Why is it so hard to hire commissioning engineers?

Because the job asks for three things that rarely share one person. It needs a fitter's hands and a controls engineer's head. It also needs someone content to spend weeks inside another firm's factory. Most candidates bring one or two. The few with all three are already employed, and someone else is trying to hire them too.

The machinery builders' hub answers this in a line. Owners usually want the longer version, and the practical question behind it: what can we do about it?

• Mechanical feel: levelling a frame, shimming motor feet, aligning drives, setting cam timing and chain tension on site.
• Electrical and controls skill: I/O checks, drive parameters, small PLC and HMI edits when the customer's sensors differ from the drawing.
• Process sense: why the customer's laminate, PET bottle, powder or casting behaves differently from the trial sample.
• Customer handling: training operators, calming a maintenance head and getting the acceptance protocol signed.
• Self-management: planning the day without a supervisor, often inside a refinery, dairy or steel plant with its own permits, gate passes and dress rules.
• Paperwork: a clear commissioning report and a punch list that the works can act on.
• Stamina for travel: night journeys, lodges and weekends away from family.

• No course produces this mix. Diplomas teach the pieces separately, and the rest comes from years on machines.
• Design engineers prefer the office, and many accept a lower offer to avoid the road.
• Fitters often lack controls depth, while controls people often lack mechanical feel.
• Travel deters people at the stage of life when they have young children or ageing parents.
• System integrators and bigger builders recruit from the same small pool and pay well to do it.
• Some builders treat the role as a dead end, so ambitious engineers move on after a few years.

• Panel wiremen with mechanical curiosity. They already know the panel and the I/O list, and can learn alignment and timing.
• Senior fitters who take to controls. They know the machine by hand, and can learn drives and basic PLC edits.
• Test bench and trial technicians. They have run the machine and seen it fail, which is half of commissioning.
• Integrators' site teams. Engineers who commission other people's machines may want one product range and less chaos.
• Dealers' service technicians. Field staff of drive, gearbox or hydraulic power pack distributors who want to work on whole machines.

1. 1

   Pick candidates from inside

   Look for staff who wonder aloud why a machine misbehaves, who stay calm in a breakdown, and who do not mind travel. Ask them before assuming.

2. 2

   Map each candidate's gap

   A wireman needs mechanical setting. A fitter needs drives and PLC basics. A tester needs customer handling. Train the gap, not the whole job.

3. 3

   Send them as the second person on site

   Pair each candidate with an experienced engineer on several jobs. Give them defined tasks: the I/O check, the alignment, the operator session.

4. 4

   First solo job close to the works

   A repeat model at a nearby customer, with an experienced engineer on the phone. Debrief properly on return.

5. 5

   Sign off in stages

   Assistant, engineer for standard models, engineer for special builds, lead. Each stage has listed tasks witnessed on site.

6. 6

   Keep them connected to the works

   Between trips, slot them into assembly of the very models they install, and into release reviews, so site lessons reach the drawing.

• Travel terms written down and applied the same way to everyone.
• Expenses advanced before long trips and settled promptly after them.
• A fair share of hard sites, decided by a roster rather than by who answers the phone.
• Time back at the works after a long job, with rest before the next one.
• One desk at the works that fields the customer's slippages and add-on asks.
• Proper kit: laptop with programming software, cables, insulation tester and a spares box.
• A clear ladder: senior site engineer, field team head, applications or the drawing office.

Ask for a commissioning report the candidate has written, with customer names removed. Give them a rig with a planted fault that crosses mechanical and electrical, such as a sensor bracket set so the cylinder never reaches its switch. Then role-play a call from an angry plant head. The hiring guide for machine builders covers trade tests for the other roles. For preparing technicians to face irate customers, see how compressor makers build service skills.

Keeping them is the other half, and the pattern post on field staff away from base sets out the travel and rotation fixes. Cartoning, filling and sealing machine builders field the most breakdown calls; the packaging machinery makers' profile explains why. To build a hiring process around these tests, recruitment process design can help.