Automation Engineer - Production Line Integration

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About Aerospacelab

Our mission is supported by an ambitious vertically integrated approach: design & manufacture of small satellites combined with development of earth observation services.

Since its creation in 2018, the company has already grown substantially. Our team gathers more than 25 engineering expertise, from hardware design to software development & data science.

In 2026, Aerospacelab counts offices in Louvain-la-Neuve (Belgium), Toulouse (France), Lausanne (Switzerland) and US West Coast with more than 450 full-time employees, with the ambition to position itself as the European leader in small satellites.

Your role

Aerospacelab is looking for an Automation & Robotics Engineer to join our production engineering team. You will design, integrate, and maintain automated production and inspection cells combining industrial controls, machine vision, and robotic manipulation – from PLC/motion architecture down to the Python tooling that ties it all together. This is a hands-on, purely technical role with no people-management responsibilities, working closely with production, quality, and R&D teams to bring flexible, high-reliability automation to our satellite manufacturing lines.

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 synchronization, calibration, defect/dimensional inspection) using tools such as HALCON or equivalent frameworks.
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 across Windows and Linux.
Diagnose and resolve integration issues across the full stack – controls, vision, robotics, and software – on live production lines.
Document architectures and share knowledge within the automation community of practice.

Must have

Master’s degree in electromechanical, mechatronics, automation, or a related engineering field, or equivalent hands-on experience.
Around 5 years of relevant hands-on experience in industrial automation, robotics, or production engineering (medior level).
Solid hands-on experience with industrial controls (PLC programming, fieldbus/industrial protocols) in a production environment.
Strong Python skills applied to industrial/automation software (not a beginner level).
Practical experience integrating industrial robots (UR or equivalent) into real production or lab setups.
Comfortable working across Windows and Linux, with version control (Git) as part of the daily workflow.
Problem-solver with a hands-on mentality, comfortable moving between low-level hardware debugging and software design.
Fluent in English; French and/or Dutch are a plus.

Nice to have

Experience with machine vision libraries (HALCON, OpenCV) and industrial camera SDKs (e.g. GenICam-based cameras).
Exposure to ROS/ROS2, containerized deployments (Docker), or CI/CD pipelines.
Experience in an aerospace, space, or other highly regulated manufacturing environment.