A Project Manager at Rockwell Automation plays a pivotal role in driving the digital transformation and industrial automation solutions that power global manufacturing. In this role, you are not simply tracking tasks; you are leading complex, cross-functional initiatives that directly impact how the world's leading industrial companies operate. Whether you are managing enterprise IT systems like Order Management, guiding software engineering teams as a Scrum Master, or delivering custom automation solutions to external clients, your work directly influences operational efficiency, product quality, and safety across major industries.

What makes this position both challenging and deeply rewarding is the sheer scale and technical complexity of the environment. You will bridge the gap between highly specialized engineering teams, business unit leaders, and major industrial clients. Your ability to translate business strategy into technical execution ensures that Rockwell Automation continues to deliver robust, high-availability systems that our customers rely on daily.

Success in this role requires a balance of disciplined project management methodology and the agility to navigate ambiguity. You will have the opportunity to work on cutting-edge industrial IoT, cloud applications, and enterprise software initiatives. For a professional who thrives on solving intricate logistics, engineering, and resource challenges, this position offers a highly visible platform to drive measurable global impact.

The questions you will encounter during the Rockwell Automation hiring process are designed to evaluate both your methodological rigor and your situational leadership. While the exact questions will vary depending on the specific team—such as IT, software development, or client-facing engineering—they consistently focus on how you handle real-world complexity and stakeholder dynamics.

Project Delivery & Methodology

This category assesses your technical understanding of project lifecycles, framework adaptation, and operational execution.

• How do you determine whether a project should utilize Agile, Waterfall, or a hybrid delivery methodology?
• Describe your experience managing sprint planning and retrospectives in a highly technical software environment.

Preparing for an interview at Rockwell Automation requires a strategic approach that balances technical project management principles with behavioral leadership. Interviewers look for candidates who can demonstrate a structured way of thinking while remaining adaptable to the realities of complex engineering environments.

To stand out, you should focus your preparation on several core evaluation criteria that are highly valued by the hiring teams:

Role-Related Knowledge – You must demonstrate a deep understanding of project management frameworks (such as PMP or Agile/Scrum) and show how you apply these methodologies practically. Be ready to discuss how you manage budgets, risk registers, and resource allocation.

Problem-Solving Ability – Interviewers will present you with ambiguous, real-world scenarios. They want to see how you analyze a problem, identify constraints, structure a logical plan of action, and make data-driven decisions under pressure.

Leadership & Communication – As a PM, your influence often exceeds your formal authority. You must show how you build consensus, manage stakeholder expectations, and lead cross-functional teams toward a common goal, particularly when dealing with conflicting priorities.

Cultural Alignment – Rockwell Automation values integrity, innovation, and a collaborative mindset. You should be prepared to discuss how you foster a culture of safety, continuous improvement, and mutual respect within your project teams.

The interview process at Rockwell Automation is structured, professional, and collaborative. Candidates typically experience a multi-stage journey designed to evaluate both technical capability and cultural fit. The process is characterized by a conversational yet thorough tone, where interviewers genuinely seek to understand your past experiences and how they align with current open roles.

The journey begins with an initial HR screening, which is a conversational phone call to review your background, qualifications, and basic alignment with the company's needs. Following a successful screen, you will typically move to interviews with the hiring manager and other key team leaders. Depending on the specific team, this may involve technical deep dives into project delivery methodologies, panel discussions, or interviews with pairs of stakeholders from various business units.

The timeline above illustrates the standard progression from the initial outreach to the final decision. Candidates should use this roadmap to pace their preparation, ensuring they are fully ready for the deeper technical and behavioral assessments in the middle and final stages. While some candidates report a highly streamlined and rapid process, others note that scheduling dependencies between different business units can occasionally introduce delays.

To succeed at Rockwell Automation, you must perform exceptionally well across several distinct evaluation areas. The interviewers will use behavioral and situational questions to assess your competence in these domains.

Industrial Client & Scope Management

Managing projects for major industrial clients requires a meticulous approach to scope, risk, and change management. Because Rockwell Automation deals with physical manufacturing environments and mission-critical enterprise systems, scope creep can have catastrophic downstream effects on production schedules and budgets.

Be ready to go over:

• Scope baseline management – How you define, document, and lock down project scope early in the lifecycle.
• Change control boards (CCB) – Your experience utilizing formal processes to evaluate, approve, or reject scope changes.
• Risk mitigation in deployment – How you plan for deployment windows that minimize disruption to active industrial operations.
• Advanced concepts – Managing fixed-price versus time-and-materials contracts, and handling Factory Acceptance Testing (FAT) or Site Acceptance Testing (SAT) delays.

Example scenarios:

• "An industrial client demands an urgent software modification during the final deployment phase. Explain how you assess the risk and handle the communication."
• "Describe how you managed a project where the client's internal technical readiness was significantly lagging behind your delivery schedule."

Managing Engineering & Technical Teams

Project Managers at Rockwell Automation must work hand-in-hand with highly skilled hardware, software, and systems engineers. You must prove that you can respect their technical expertise while keeping them focused on business deliverables, timelines, and budgets.

Be ready to go over:

• Agile ceremonies – Running effective standups, sprint planning, and retrospectives that add value rather than overhead.
• Technical conflict resolution – Facilitating constructive debates when engineers disagree on architectural or design choices.
• Resource forecasting – Balancing capacity planning with actual team velocity to prevent burnout and missed deadlines.
• Advanced concepts – Managing cross-functional dependencies between hardware development cycles (Waterfall) and software release cycles (Agile).

Example scenarios:

• "How do you handle a situation where your lead architect insists on a highly complex technical solution that will delay the project by three weeks?"
• "Walk me through how you transition a traditional engineering team from a legacy waterfall mindset to an agile delivery model."

Cross-Functional Stakeholder Alignment

Large-scale projects, such as implementing a new Order Management program, involve numerous internal and external stakeholders. You must demonstrate that you can align diverse groups with competing agendas, from finance and procurement to operations and IT.

Be ready to go over:

• Steering committee management – Preparing and delivering high-impact status updates to executive leadership.
• Conflict resolution – Navigating political dynamics and misaligned goals between different business units.
• Organizational change management – Ensuring that end-users are prepared to adopt new systems and processes once delivered.
• Advanced concepts – Program-level dependency mapping across multiple independent product teams.

Example scenarios:

• "Describe a time when a critical stakeholder withdrew their support mid-way through a high-profile project. How did you win back their alignment?"
• "How do you manage communication when a major project milestone is missed due to a dependency on another business unit?"

As a Project Manager at Rockwell Automation, your day-to-day responsibilities will center on driving execution, managing risks, and fostering collaboration across teams. You will own the end-to-end delivery of projects, ensuring they are completed on time, within scope, and aligned with financial targets.

Your primary responsibilities will include:

• Project Planning and Execution – Defining project scope, creating detailed work breakdown structures, and developing comprehensive project schedules using tools like MS Project or Jira.
• Financial and Resource Management – Tracking project budgets, managing forecasts, and ensuring optimal allocation of engineering and technical resources across competing priorities.
• Risk and Issue Management – Proactively identifying potential bottlenecks, technical risks, or supply chain constraints, and developing robust mitigation strategies to protect delivery timelines.
• Stakeholder Communication – Serving as the primary point of contact for project status, leading steering committee meetings, and delivering clear, concise updates to both technical teams and executive sponsors.
• Cross-Functional Collaboration – Partnering closely with product management, engineering, quality assurance, and external partners to ensure seamless integration and deployment of solutions.

You will also be expected to champion continuous improvement, helping to refine internal project management methodologies and mentoring junior team members or Scrum Masters within the organization.