• Provide 2nd level technical support to plant electricians and technicians.
• Provide mentoring to maintenance, engineering, and manufacturing personnel on new and/or improved technologies.
• Coordinate with equipment vendors, engineering personnel, manufacturing supervision and production employees in the solution, design, and implementation efforts.
• Provide technical analyses (cost estimates, feasibility, specifications, interpretation of requirements), develop alternatives and prepare recommendations for capital solutions to problems.
• Assist with power distribution switchgear maintenance and switching.
• Diagnose and repair or replace malfunctioning apparatus and components, such as transformers, circuit breakers, fuses, motors, generators, and fixtures.
• Maintains continuity among work teams by documenting and communicating actions, irregularities, and participating in daily pass down discussions.
• Perform advanced troubleshooting, maintenance, and repair of plant electrical systems.
• Participate in the maintenance and upkeep of the Process Control Network security procedures and policies.
• Implement incremental improvement ideas to improve quality, reliability, uptime, and cost.
• Support and manage capital projects to eliminate controls obsolescence issues and improve plant quality, reliability, and uptime.
• Develop and provide technical training for Technical Assurance personnel.

Minimum knowledge, skills and abilities required to successfully perform major duties/responsibilities:

• Experience with processing and packaging equipment, controls systems, instrumentation, and computers
• Knowledge of electrical power distribution including panelboards, motor control centers, busways, substations and MV switchgear
• Understanding of project management tools and requirements such as purchase requisitions, contractor time monitoring, internal orders, and project timelines.
• Understanding of local area networks, subnetting, and routing
• Ability to operate, maintain, and troubleshoot DC drives and AC VFD's
• Ability to design and troubleshoot control circuits, ladder logic, and Boolean logic.
• Knowledge of electrical control relaying, motor controls, DC, variable frequency, and servo drives
• Ability to troubleshoot, modify and improve PLC and motion control programs.
• Knowledge of ControlNet, DeviceNet, DH+, Remote IO, Profibus, IO Link and Ethernet networks
• Ability to create, modify and troubleshoot Human Machine Interfaces (HMI's) and server-based client visualization systems
• Ability to design, maintain and troubleshoot process control systems and Proportional-Integral-Derivative (PID) controllers.
• Ability to troubleshoot, support and design servo systems.
• Ability to build process control computers, load PC operating systems and software and troubleshoot PC's and servers.

Minimum Education and Experience Requirements:

• Associates Degree in Electrical Engineering Technology, Mechatronics or a related technical degree preferred.
• Minimum - 5 years' work experience in engineering, maintenance or a related field required.
• Advanced experience with Allen Bradley PLC's is required.

Preferred Skills / Attributes:

• Practical knowledge and relevant experience in a food manufacturing environment (GMP, SQF)
• Understanding of PC's and PC skills (DOS, Windows, Windows XP, 7, 10, 11, and Windows Server 2016, 2019, 2022, VMWare, Nutanix)
• CompTIA A+, CompTIA Security+, CompTIA Network+
• ISA CCST, CCNA
• Panel Builder 32, Wonderware, iFIX, Ignition, FactoryTalk View SE HMI Programming and Troubleshooting
• Siemens PLC and visualization programming and troubleshooting

Testing Requirements:

Applicants will be expected to demonstrate the ability to read and create electrical schematics, to program and troubleshoot servo systems, PLC's, and HMI's and to diagnose and repair PC problems.