Talos Engineering

I spent summer 2026 as an Automation Engineering Intern at Talos Engineering in Richland, Washington. Talos designs and builds automation systems for industrial and manufacturing customers. Most of my time was hands-on: physically assembling and wiring control panels from drawings made by Talos engineers. I didn't do the panel or client-side design. I also worked on ladder logic in Studio 5000.

• Panel assembly and wiring. Physically assembled and wired industrial control panels from the engineering team's AutoCAD Electrical drawings, working from schematics, terminal diagrams, and component layouts.
• PLC programming. Developed and modified ladder logic in Allen-Bradley Studio 5000 for automation and manufacturing applications.
• Integration. Worked with the engineering team to integrate sensors, actuators, and electrical controls into customer systems.

Most of the panel work came down to reading drawings carefully. A schematic shows how a circuit works, a terminal diagram shows where each wire lands, and the component layout shows where everything mounts. Getting a panel right meant checking all three against each other, and catching the spots where they didn't quite agree before a wire went in the wrong place.

• Industrial controls leave much less room for error than school projects. I learned to slow down and verify before changing anything.
• Writing logic is easier once you've wired the hardware it controls. Building panels made the I/O in Studio 5000 make a lot more sense.
• Following existing standards and conventions matters, because someone else will have to maintain the logic and the panel after you.