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What's a Controls Engineer?

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  • Jun 29th, 2006 6:56 pm
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Feb 8, 2006
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8 upvotes

What's a Controls Engineer?

How would you define the position of a controls engineer and the type of work involved?

This is related to the automotive-automation industry.
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Aug 11, 2005
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Basically, he makes sure that when your car goes over a pebble, it doesn't blow up. In other words, the engineer helps design car such that the "system" is stable under various test cases. That's my guess.
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Feb 18, 2006
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is this a high paying job?

what certification must one obtain for this field of work?
Deal Guru
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Dec 30, 2004
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Toronto
Usually an Electrical Engineer with PLC knowledge..

Controls mostly do automation work.. programming..
Jr. Member
Oct 30, 2005
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belfour wrote:Usually an Electrical Engineer with PLC knowledge..

Controls mostly do automation work.. programming..
Not necessarily. Control engineers would need a programming background. But a high level control engineer, would be more responsible of doing more of the design part and leave the hard core programming task to other people.

Pretty much manufacturing jobs will need control engineers to automate the manufacturing process.
Deal Expert
Oct 6, 2005
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Cyber0066 wrote:Not necessarily. Control engineers would need a programming background. But a high level control engineer, would be more responsible of doing more of the design part and leave the hard core programming task to other people.

Pretty much manufacturing jobs will need control engineers to automate the manufacturing process.

Well that's the case with almost any job right? The higher you go, the more abstract you become :)
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Sep 30, 2003
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jvaf wrote:is this a high paying job?

what certification must one obtain for this field of work?
define "high paying"? in general, most engineering jobs are not all that high paying if the person stays in the "technical" side of things. Having said that, senior positions are capable of making 6 figure. Unfortunately, that figure usually always starts with a 1, no higher :)

certifications?
if it's a real engineering job, the person will need a P.Eng. otherwise, it'll be a technician/qualified person who's involved in electrical/PLC/automation/robotics etc.
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Deal Addict
Sep 1, 2005
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controls isn't limited to electrical engineering some schools offer a branch of mechanical refered to as Mechatronics which is a mix between a mechanical/controls degree with courses on controls/programing above the normal mech undergrad. A couple guys in my 4th year design group where doing mechatronics, but all mechanicals do a couple controls courses in 3rd and 4th year hte mechatronics guys just take those up a step.
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Sep 1, 2005
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jvaf wrote:highpaying like 80K yearly?
depends on industry and experaince. A fresh grad would be 40-50k a P.Eng woudl be 65-80, then it depends ussaly a strong technical person who doesnt go into managment will would not get much over 100k (unless they are really good and in demand as a consultant with TONS of experance), moving up into managment mid 100's isn't unheard of.

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