Automate America

08/24/2026

👉 Apply: https://automateamerica.com/app/automation_work/index/3993

September 3rd.

Count backwards from it. A copper tube bending machine in Stuarts Draft, Virginia comes down, and one controls engineer needs to already be standing in front of it — program development, debugging, hardware configuration, Allen-Bradley CompactLogix and Bosch servo drives.

Not interviewing on the 3rd. Working on the 3rd.

$120/hr, $140 overtime, $60/hr travel time, and the flight, hotel, car and per diem are all covered. About two weeks on site.

There is no version of this where a hiring process runs first. That is exactly why it is posted
somewhere you can apply in a minute. Apply button is at the top 👆

08/24/2026

08/24/2026

👉 Apply: https://automateamerica.com/app/automation_work/index/3993

There is something in this posting that most scope sheets leave out, and it changes what the job is.

The customer's lead controls engineer is not going anywhere. He is staying on the project and
supporting remotely. He just cannot be in Virginia for the two weeks the machine is down.

So this is not a rescue and it is not a handover. It is one contractor on the floor with a named
counterpart on the other end of the phone — CompactLogix program, RSView screens, Bosch servo drives
on a copper tube bending machine in Stuarts Draft, Virginia.

$120/hr. $140 on overtime. Starts September 3.

That arrangement is worth noticing if you have ever walked into a job where the person who knew the
machine was already gone. Apply button is at the top 👆

08/19/2026

https://automateamerica.com/app/automation_work/index/3974

$3,392 a week.

Two machine tool builders, Holland, Michigan. Starts Aug 24, two to three weeks, day shift.

Fixtures per prints. Cylinders, clamps, nests. Plug-and-play cable and hose. Pre-terminated runs — tool build, not controls work.

$64/hr straight time, $83.20 overtime, ten-hour days.

Tell me the rate that would actually make you drive to Michigan for three weeks.

08/19/2026

https://automateamerica.com/app/automation_work/index/3974

Two machine tool builders. Holland, MI. Starts Aug 24, 2–3 weeks.

Fixtures per prints, cylinders, clamps, nests, plug-and-play cable and hose.

10 hrs × 5 days. $64 ST / $83.20 OT = $3,392 a week.

Overtime is in the schedule, not a maybe. Prove me wrong that this beats a salaried tool room.

08/18/2026

👉 https://automateamerica.com/app/automation_work_new/add

A bad hire isn't just bad for the company and bad for the person. It's bad for the people you already have.

Robert Half: 57% of hiring managers say a bad hire contributed to OTHER employees leaving. Around 95% say it hit team morale.

Your best people absorb the slack. They work the extra hours. Some of them start looking.

The US Department of Labor puts the direct cost at 30% of that person's first-year earnings — and that's before you count what it did to your retention.

Increase the odds by not committing on day one.

08/17/2026

👉 Post your own work, free: https://automateamerica.com/app/automation_work_new/add
👉 See the one we are talking about: https://automateamerica.com/app/automation_work/index/3967

What would have to be true before you would put a permanent opening on a marketplace instead of running it through an agency?

Genuine question, because Cleveland-Cliffs just did it.

Their Process Control Engineer opening — 1 position, days, 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, starting September 30, 2026 — is posted on Automate America the same way a 6-week commissioning contract would be.

This is a free, fair and open marketplace: all of the work and all of the people in one place. Free to post, free to apply, free to hire, with no placement fee at the end of it. You set the pay you want to offer and nobody negotiates it down. Trusted professionals with ratings, reviews and endorsements apply directly, often within minutes.

One posting reaches independents and the available people at more than a thousand service companies at once — and we carry the marketing and the sales effort. Your opening gets written, designed, published and pushed across our channels. Exactly like this one.

And if you run a service company, you already use both sides: available employees onto open contracts to keep them billable through a slow month, your own permanent openings posted here when you are growing. Both cost nothing.

Posting takes a few minutes and costs nothing. The link is at the top.

08/14/2026

👉 https://automateamerica.com/app/automation_work/search?work_type=Hourly%20Contract

Nobody should go independent straight out of school. I want to say that first, because the rest of
this only makes sense if you take it seriously.

Out of college or tech school you need a company that will train you, put you next to people better
than you, and let you make mistakes on their time. That is the most valuable thing an employer ever
gives you and you cannot buy it. Take it. Use it.

But once you have your 10,000 hours — and some people get there in six years, not twenty, because
they chased the hard jobs and the 2am faults — you are at a decision most people never actually
make. They just keep going.

Staying is a legitimate choice. It just should be a choice.

So here is the question I want argued with: after the hours are earned, is the next twenty years in
one plant the best thing for a career, or the most comfortable thing?