Careers in the AVEVA PI System World

Meta description: Explore PI System jobs, roles and skills from PI Administrator to OT architect. Learn paths, contract vs perm tips, and where to browse roles.

Why PI careers remain relevant in 2025 (and beyond)

The AVEVA PI System sits where operational technology (OT) realities meet enterprise IT needs and a steady demand for trustworthy industrial data. That keeps PI System roles essential across utilities, oil & gas, chemicals, mining, manufacturing, food & beverage, pharmaceuticals, renewables and infrastructure.

For employers PI is rarely optional: it supports safe plant operation, optimisation, compliance reporting and analytics. For practitioners that means work that is operationally important, cross‑functional and technically broad—from connectors and networks to visualisation and governance.

If you’re new to the ecosystem start with: What Is the AVEVA PI System? Architecture, Components, and Use Cases.

PI job market overview

Where demand comes from Organisations hire PI people to deliver outcomes, not just to “have PI”:

• Reliable time‑series data from control systems and field devices
• Dashboards and reports that operations trust
• Stable, scalable infrastructure that tolerates patches and growth
• Security and governance that meet enterprise standards
• Integration with historians, data lakes, analytics and OT asset models

Hiring signals PI hiring typically increases when organisations are:

• consolidating multiple PI environments
• moving from single‑server to multi‑tier, multi‑site architectures
• onboarding new plants or large tag/event volumes
• scaling PI Vision usage and governance
• modernising security (AD integration, least privilege, segmentation)
• formalising operational support (24/7, on‑call, SLOs/SLAs)

Rule of thumb: PI roles expand as PI moves from a tool to a service.

Hard-to-fill skills Employers struggle to find people who combine PI fundamentals with:

• practical OT experience (networks, change windows, control system etiquette)
• architectural instincts (resilience, upgrade paths, scale)
• security literacy (identity, segmentation, patching in OT windows)
• calm operational behaviour (incident handling, prioritisation, documentation)

Common PI roles

Titles vary; responsibilities overlap. Below are common role patterns and typical ownership.

PI Administrator

Maintains core platform health: configuration, upgrades, backups, service health, performance baselining and incident response. Key responsibilities:

• Manage PI Data Archive and AF/Analyses services
• Plan upgrades/patches and rollback approaches
• Maintain and test backups and DR runbooks
• Troubleshoot performance (queues, client load, disk IO, latency)
• Manage identity, permissions and mappings
• Coordinate with OT/IT on networking, certificates and time sync

See: Running the PI System Day-to-Day: A PI Admin’s Playbook.

PI Engineer (Applications Engineer)

Focuses on modelling and making data useful: AF hierarchies, event frames, analyses, dashboards and KPI delivery. Key responsibilities:

• AF modelling (templates, attributes, naming standards)
• Create/maintain analyses and calculations with operational alignment
• Build and govern PI Vision displays
• Investigate and resolve data quality issues
• Define actionable KPIs with operations
• Support integrations (CMMS, MES, quality systems)

Data ingestion / Connectivity Engineer

Handles drivers, protocols, buffering and store‑and‑forward—areas that often cause incidents. Key responsibilities:

• Configure and support data collection (OPC DA/UA, vendor APIs, connectors, MQTT)
• Manage buffering and store‑and‑forward behaviour
• Operate within OT security constraints (DMZs, firewall rules)
• Coordinate with control system vendors on changes
• Validate point configuration, scan classes and compression settings
• Resolve data outage scenarios without impacting production

Read: How Data Gets Into the PI System: Interfaces, Adapters, and MQTT

PI / OT Architect

Defines how PI fits the enterprise: reference architectures, capacity planning, resilience, security posture and standards. Key responsibilities:

• Define reference architectures and HA/DR strategies
• Create standards for naming, security, onboarding and lifecycle management
• Plan roadmaps and upgrades that respect operations
• Own performance and scale outcomes across sites
• Align PI with identity, monitoring, backup and enterprise governance
• Support multi‑site deployments and migrations

See: Designing a Scalable and Resilient PI System Architecture

PI Support / Operations (L2/L3)

In larger estates PI operates as a service with defined escalation. Focus: incident handling, stability and predictable changes. Key responsibilities:

• Triage incidents and run maintenance/change windows
• Maintain monitoring, alert thresholds and capacity dashboards
• Standardise runbooks and known‑error playbooks
• Coordinate with infrastructure teams (VMware, Windows, storage, backup)

See: Keeping PI Fast, Stable, and Predictable at Scale

Security‑focused PI specialist

Often a PI Admin or Architect with cyber responsibilities. Key responsibilities:

• Implement least‑privilege and group‑based access patterns
• Work with AD/identity teams on service accounts and rotations
• Support segmentation and firewalling within operational constraints
• Drive pragmatic vulnerability and patch management in OT windows
• Prepare audit evidence (access reviews, change records, hardening)

See: Securing the AVEVA PI System in Modern Enterprise Environments

Skills by role: what “good” looks like

Think in three layers: platform fundamentals, operational competence and outcome delivery.

