Are there controls jobs that don't take 50+ hours every week?

Hello all,

I love programming PLC's and am very thankful for my job.

That being said, I am finding is impossible to work 40 hours per week in this industry. It seems like with how quickly every general contractor needs the program / OIT / SCADA completed, I end up working lots of weekends and evenings, and I feel that given my age, I'm not sure how long I will be able to work at that kind of pace all the time.

Are there any fields / specialized positions in our industry where we work regular 40 hour weeks and don't have to work those 50, 60, 70+ hour weeks from time to time?

I will keep looking until I find something in line with my goals. I like all programming so maybe I could transition to something not controls-related, but maybe some other type of automation.

Thank you!

77 now - work for myself - generally 70+ hours every week.

I was in automation for 37 years & the short answer is NO, the only chance you have is to find a position that does not require you to go to site, sit in a pretty little office writing code & they have commissioning engineers to do the dirty work, however, the chances are you would be called upon to visit site, spend time into the early hours of the night & work all weekends to pull the project back on track.

Production Maintenance! Ermmmm Maybe.

Production has to run, the phone is like a damn tether, every time one of 40 machines **** the bed it rings, dings and collect emails like crazy.... It never stops 365/24/7. For the last 12 years for me anyway..
However, after my 9-5 or in the case of my chosen hours of about 6 to 2, Its outta here...(Provided no issues) I still work lots of Saturdays (trade for Fridays) when production is down and will get interrupted on every single possible camping trip, movie theater, dinner or any other outing for sometimes very mundane things. But I leave after my hours are up everyday and even earlier tomorrow if I had to come in last night for example. Its really a relaxed check in check out kind of thing with no official score keeping except the honor system, but when there is trouble, drop everything, come quick, it doesn't matter anymore.. It gets hard to deal with sometimes, but the relaxed schedule gets me out in time to work on some other projects I hope to one day become my main bread and butter....

I still get a ton of project work being a Maintenance tech. With 3 plants always evolving, I'm swamped with projects. Currently I'm adding a compact logix and PanelView to interface with an existing Frick 600 H.P. compressor and vessel control system. This is just one of our many ref. systems. Taking control of all motors and providing external monitoring and control. Its been an awesome project. As well as I'm in the process building a 3 headed, servo driven, piston filler machine, very cool! Plus I started internally here at the plant a CSA panel building program, so I do some of this as well. There is no shortage pf project work in a busy production environment.

Sometimes they try to push to hard to get projects done while the phone is ringing an ringing, it gets my goat. Then I think I would like to try working for an integrator just doing project work without the fire fighting. But then I see thinks posts like this that demand 210% from their guys to be employed with them and its a turn off. I know of a group that I was interested in working a few years back said they were on the road at a minimum 40 weeks a year. Love to have me come aboard. Decent money sure, but that's not everything. Once they said that I realized that I had better stay where I am.

I work 37½ hours per week. I do put in approx. 40-45 hours though.
When I started in the company I travelled and worked much more, 120+ days per year. Now more like 30 days per year.
I do respond to emergency support from customers, also when at home.
I have 5 weeks mandatory undisturbed holiday per year (work phone is off).

The difference is if you get paid or not for those excessive hours, and for the calls on off-duty time. If it is implied that 'it is part of the job' and 'you get paid a great salary already' then management will simply put more and more on your shoulders, they will never stop. Why should they as long as you comply. We have to stand together comrades.

Yeah, it's never that simple, as an engineer for most of us it seems to be a mindset, you have to respond, I was in Thailand on holiday, got a phone call about a system that had gone down, after trying to talk to the maintenance engineers of how to solve the problem (they had accidently apparently) pulled the PSU out of the rack (battery was in the PSU) & lost the program, I then went on remotely to re-load & much to their annoyance told them about me doing it while sitting on the balcony of my beach accommodation with an ice cold singer beer in hand it was 2 in the morning & still 28 degrees.

