You've just lost another strong controls engineer candidate. Your offer was competitive—actually, it was $8,000 higher than what they're currently making. Your benefits are solid. The commute is reasonable. And yet, they accepted a position at your competitor for less money.

What happened?

Here's what most hiring managers and HR leaders miss: while compensation is important, it's rarely the deciding factor for skilled automation professionals. The experienced controls engineer choosing between opportunities isn't optimizing purely for dollars. They're optimizing for career growth, interesting work, technical development, and professional autonomy.

Understanding what actually motivates automation talent—beyond the paycheck—is critical if you want to win recruiting battles in 2025. Let's talk about what these candidates really care about.

Project Ownership: The Desire to Build, Not Just Maintain

The number one thing that attracts top automation talent is the opportunity to own meaningful projects from start to finish. Controls engineers, robotics specialists, and automation professionals are builders at heart. They want to design systems, implement solutions, and see their work make tangible impact.

When you interview candidates, listen to how they talk about past projects. They light up when describing the robotic cell they designed, the PLC migration they led, or the vision system integration they figured out. They get frustrated when talking about companies where they were just maintaining legacy equipment or fixing the same recurring problems with no authority to implement real solutions.

The companies that win talent in this market clearly articulate project ownership in their recruiting conversations. Instead of saying "you'll support our automation systems," they say "you'll lead the design and implementation of our new packaging line automation, including PLC programming, HMI development, and robotics integration. You'll make the technical decisions, own the timeline, and see it through commissioning." That's compelling. That's what gets people to move.

Project ownership also signals trust and respect. When you give automation professionals real ownership, you're saying "we trust your judgment, we value your expertise, and we're not going to micromanage your technical decisions." This autonomy is incredibly important to experienced practitioners who are tired of having their recommendations overruled by managers who don't understand the technology.

If your automation roles are purely maintenance and firefighting with no greenfield projects, no improvement initiatives, and no opportunity to build anything new, don't be surprised when you can't attract strong candidates. The best people want to create, not just sustain.

Modern Tech Stacks: The Fear of Becoming Obsolete

Automation professionals are acutely aware that their skills have an expiration date. The PLC programmer who only knows Allen-Bradley SLC 500 systems is gradually becoming unemployable as those platforms age out. The controls engineer who's never worked with industrial IoT, modern networking, or data integration is watching the industry move past them.

This creates a powerful motivation: candidates want to work with modern technology because it protects their future employability and keeps them relevant in the market. When evaluating opportunities, they're asking themselves "will this job make me more valuable or less valuable three years from now?"

If your operation runs cutting-edge automation—Industry 4.0 initiatives, IoT integration, advanced robotics, modern SCADA platforms—lead with that in recruiting. Talk specifically about the technologies they'll work with. "You'll program Rockwell ControlLogix PLCs, integrate ABB robots, implement OPC UA for data connectivity, and work with our Ignition SCADA platform." Technical specificity attracts technical people.

Conversely, if you're running 20-year-old legacy systems with no modernization plans, understand that this is a massive deterrent to ambitious candidates. They see joining your company as career limiting. The salary would need to be substantially higher to compensate for the opportunity cost of not developing modern skills.

Some companies make this mistake in reverse: they're actually implementing modern automation but they undersell it in recruiting. Their job descriptions say generic things like "PLC programming experience required" without mentioning they're deploying state-of-the-art robotic systems and IIoT infrastructure. You're hiding your strongest selling point.

The companies successfully recruiting automation talent are those that clearly communicate: "We're investing in modern technology, you'll work with current platforms, and you'll develop skills that make you more valuable in the market." That message resonates powerfully with candidates thinking about long-term career trajectory.

Autonomy and Trust: Freedom Within Framework

Automation professionals deeply value autonomy. They want the freedom to solve problems their way, make technical decisions based on their expertise, and not have every choice second-guessed by people who don't understand the work.

