{"type":"rich","version":"1.0","provider_name":"Transistor","provider_url":"https://transistor.fm","author_name":"Factory Field Notes","title":"Ep. 4 | PLC and Automation Q&A: Engineer Burnout, IT/OT Skill Gaps, and the 2026 Hiring Reality","html":"","width":"100%","height":180,"duration":1962,"description":"This PLC and Automation Q&A answers six field questions on engineer burnout, IT/OT skill pressure, Studio 5000 bitwise AND, and the 2026 entry level job market.\nEvery question maps to a decision an engineering manager is already navigating: retention, training, IT and OT scope, and how to hire and evaluate junior talent.\nSubscribe for analysis of engineering team dynamics, capital planning, and the operational realities of running an industrial automation function.\nLearn more at Joltek:- IT and OT Architecture Integration: https://www.joltek.com/services/service-details-it-ot-architecture-integration- Workforce Development and Education: https://www.joltek.com/services/service-details-workforce-development-education- Automation Leadership: https://www.joltek.com/blog/automation-leadership- Recruiting Robotics and Automation in Small Manufacturers: https://www.joltek.com/blog/recruiting-robotics-automation-small-manufacturers\nThe first question is a familiar one. Controls engineers used to spend most of their time inside PLC logic, and now the harder problem is everything around the PLC: HMI servers, edge devices, OPC UA, MQTT, historians, and the IT side consuming plant floor data. At larger sites this still gets handled by dedicated controls teams who never touch a switch or a domain controller. At smaller sites the same engineer is expected to do both, and the gap between job description and actual workload is widening fast.\nThe second question is the one engineering managers should pay closest attention to. A practitioner asked whether people are generally miserable in this field after two and a half years across two jobs. The pattern in the post is structural, not personal: zero training, no mentorship, hostile reception to mistakes, operators escalating against engineers, and a previous occupant of the seat who left in under a year. Schneider Electric's 2024 workforce survey reports 59 percent of frontline skilled workers over 55 plan to retire within five...","thumbnail_url":"https://img.transistorcdn.com/bLSthDC6mLkQ3vEghIEbytYZBvBBofsfsFEpsA-BvSs/rs:fill:0:0:1/w:400/h:400/q:60/mb:500000/aHR0cHM6Ly9pbWct/dXBsb2FkLXByb2R1/Y3Rpb24udHJhbnNp/c3Rvci5mbS83ZDg0/MTRlOGJkNzQxN2Ex/M2NlNjg4N2EwMzI1/MmM4NS5wbmc.webp","thumbnail_width":300,"thumbnail_height":300}