Senior MES Engineer

The Senior / MES Engineer will be part of Advanced Manufacturing Engineering team that owns the architecture, integration, and production reliability of the Manufacturing Execution System, piloting in Hayco’s China sites, and deployment across Global sites. This is a specialized role: Designing robust MES/equipment interfaces, Design and facilitate data collection and traceability from events on each automated line stations, crunching data and presenting it in an automated GUI, mentoring junior developers, and driving Smart Factory initiatives. The candidate will need to work on cross-platform integration — MES, standard equipment, database, automation integration and cyber-security.

Responsibilities

System Architecture & Development

• Own the design and architecture of MES functions for incoming material tracking, material movement, manufacturing event tracking, pairing with station nests and pallets, tracking PLC registry positions, creating and retrieving log files.
• Translate manufacturing and business processes into concrete MES solutions, working directly with Manufacturing, Process Engineering, Quality and Logistics to scope them
• Set technical direction for how new features get built — data model, GUI presentation, access controls — before implementation starts
• Designs network infrastructure requirement for OPC UA, router and server size, cyber-security network requirement and data exchanges between PLC systems, ProfiNET/Profibus, TCP/IP, Ethernet/IP and other protocols

Equipment & System Integration

• Lead equipment integration work to enable communication with MES system and production equipment. Collaborate independently with software engineers of equipment system integrators on hardware and communication protocol requirement
• Design and maintain APIs, and system-to-system interfaces between MES, equipment, automation systems, and enterprise applications (ERP, WMS, QMS)
• Troubleshoot integration failures that span multiple systems — equipment interface timing issues, message queue backups, data mismatches, data latency, between MES and downstream systems
• Able to integrate multiple platform PLC systems in the beginning and able standardize PLC platform post-implementation

Database & Backend

• Set standards for Oracle/MS-SQL schema design, PL/SQL package architecture, and query performance
• Review and approve schema changes and major stored procedure/package modifications before they hit production
• Troubleshoots database linkage errors
• Responsible end-to-end data integrity

Production Support & Reliability

• Lead root cause analysis for MES, application, database, equipment interface, and integration issues, including escalations from the Application Developer team
• Own production releases: system upgrades, cutover planning, rollback strategy, and post-deployment validation
• Monitor system performance proactively, identifying degradation trends before they become outages
• Carry on-call responsibility for production-critical MES applications in a 24/7 manufacturing environment

Leadership & Process

• Provide technical guidance and code review for junior developers and application developers on the team
• Maintain architectural documentation, functional specifications, and troubleshooting runbooks
• Provide technical support and training to users on MES functions

Requirements

• Bachelor's Degree in Engineering, Computer Science, Information Technology, or related field
• 5+ years in MES, manufacturing IT, or automation, including at least one full MES implementation, major upgrade, or system migration
• Strong C#/.NET, ASP.NET, C++; Python for tooling and automation
• Deep Oracle/PL/SQL experience: complex query tuning, package design, data troubleshooting under production constraints; MS-SQL a plus
• Demonstrated experience owning root cause analysis on multi-system production incidents
• Comfortable owning on-call/after-hours support and making judgment calls under pressure during production issues
• Strong communication skills — able to explain technical trade-offs to non-technical stakeholders regularly. Conversant in English
• Based in China, but able to travel regularly during implementation (Portugal, India, Dominican Republic)

Preferred

• Electronics, or high-volume manufacturing background
• Exposure to multiple MES platforms or architectures
• Experience with Smart Factory / Industry 4.0 rollouts end-to-end
• Prior experience mentoring or leading a small technical team