This doesn't mean they want zero structure or accountability. What they want is what one controls engineer described as "freedom within framework"—clear objectives and constraints, but discretion over how to achieve them. Tell them what needs to be accomplished, what the budget and timeline constraints are, what safety and quality standards must be met, and then trust them to figure out the technical approach.

The red flags candidates watch for during interviews include: excessive approval layers for routine technical decisions, managers who don't have technical backgrounds but override engineering judgment, cultures where you need three signatures to order a $200 sensor, and environments where initiative is punished rather than rewarded.

In contrast, green flags include: stories about engineers who identified problems and were empowered to fix them, evidence that technical recommendations are taken seriously by leadership, reasonable budgets for tools and components, and examples of the company investing in solutions that engineers proposed.

Autonomy also extends to work structure. Many automation professionals value flexibility in how they structure their days. If they need to be on-site for commissioning or troubleshooting, they're there. But if they're doing PLC programming or HMI design work that can be done remotely, they appreciate the option. Companies that are rigid about "everyone must be here 8-5 every day" regardless of what work is actually happening are seen as outdated and controlling.

The best way to communicate your culture of autonomy is through specific stories in interviews. Have your engineering manager tell the candidate about a time an engineer identified an opportunity, proposed a solution, got approval, and implemented it. Make it concrete. Vague statements about "we value initiative" are meaningless; specific examples are convincing.

Career Trajectory: Where Does This Role Lead?

Finally, ambitious automation professionals care deeply about career progression. They're not just thinking about this job; they're thinking about their career arc over the next five to ten years. They're asking: "If I join this company and excel, where can I go?"

The concerning reality for many automation engineers is that they see limited paths forward. Many companies have only one or two controls engineers total. There's no senior controls engineer position, no lead role, no management track. You're hired to do a job, and if you do it well, you'll keep doing that same job forever. For growth-oriented professionals, that's a dead end.

Companies that successfully attract ambitious automation talent clearly articulate career paths. This might include: technical progression (junior engineer → engineer → senior engineer → principal engineer or technical specialist), leadership tracks (engineer → lead engineer → engineering manager → director of automation), cross-functional opportunities (moving into project management, product development, or operations leadership), or skill expansion (starting in controls, adding robotics, then taking on automation architecture or digital transformation roles).

Even in smaller companies where formal tracks don't exist, you can paint a picture of growth. "As we scale our automation capabilities over the next few years, we see this role evolving into a lead position where you'd mentor junior engineers and take on our most complex projects" is compelling. It shows you're thinking about their growth, not just your immediate needs.

Development opportunities are part of career trajectory. Do you send people to training? Pay for certifications? Provide budget for conferences and continued education? Support engineers who want to develop new skills? These investments signal that you're serious about developing your team, not just extracting value from them.

The companies losing talent to competitors are often those that can't articulate what "success and growth" looks like beyond "you'll get raises if you do good work." That's not a career trajectory; that's a job. Top automation talent is looking for careers.

Bringing It All Together in Your Hiring Process

Understanding that automation candidates prioritize project ownership, modern technology, autonomy, and career growth over marginal salary differences should fundamentally change how you recruit.

In your job descriptions: Lead with the projects they'll own and the technology they'll work with, not just a list of requirements and responsibilities.

In your interviews: Share specific examples of engineers having autonomy, tell stories about career progression of people on your team, and be concrete about the technology stack.

In your offers: Yes, be competitive on compensation, but also articulate the non-financial value proposition clearly: the projects, the technology, the autonomy, and the growth opportunity.

In your closing conversations: When candidates are deciding, reinforce these elements. Remind them of the specific project they'd lead, the modern systems they'd work with, the trust and autonomy you discussed, and the career path you outlined.

The hiring managers and HR leaders who internalize this shift—from selling jobs based on salary to selling careers based on growth, ownership, technology, and autonomy—are the ones who consistently win the recruiting battles that matter. Salary gets candidates to the table, but these other factors are what get them to sign.