Automation lead
Taigatech AB · Göteborg · Tills vidare · Deadline 2026-11-30
Taigatech AB is hiring an **Automation lead** based at its office in central Gothenburg. Serving as the company’s first dedicated automation specialist, this role bridges machine learning systems and customer industrial operations. Responsibilities span technical oversight and project delivery, including defining machine-side interfaces, establishing PLC communication protocols, writing functional descriptions, and managing external automation partners. The position also acts as the primary client contact through project delivery—coordinating change control, OT network access, and plant IT dialogues—while collaborating with internal computer vision engineers to build standardized commissioning workflows. The role involves **occasional travel to customer sites**, which include sawmills and pulp mills across Sweden and abroad. Applicants must have proven practical experience **programming PLCs in live production** on at least one major platform, such as Siemens TIA/S7, Beckhoff, ABB, Mitsubishi, Codesys or equivalent. Hands-on experience with industrial networks—such as Profinet, Profibus, EtherCAT, Modbus TCP, OPC UA or equivalent—is required, alongside a background in retrofitting existing control systems, authoring functional specifications, and conducting on-site commissioning during active production. Fluency in both Swedish and English is necessary. Prior experience in sawmills, pulp and paper, or heavy process industries is advantageous, as is familiarity with vision systems, machinery directives, Python, or managing subcontractors.
About Taigatech
We solve some of the most important problems in industry with AI and computer vision. With our connection to the latest research and academia, we take world-leading research in AI and computer vision and turn it into impactful solutions that help the wood industry increase yield, availability, and productivity.
Technology is reshaping our world. We believe the forest and wood products have an important role to play in a sustainable future, and AI is how the industry gets there.
We are a growing team in a comfortable office in central Gothenburg, working closely with many of the leading names in wood processing. Our systems run in production at sawmills and pulp mills in Sweden and abroad. There's no better time to join our journey than now.
Why this role exists
Our systems create value the moment their output reaches the customer's control system — a correction, a signal, something the line can act on.
What determines the results are a handful of decisions made early and made well: which signal, where it lands, what the line does with it, and how it behaves when something unexpected happens. Get those right and the implementation is small and quick.
Today that judgement is distributed between our own team and the automation partners we work with on each installation. We want someone to decide what the interface should look like, judge whether it came out right, decide when a sensor or other component needs replacing, and if the signal belongs on a different fieldbus.
That's the person we're hiring. You don't replace our automation partners. You become the one who leads them.
What you'll do
The role is both technical and leadership, and the balance shifts from project to project.
Own the machine-side interface. You decide how our system talks to the customer's PLC. Signals, timing, handshakes, watchdog, fail-safe behaviour. You write the functional description the work is built from.
Lead our automation partners. Sometimes that means writing the code snippet yourself. Sometimes it means explaining what needs doing and reviewing that it came out right. You decide which.
Make the technical decisions on the customer's plant. Upgrading a component for better results, or moving to a different fieldbus, is yours to propose and drive. The implementation itself normally goes to a partner.
Be the customer's main contact through the project — scope, timeline, status, time and cost reporting. You take over from sales and carry the delivery home.
Clear the path. OT network access, change control, and the dialogue with the site's automation and IT departments, so the installation can be done quickly and safely.
Work closely with our ML and vision engineers. Translate what the process needs into what the model has to output, and the model's limits back into what we can promise.
Make it repeatable. A reusable interface specification, a commissioning checklist, and a growing network of automation partners to deliver alongside.
Who you are
You need experience, but we don't care how many years you have behind you. We care about what you've done.
You have programmed PLCs in live production, on at least one major platform — Siemens TIA/S7, Beckhoff, ABB, Mitsubishi, Codesys or equivalent
You have hands-on experience of industrial networks: Profinet, Profibus, EtherCAT, Modbus TCP, OPC UA or equivalent.
You have extended control systems you did not write with retrofits onto existing, running equipment
You have written functional descriptions that someone else built from
You have stood on site during commissioning, with production running and someone waiting
Drives the project forward by keeping people accountable, asking the right questions, and pushing decisions when it matters — even when that means a difficult conversation.
Swedish and English, and you sometimes travel to sites
Bonus
Sawmill, pulp and paper, or other heavy process industry
Vision systems, sensors or measurement equipment
Experience on the supplier side, responsible for subcontractors
Machinery directive and risk assessment on modified lines
Python and basic data analysis
What we offer
You'll be our first dedicated automation hire. You set the delivery process, and it becomes the standard we scale on. As delivery volume grows, the function gets built around you.
You'll work directly with the founders, with our ML engineers and with the mills themselves. Office in Gothenburg.
We review applications on a rolling basis.
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