PI Administrator — core skills Technical:

• Windows Server (services, event logs, certificates, patching discipline)
• PI Data Archive administration (points, mappings, trusts)
• AF/Analyses service basics and failure modes
• Backup/restore and restore testing
• Performance troubleshooting (queues, client load, IO, latency)

Operational:

• Incident triage and safe change management
• Clear runbooks and documentation
• Coordination with IT and OT

See:

• Keeping PI Fast, Stable, and Predictable at Scale
• Designing a Scalable and Resilient PI System Architecture

PI Engineer — application and modelling skills Technical:

• AF modelling, templates and naming conventions
• PI Vision design patterns that consider performance and users
• Analyses/calculations with load and failure awareness
• Data quality techniques (gaps, scaling errors)

Operational:

• Requirements discovery with operations
• Governance for models, displays and KPIs
• Communicating trade‑offs (“real‑time” vs “near‑real‑time”)

Connectivity / ingestion specialist — edge and protocol skills Technical:

• OPC DA/UA, vendor driver patterns and common failures
• Buffering/store‑and‑forward concepts and verification
• Time synchronisation fundamentals
• Network and security zone basics (ports, firewalls, routing)

Operational:

• Working safely with control system teams and vendors
• Validating changes to avoid data storms or load spikes

See: How Data Gets Into the PI System: Interfaces, Adapters, and MQTT

OT architect / PI architect — scale, resilience, governance Technical:

• Reference architectures (tiers, HA/DR, integration boundaries)
• Capacity planning (event rates, tag counts, concurrency)
• Failure‑domain understanding (site vs WAN vs service outage)
• Security architecture (identity, segmentation, monitoring)

Operational:

• Creating practical standards teams will follow
• Upgrade planning that respects operations
• Stakeholder management across OT, IT and security

See:

• Designing a Scalable and Resilient PI System Architecture
• Securing the AVEVA PI System in Modern Enterprise Environments

Cross‑cutting skills that improve employability

• Troubleshooting method (hypothesis‑led, evidence‑based, safe rollback)
• Documentation habits (diagrams, runbooks, known‑issues)
• Operational empathy (appreciation of production risk)
• Data thinking (units, time zones, quality flags, lineage)
• Communication (turning “PI is broken” into actionable steps)

Learning paths (practical routes from beginner to specialist)

There’s no single route; most people transition into PI from adjacent domains. Hands‑on experience is key.

Path 1: From OT (controls/instrumentation) You already know PLC/DCS and production troubleshooting. Focus on ingestion, buffering, PI point configuration, basic admin and security hygiene.

Path 2: From IT (Windows/virtualisation/networking) You already know Windows Server, AD, patching, backups and monitoring. Focus on PI failure modes, OT constraints (change windows, vendor access), and identity patterns.

Path 3: From data/analytics (BI, data engineering) You already know SQL/ETL thinking, data modelling and stakeholder work. Focus on time‑series specifics, AF modelling and operational trust.

Build a portfolio Hiring managers value evidence of decision making. Examples to prepare:

• Redacted architecture diagram (tiers, flows, boundaries)
• Runbook for “data stopped updating” incident triage
• AF modelling sample with template strategy and naming rules
• Performance case study (symptoms → measurements → remediation → outcome)

Contract vs permanent: what to choose

Both models exist across the PI ecosystem. Choose based on the type of work and tolerance for context switching.

Contract roles Common work: upgrades, migrations, site onboarding, ingestion projects, performance remediation, architecture fixes. Pros: variety, higher day rates, clear deliverables. Realities: poor documentation is common, access governance can be slow, you must be productive quickly.

Permanent roles Common work: long‑term reliability, governance, capability building, lifecycle management. Pros: deeper influence, chance to embed standards, stable workload and career progression. Realities: significant “keeping the lights on” work, internal politics, continuity responsibility.

Interview questions to ask

• What is the PI footprint (sites, data volume, user base)?
• What are the top three pain points?
• Who owns ingestion, modelling and infrastructure?
• How are changes managed (maintenance windows, CAB, on‑call)?
• What monitoring exists and what is the incident history?
• Is there an architecture standard or does each site decide?

Reading job adverts: decode responsibilities

Look for these signals:

• “Upgrades, patching, backups, DR” → administrator/operations heavy
• “AF modelling, PI Vision, KPIs, analytics” → engineer/application heavy
• “OPC, interfaces, buffering, DMZ” → ingestion/connectivity heavy
• “Architecture, multi‑site, standards” → architect heavy
• “Security, AD, segmentation, audit” → security focus

If an advert asks for everything, clarify scope early—small estates may expect breadth; larger ones usually require specialisation.

Where to find roles and when to bring in help If hiring or the only PI person on site, bring in specialists for time‑boxed work (upgrades, performance remediation, architecture reviews) and keep day‑to‑day ownership internal.

Browse roles: https://piadmin.com/jobs

Team patterns and who does what

Small site / single estate One or two people cover admin, ingestion support and basic AF/Vision tasks. Breadth and safe operational habits are essential.

Multi‑site enterprise Specialist roles appear: platform admins, ingestion specialists, PI engineers and architects. Success requires clear ownership, documentation and governance processes.

Project / programme environments Demand for architecture and migration experience, performance remediation and onboarding playbooks. Delivery discipline and stakeholder management are critical.

Practical checklist: “Am I ready for the next PI role?”

You’re in a good place if you can:

• Explain data flow from OT into PI, including buffering behaviour (see: How Data Gets Into the PI System: Interfaces, Adapters, and MQTT)
• Diagnose slowdowns using evidence, not guesses (see: Keeping PI Fast, Stable, and Predictable at Scale)
• Outline a safe upgrade plan with rollback and stakeholder comms
• Demonstrate least‑privilege approaches and access review handling (see: Securing the AVEVA PI System in Modern Enterprise Environments)
• Discuss an AF modelling decision and governance approach
• Draw a simple, resilient reference architecture and explain failure domains (see: Designing a Scalable and Resilient PI System Architecture)