Ignition Architect - Automation & Manufacturing Intelligence

Ignition Architect

Location: Wilmington NC or Ruston LA preferred, relocation supported, remote considered for the right person

Salary: up to around $130,000 base plus year-end profit share, depending on experience and Ignition depth

Schedule: full time, permanent, with travel to client sites

This is a role for an Ignition-strong automation or SCADA engineer who is ready to stop just building systems and start designing how they get built.

You would join the manufacturing intelligence team at a vendor-independent automation and MI integrator, sitting on the architect side of the group. The work is about turning client requirements into clean, secure, maintainable solution designs, then getting out to site to help deploy them. You would lead architecture across several client projects at once, set the standards the rest of the engineers build to, and bring on the more junior architects behind you.

The company has been engineering automation, OT infrastructure, cybersecurity and manufacturing intelligence solutions for clients since the mid 1990s. They are deliberately platform-independent, which means you work across a broad stack rather than being tied to one vendor's roadmap. They have been growing steadily, adding offices and headcount, and people tend to stay because the work is varied, the benefits are strong, and engineers are trusted to get on with the job.

What you'll do

You would work primarily in Ignition, designing solution architectures that connect the factory floor to the data and business layer. Expect to define integration standards across APIs, OPC UA and MQTT, guide the database and historian design that feeds analytics and reporting, and make the calls on how systems talk to each other. Alongside Ignition, you would use SQL, Python and Java, and lean on modern tooling like cloud, containers and CI/CD to keep delivery repeatable.

Day to day you split your time between design work and being on client sites deploying what you have designed. Travel runs in the region of 40 to 60%, though it varies with the project mix. Between engagements you would review other engineers' designs, define reusable patterns, and mentor the specialists and Architect I engineers on the team.

What you'll need

You do not need to tick every box. The core is around ten years in industrial automation, controls, SCADA or manufacturing intelligence, with real Ignition depth and genuine experience leading design across more than one project at a time. Strong SQL plus Python, and ideally Java, matter here. MES experience is a real plus, as is historian work, OPC UA and MQTT, and any modern software and DevOps exposure like Azure, Docker, GitHub and CI/CD. Ignition certification is welcome but you can earn it on the job. A degree helps but equivalent experience is fine.

Most of all you need to be comfortable on site and on the road, and steady when project priorities shift.

Why this role is worth considering

This is a genuine architect seat with ownership, not a title bolted onto a build job. You get to shape how the team works as it grows, across a modern stack that spans OT and IT.

Reasons engineers join include:

A real architect role designing and deploying, with the chance to shape a forming team

A broad, modern stack: Ignition, historian, MES, plus cloud, containers and CI/CD

Year-end profit share on top of base

Strong benefits: 401k match, financial wellness support, generous PTO and parental leave

A growing, employee-focused integrator with a work hard, play hard culture

A fast, direct hiring process with the decision-maker

The working setup

The team would like you near Wilmington NC or Ruston LA, and relocation is supported. Remote is possible for the right person but it is not the default, and the role involves real travel to client sites, so a base in an East Coast, South or Central time zone near a good regional airport works best.

The kind of person who will do well

This suits an Ignition-strong engineer who wants to move into architecture, enjoys being on site with clients, and likes setting standards and bringing others on. If you need a fully remote, low-travel desk role, or you have only ever built dashboards rather than owned system architecture, this probably will not be the right fit.

If you have real Ignition and solution architecture experience and want ownership plus variety at a growing integrator, it is worth a conversation.