IT Automation Engineer

Department: IT

Location: Hybrid (In State Candidates Only)

Minimum Salary: $113,644

Employment Type: Regular Full Time

Shift: 1st Shift

Scheduled Work Hours: 8:30am-4:30pm Monday - Friday, Weekends as needed

The Jel Sert Company marks a major milestone this year, 100 years of success, innovation, and industry leadership. The Jel Sert Company has focused on creating high-quality, high-value foods and beverages that help bring people together. Jel Sert is proud of being awarded the Great Place to Work certification, along with being recognized as a Best Workplace to Work in Chicago and Best Workplace to Work in Manufacturing and Production. We are currently looking for a passionate and dedicated individual to join our team as a IT AUTOMATION ENGINEER. If you are looking for a work environment that encourages personal growth, responsibility, and a shared vision for creating incredible products that help create lasting memories, then Jel Sert wants you!

The IT Automation Engineer will be responsible for enabling and advancing applications that enhance productivity and performance across the enterprise. AI will be heavily used as will traditional and Agentic workflows and applicable API/MCP technologies to deliver measurable value. Working from within the IT Department, this person will apply deep technical fluency to turn high level design concepts into actionable, AI-enabled solutions that enhance efficiency, quality, and growth.

ESSENTIAL DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES include the following. Other duties may be assigned.

• Develop, implement and maintain solutions to ensure optimum business performance.
• Aid in design and documentation of scalable enterprise solution architectures, including best-in-class tools, data flows, integrations, and security controls.
• Aid in the definition of standards and best practices for AI tool selection, deployment, and lifecycle management.
• Maintain associated company policies as required to address current best-practice standards.
• Aid in identification of use cases that enhance productivity.
• Ensure proper systems security and consistency with Jel Sert policies and procedures.
• Promote the secure, ethical, and responsible use of AI technologies across the organization.
• Train Jel Sert employees on AI topics and tools.

QUALIFICATIONS

To perform this job successfully, the individual must maintain confidentiality, be able to perform each essential duty satisfactorily. The requirements listed below are representative of the knowledge, skill, and/or ability required.

EDUCATION and/or EXPERIENCE

• Bachelor's degree in information technology or similar discipline required.
• 5 + years of general business experience designing and implementing enterprise level solutions required.
• Experience within Food and Beverage or CPG companies preferred.
• Ability to design and implement scalable, secure AI solutions aligned with enterprise architecture and goals.
• Minimum 3 years' experience in the following areas:
  
  
  
  • Hands-on implementation/use of popular AI end-user tools - such as ChatGPT, Zapier, Manus, Gamma, NotebookLM, Harvey, Jasper, etc.
  • Use of AI functionality within enterprise tools - such as Microsoft Copilot, Adobe Suite, Egnyte, UKG, etc.
  • Best practices for maintaining security/privacy of data when using any tool or functionality across the enterprise.
  • Committed experience in the ethical use of AI.
  • Enterprise level integration technologies including those that link AI tools to enterprise systems.
  • Workflow design, implementation and maintenance.
  • Hands-on experience with data governance, preparation and maintenance in order to support productivity related efforts.
  
  
  
  
• Working knowledge of AI Agents - when and how to create, schedule and respond to them.
• Strong understanding of Answer Engine Optimization including the evaluation of AEO efforts would be a plus.

KNOWLEDGE, SKILLS and ABILITIES

• Strong interpersonal and communication skills.
• Must be able to lead teams and manage investigative efforts.
• Ability to develop training materials and lead team and individual training events.
• Strong systems-thinking and problem-solving skills.
• Stay current with AI trends and development.
• Formal project management at the task level.

BENEFITS & SALARY

The Jel Sert Company is committed to pay transparency and will provide further compensation information during the interview process. The minimum compensation for the IT Automation Engineer is $113,644. Compensation is determined by a candidate's experience, education, skills, training, and the internal equity within our organization. Actual compensation to be paid will be determined upon an offer. In addition to a competitive compensation package, regular full-time corporate employees of Jel Sert are eligible for our extensive benefits programs that can be reviewed here.

PHYSICAL DEMANDS

Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions.

• Reaching: Extending hand(s) and arm(s) in any direction.
• Standing: Remaining upright on the feet, particularly for sustained periods of time.
• Walking: Moving about on foot to accomplish tasks, particularly for long distances or moving from one work site to another.
• Pushing: Using upper extremities to press against something with steady force in order to thrust forward, downward or outward.
• Pulling: Using upper extremities to exert force in order to draw, drag, haul or tug objects in a sustained motion.
• Lifting: Raising objects from a lower to a higher position or moving objects horizontally from position to-position.
• Fingering: Picking, pinching, typing or otherwise working, primarily with fingers rather than with whole hand or arm as in handling.
• Grasping: Applying pressure to an object with the fingers and palm.
• Feeling: Perceiving attributes of objects, such as size, shape, temperature or texture by touching with skin, particularly that of fingertips.
• Talking: Expressing or exchanging ideas by means of the spoken word; those activities where detailed or important spoken instructions must be conveyed to other workers accurately, loudly, or quickly.
• Hearing: Perceiving the nature of sounds at normal speaking levels with or without correction and having the ability to receive detailed information through oral communication and making fine discriminations in sound.
• Repetitive motions: Making substantial movements (motions) of the wrists, hands, and/or fingers.
• Medium work: Exerting up to 20 pounds of force occasionally, and/or up to 10 pounds of force frequently, and/or up to 10 pounds of force constantly to move objects.
• The worker is required to have close visual acuity to perform an activity such as: preparing and analyzing data and figures; transcribing; viewing a computer terminal; extensive reading; visual inspection.

WORK ENVIRONMENT

Hybrid role - Remote/ Office Environment.

FOOD SAFETY and QUALITY RESPONSIBILITIES

Follow applicable procedures and work instructions.

Back-up Redundant

IMPACT ON JEL SERT SUCCESS

Goal is to develop and apply AI to produce positive ROI for The Jel Sert Company.