FDE (Manufacturing)

Conduit has built the system of record for the modern factory floor. We move manufacturers from one-off automation projects to holistic production systems where robots, machines, operators, sensors, and factory software synchronize. We are live with top manufacturers, are well capitalized, and are growing quickly. We are hiring the deployment engineers who can hold their own on any line in America.

The Role

You will be the senior technical presence Conduit puts on customer sites. You will lead OFL integration within our customers factory floors, and be the person who can debug a cell with the controls team, spend time with the plant manager to understand principal needs, and translate what is actually happening on the line back to the SF product team in clean, actionable language. You are deployment-first, integration-first, and customer-first, and are able to translate complex engineering puzzles into actionable solutions.

What You’ll Do

• Lead full deployments at customer plants.
• Integrate Conduit OFL with the rest of the shop floor — robots (UR, FANUC, KUKA, ABB), PLCs (Rockwell, Siemens), HMIs, MES/ERP, conveyors, sensors, end-of-arm tooling, factory networking.
• Diagnose problems across hardware, controls, networks, and software. You are not going to wait for someone in SF to look at the log file.
• Build the relationships that keep a deployment alive: operators trust you, the controls team respects you, the plant manager calls you first, the CEO knows your name.
• Feed reality back to the product team. The product team in SF gets clear written briefs from you on what to change, what to build, and what to deprecate.
• Reduce deployment drag. Every project should be cheaper, faster, and less custom than the one before.

Who You Are

• 5 years deploying automation or manufacturing systems — system integrator, automation OEM, in-house manufacturing engineering, controls engineering, or comparable.
• You can walk into an unfamiliar plant and orient yourself in a day.
• You have shipped integrations that drove actionable, measurable outcomes.
• You are enough of a software person to write Python, hack a quick integration, or fix a config — not enough to expect a full dev seat.
• You are willing to travel heavily and live in customer plants for stretches.
• You have urgency. Plants do not reward patience.
• You want to be a part of the reindustrialization of the United States.

Nice to Have

• Background in mechanical, electrical, controls, or industrial engineering.
• Experience with Rockwell / Allen-Bradley, Siemens TIA Portal, OPC UA, EtherNet/IP, PROFINET, Modbus.
• Experience with safety-rated cells, risk assessments, light curtains, safety PLCs.
• Direct experience in automotive, aerospace, electronics, food/bev, defense, or high-mix manufacturing.

Why Conduit

This is the FDE role for someone who already knows what good looks like on a factory floor and is tired of doing the same one-off integrations over and over. Conduit's whole bet is that automation should compound. You will be the person making it true for customer after customer.

• Top tier pay and equity: We want to make it easy to join Conduit.
• Generational opportunity. Be early at a company defining the software layer for industrial automation.
• American re-industrialization is happening. We’re building the platform to make it real — faster.
• Zero bureaucracy. High impact. You’ll be on the front lines, solving real problems for real factories.
• You will level up. You’ll work directly with the founder and exec team — and grow into a senior operator.

Conduit is an equal opportunity employer. We welcome applications from all qualified candidates.