Automation Engineering Team Lead

This position is based in North Canton, Ohio. Candidates should reside within a reasonable commuting distance of our North Canton office to support business needs.

Job Summary:

Lead the vision, governance, design, and delivery of AI agent and intelligent automation solutions across the enterprise. The primary mission of this role is to build and scale Microsoft Copilot Studio agents, establish enterprise AI governance, and enable business units through automation, while also stabilizing and operating the existing UiPath RPA portfolio as a foundational capability. Technologies span Copilot Studio, Power Platform, UiPath, and generative/agentic AI tooling.

Duties and Responsibilities:

Strategy, Vision & Roadmap

• Define and own the automation engineering vision, roadmap, and quarterly OKRs in alignment with enterprise strategy and the Director of Software Engineering's priorities.
• Lead scope-of-ownership decisions - determining what lands on this team and what doesn't - including Microsoft Copilot & Copilot Studio agent development, UiPath RPA build/support/roadmap, generative AI tool governance (Claude, ChatGPT, etc.), agentic & developer AI tools (Claude Code, GitHub Copilot, Cowork), AI/automation policy/intake/approval workflows, and vendor evaluation & licensing decisions for AI/automation.
• Conduct process discovery workshops, assess automation feasibility, and maintain a prioritized intake backlog aligned to PMO governance and business unit demand.
• Drive capacity to meet Copilot demand and scale to all business units; establish defensible governance for generative AI before exposure escalates; and revive UiPath ROI through dedicated ownership and roadmap.

AI Agent Development & Copilot Studio

• Lead the design, development, and deployment of Microsoft Copilot and Copilot Studio agents for business units (Finance, Logistics, Safety, Fleet Services, and shared services) using a standard intake and delivery process.
• Oversee the agent development lifecycle: discovery, scoping, build, test, deploy, and iterate - ensuring agents meet quality, security, and supportability standards.
• Evaluate and pilot emerging AI capabilities (generative AI models, agentic frameworks) and make build-vs-buy recommendations.

RPA / Intelligent Automation (UiPath & Power Platform)

• Assume immediate operational ownership of existing UiPath automation portfolio, ensuring continuity, stability, and incident response as the team transitions from external managed support to internal ownership.
• Own end-to-end RPA delivery lifecycle: discovery, design, development, testing, deployment, and support.
• Architect scalable UiPath solutions using REFramework or equivalent automation delivery frameworks, queues, triggers, and secure credential management.
• Develop and maintain automations using UiPath Studio/StudioX and Orchestrator, and Power Platform; perform peer code reviews.
• Integrate UiPath with enterprise systems (ERP, TMS, APIs) and Microsoft ecosystem (Azure AD, Azure DevOps, SQL Server).
• Oversee RPA deployment including creation of CI/CD pipelines and creation of production Change Requests. Facilitate smooth transition to automated processes.

Governance & Policy

• Own policy, approval, and oversight for generative and agentic AI tools - from evaluation through deployment.
• Draft and ratify the enterprise generative & agentic AI governance policy; manage ongoing compliance, risk assessment, and tool approval workflows.
• Ensure 100% of business-unit Copilot agent requests are handled by a defined intake process and that a ratified enterprise generative & agentic AI governance policy is in force.

Team Leadership & Delivery Management

• Manage delivery across the team, including a Senior Automation Engineer and Junior Automation Engineer.
• Actively enhance the skills and performance of other engineers through dedicated mentoring, sponsorship, and providing constructive feedback. Their influence extends beyond their immediate team, contributing to the betterment of the automation function at large.
• Help shape and select the rest of the team; participate actively in hiring, scoring candidates, and debrief discussions.
• Manage the automation backlog, sprint planning, and delivery cadence using Agile/Scrum practices within Azure DevOps.

Stakeholder Engagement & Communication

• Collaborate with Finance, Safety, Fleet Services, Logistics, and other business stakeholders to identify automation opportunities and drive adoption.
• Communicate complex technical problems, including benefits and risks, clearly and confidently with non-technical stakeholders, fostering effective collaboration between product (business) and automation teams.
• Track and report automation KPIs (cycle time, accuracy, ROI); continuously improve bot performance.
• Publish measurable growth in UiPath bot portfolio and hours saved, with metrics reported quarterly.

Operations & Support

• Provide 24x7 support for critical automations; proactively resolve incidents and suggest enhancements.
• Document business processes, technical specifications, SOPs, and training materials.
• Contribute to automation standards, reusable component libraries, and knowledge bases that elevate the capabilities of the broader engineering organization.

Required Skills and Abilities:

Required

• Demonstrated experience with Microsoft Copilot Studio and Power Platform (Power Automate, Power Apps).
• Working knowledge of UiPath (Studio/StudioX, Orchestrator, REFramework, attended/unattended bots) or similar RPA platform.
• Experience designing, deploying, or governing generative AI and/or agentic AI tools in an enterprise setting.
• Strong business analysis skills: requirements elicitation, process modeling, ROI analysis, and stakeholder facilitation.
• Experience with SQL, APIs, and integrating automation with ERP/TMS systems and Microsoft Azure services.
• Familiarity with Agile delivery, Azure DevOps, and CI/CD pipelines for automation.
• Excellent communication, documentation, and meeting facilitation skills; ability to translate technical concepts for business audiences.
• Ability to manage multiple priorities, mentor others, and thrive in a fast-paced, dynamic environment.
• Must be willing to provide 24x7 support of systems developed and maintained and able/willing to take initiative to solve problems in a timely fashion with proactive, creative, and aggressive problem diagnosis and solving skills.
• Ability to travel up to 20%.

Preferred

• UiPath Advanced Developer certification.
• Microsoft certifications related to Power Platform or Copilot Studio.
• Experience establishing AI/automation governance frameworks, policies, or Centers of Excellence.
• Experience with vendor evaluation and licensing decisions for AI/automation tooling.Familiarity with process mining and task mining methodologies.