JesperMP said:

I have 5 weeks mandatory undisturbed holiday per year (work phone is off).

comrades.

Click to expand...

Oh I envy this...... 5 weeks,

I get three broken up, still on call, with IPad on hand holiday weeks a year... So, camping is almost near impossible as I spend most the time looking for cell service to get online with trouble spots and doing phone support, then the wife gets cranky. Especially Sunday mornings for startups. Its just easier to not do the events sometimes... I know its not ideal but what do you do. Travel 40 weeks a year is the alternative. If they are calling me, there is no production, just problems... So I feel like I have to do it at that point. Sometimes its such stupid problems to. I bet in my 20 years of automation work, Iv had one, maybe 2 processors actually **** the bed out of the hundreds Iv played with / work on.

WAS (working for others).... 5-7 days a week, 12hrs a day, plus a one hour drive each way, two weeks vacation and worked through another 3 weeks a year and got paid for it.

NOW (working for myself)... 7 days a week, 10-12hrs a day, 5 min drive, off Thanksgiving week and Christmas

Just glad I enjoy what I am doing, when you own your own business you dont have much of a choice, if there is work to do you have to do it.

Automation and control systems never sleep. Our busy times is everyone else's downtimes, i.e. holiday's and the such. The passion for creating and integrating systems, bringing code to life and see it produce - has to be personally balanced with what you are willing to sacrifice. Time is a 4 letter word you know.

I've been doing this for a long time as well, and in my personal experience even when you are "off" you are not really. This field is very rewarding, but this is the dark side of it, I am afraid.

Unfortunately 99% of PLC's are involved in some kind of process machinery. This usually means it's running more than on a 9 to 5 schedule.

As you gain more experience in your chosen field you get a reputation as the "go to guy" to solve problems. This is a double edged sword, you tend to make more money, but are also geting more off hour calls.

I have worked on process machinery since 1973, and found that my non 9-5 work increased pretty much every year since I started. I retired 2 years ago to care for my wife who developed rapid onset Alzhiemers and still get calls from people trying to keep their equipment running or want upgrades.

It's an interesting feild to work in, always something new to learn, but if you want a career that has a strict 9-5 schedule it might be wise to look elsewhere.

One thing that has changed is the switch to remote support. In the past you had to drop every thing and get on a plane. Now, you can do most of the support remotely. This has saved me a lot of travelling.
On the other hand, being available remotely opens up for potential overuse. Thankfully we have a service department that do a triage of the customer support requests, and they filter out 95% of all support requests before they come to me.
Maybe in a year, I get involved 10 times outside normal working hours. Most of these take 10-30 minutes, maybe one problem is really tricky and require me to be online for many hours in the middle of the night.

I think you guys must demand that you are not the only guy to handle support requests, and that you must have a system of rotation. You must have some time that is 100% off, not just holidays, also on the every day one needs to be with ones family.

I think you need strong boundaries in this business. Otherwise management will just pile on till you break and that wont be pretty. Work/life balance is really on you and you have to decide what is important. Because in this business as a controls eng you are your own boss in most matters.

Maybe every controls eng needs to go thru a boundaries workshop? Just a suggestion.

Was: 7 years of in-place machine assembling & commissioning. The machine would get built in the shop, those would be 40 hour weeks, then a couple months later after the building envelope was closed around the machinery, it'd be some 50-60 hour weeks to finalize the installation. Various 10 hour days interspersed throughout for maintenance for customer with long term contracts.

Now: a decade of doing L2 email and phone support for a automation OEM. ~45 hour work weeks. We don't offer after hours support; so 'all problems are solved at 5pm'. No travel.

Get a government job: https://www.dcjobs.com/job/detail/5...m_source=google_jobs_apply&utm_medium=organic.

Well, yes. Actually, the last 3-4 jobs I had rarely went over 40hr/week but I feel almost bad by saying that in this culture where complaining/gloating about how much one work is a badge of honor.

For starters, a lot of local utilities SCADA jobs.