Controls Technician Supervisor - Facility Systems

Job Description

<p>Tesla's Gigafactory Berlin-Brandenburg is pioneering sustainable manufacturing for electric vehicles and energy products. As a Controls Technician Supervisor in Facility Systems, you will lead a team of controls technicians responsible for maintaining and troubleshooting PLC-based systems including HMIs and SCADA in critical facility areas (e.g., utilities, HVAC, clean rooms). Your focus will be on building a high-performing team that collaborates seamlessly with controls engineers to ensure operational efficiency, safety, and reliability in a 24/7 high-volume production environment.</p>

Job Responsibilities

• Team leadership and performance: Manage a team of controls technicians as high-performing individuals; motivate, coach, and conduct performance evaluations to drive accountability and excellence.
• Enable efficient collaboration: Encourage individual coordination between technicians and controls engineers for troubleshooting, upgrades, and optimizations, ensuring seamless support for facility systems.
• Resource and scheduling management: Oversee time tracking, availability planning, and resource allocation to meet production demands; optimize shift rotations (and  if applicable on-call schedules) for facility coverage.
• Safety and logistics: Enforce and enable adherence to EU/German safety protocols (e.g., DGUV, risk assessments); manage equipment stocking, inventory, and PPE to equip the team for safe, effective work.
• Talent development: Foster growth by identifying talent, organizing training programs (e.g., Instrumentation calibration and troubleshooting, PLC programming, safety workshops), and creating development opportunities to build technical and leadership skills.
• Maintenance and compliance: Ensure regular preventive maintenance tasks, regulatory inspections (e.g., Machinery Directive, environmental audits), and repairs are executed efficiently; drive continuous improvements through team feedback, root-cause analysis, and process enhancements in partnership with engineers. Ensure structured feedback is given, documented and distributed to share the knowledge efficiently between teams.

Job Requirements

• Bachelor's in Electrical Engineering, Mechatronics, or related field; or equivalent vocational training with supervisory experience.
• 5+ years in facilities maintenance/controls, including 2+ years supervising technicians in industrial/automotive settings (Gigafactory or similar high-tech manufacturing preferred).
• Strong knowledge of controls systems (PLC troubleshooting, Siemens/Rockwell, HMIs), instrumentation and sensors, actuators (valves, drives); familiarity with facility infrastructure (HVAC, utilities, automation).
• Proven supervisory skills: Experience in team management, resource planning, safety compliance, and talent development.
• Excellent organizational, communication, and problem-solving abilities; ability to lead in a fast-paced, hands-on environment.
• Fluent English (German required for local compliance and team interactions); EU work eligibility and willingness for shift rotations.
• Preferred
• Experience in Gigafactory-scale operations or Tesla facilities (e.g., Berlin, Nevada, Austin, Fremont).
• Background in maintenance and inventory management, knowledge of predictive maintenance tools, knowledge of scripting and automation tools to automate tasks.
• Certification in safety (e.g., ISO 45001) or technical training (e.g., Siemens TIA Portal).
• Passion for sustainability and Tesla's mission.