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Unfortunately, such work is something EE Engineers run away from. The typical electrician also runs away from it. It's a combination of 24 VDC and 120VDC control voltages into what they consider "black box" controllers. It's very high exposure and pressure when it comes time to show functionality which A) Increases productivity, B) Reduces costs, and C) Improves Mean time between failures. Thus engineers run away because it has real tangible strings attached. The ideal staffer to support such function is a bored electrician. The devices run on high voltage, but are controlled by very low voltages. This makes entry to control cabinets somewhat safer for a person who knows what they are doing.

My advice would be for a person wanting such a job to first obtain an electrician's journeyman's license. Next take a bunch of Rockwell software courses at a local distributor. They will only do this for employees of their established accounts, so that means just taking a journeyman's job as a light fixture dope, motor changer, etc....

A person who is proven efficient at E&I (Electronics and Instrumentation makes about $30 to $45 per hour. With overtime and weekend phone coverage, if you're not pulling in $120K per year you're an idiot. All that with a high school education.

Very few engineers will be visible when it's time to prove their work. That's when the E& I guys start debugging and fixing it to make it run.

Hope that helps.

Too bad it's not the kind of thing one can get started on at a local tech school.

We have a great little tech school in my town and not only is it filled to the brim with happy students, it's grads are doing great (and making good money) in all the stuff college students don't want to do.

And the college grads have massive debt with little job opportunity. Of course there isn't much calling for degrees in gender studies, African American history, medieval music and literature, etc.;-)