Automation & Robotics Engineer - Production Line Integration

About the role

Aerospacelab, which designs and manufactures small satellites and develops earth observation services, is looking for an Automation & Robotics Engineer to join its production engineering team. The engineer designs, integrates and maintains automated production and inspection cells combining industrial controls, machine vision and robotic manipulation, from PLC/motion architecture down to the Python tooling that ties them together. This is a hands-on, purely technical role with no people-management responsibilities, working closely with production, quality and R&D teams.

Key responsibilities

• Design and develop automated production and inspection cells: mechanical/electrical integration, controls architecture and software.
• Program and commission PLC/motion controllers (Beckhoff/TwinCAT or equivalent) and fieldbus networks (EtherCAT, Modbus, OPC UA).
• Develop and deploy machine vision pipelines (camera sync, calibration, defect and dimensional inspection) with tools such as HALCON or equivalent.
• Integrate industrial robots (e.g. Universal Robots) into production workflows, including tooling, path planning and safety.
• Write production-grade Python software for equipment orchestration, data acquisition and process monitoring, running on Windows and Linux.
• Diagnose and resolve integration issues across controls, vision, robotics and software on live production lines.
• Document architectures and share knowledge within the automation community of practice.

Required profile

• Master's degree in electromechanical, mechatronics, automation or a related field, or equivalent hands-on experience.
• Around 5 years of hands-on experience in industrial automation, robotics or production engineering (mid level).
• Solid hands-on experience with industrial controls (PLC programming, fieldbus protocols) in a production environment.
• Practical experience integrating industrial robots (UR or equivalent) into real production or lab setups.
• Fluent English; French and/or Dutch is a plus.

Required skills

• Strong Python skills applied to industrial/automation software.
• Comfortable working across Windows and Linux, with Git in daily workflow.
• Nice to have: machine vision libraries (HALCON, OpenCV) and camera SDKs (GenICam), ROS/ROS2, Docker, CI/CD pipelines, and experience in aerospace or other highly regulated manufacturing.

What we offer

• Flat hierarchy and fast-paced environment.
• Flexible ways of working.
• Salary package consistent with experience.