This Is Automation, Rebuilt
If you want to see what real change in industrial automation looks like, look no further than Nikki Gonzales. In this episode of HIRED! The Podcast, host Travis Miller talks with Nikki about what it means to build your own path in an industry that wasn’t designed to make space for everyone.
As Director of Business Development at Weintek USA, co-host of Automation Ladies, and co-founder of OT SCADA CON, Nikki is doing more than showing up. She’s building what didn’t exist—conferences, communities, and conversations—and she’s doing it without waiting for permission.
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Redefining Visibility in Industrial Careers
Many professionals spend their careers following traditional playbooks: work hard, build a resume, apply when you’re ready. Nikki never relied on that model. From the beginning, she leaned into visibility—not for vanity, but for momentum. She showed up at trade shows, talked to people, and shared her work publicly. Over time, that visibility became the reason she didn’t need to chase down job openings. Her work spoke for itself.
She didn’t treat LinkedIn like a branding exercise. She used it like a window—into the kind of work she loved and the kind of problems she could solve. That transparency made people notice. Eventually, it brought opportunities directly to her.
“I just made my work visible enough to people and myself, so that I don’t have to send out my resume.”
It’s not the kind of advice you hear in college career centers, but in an industry built on connections and problem-solving, it works.
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When Something’s Missing, Build It
That same mindset carried over to her work in the community. Nikki didn’t join the industrial automation space with the goal of becoming a public voice—but over time, it became clear how little space there was for people like her, especially women in technical roles who weren’t interested in performative advocacy.
That’s where Automation Ladies began—not as a marketing platform, but as a conversation between people who were tired of talking about inclusion in theory and just wanted to talk about automation with people who got it.
Later, that ethos evolved into OT SCADA CON, a community-driven conference built for and by actual practitioners. It wasn’t designed to be a replacement for large trade shows. It was built to be everything those shows weren’t: low pressure, high trust, vendor neutral, and above all, practical.
“We wanted people that were doing the thing on a daily basis and could talk about that thing with conviction.”
The result was a space where CEOs sat next to technicians, first-time speakers shared the stage, and the usual rules of hierarchy didn’t apply.
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Making Room Without Apologizing for It
What sets Nikki apart isn’t just her willingness to speak—it’s her commitment to listening. She’s not just putting herself out there. She’s opening doors and letting others step through. That’s evident in the way OT SCADA CON was built to serve the community’s needs first, not sponsor agendas. It’s reflected in her conversations on Automation Ladies, where there’s space for stories that wouldn’t make it into a typical keynote. And it shows in her approach to leadership, which prioritizes impact over appearances.
She’s also honest about the fact that this kind of visibility takes work. Being seen isn’t always easy. It means dealing with criticism, letting go of perfectionism, and getting comfortable with discomfort. But the alternative—staying silent and waiting to be chosen—isn’t how change happens.
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This Is What Change Looks Like
Throughout the episode, it’s clear that Nikki isn’t interested in token gestures or surface-level diversity. Her focus is systemic. She’s rebuilding what leadership in industrial automation can look like—not through disruption for disruption’s sake, but through thoughtful creation. She’s not asking for a seat at the table. She’s building a new one.
And she’s not doing it alone. That’s part of the point. The new wave of industry leaders isn’t waiting for a baton to be passed—they’re creating new lanes entirely. They’re gathering others along the way, forming networks, and sharing what they learn out loud.
If the old guard was built on exclusivity and gatekeeping, Nikki’s world is built on access, inclusion, and action. This isn’t the future of automation. It’s already here. You just have to be willing to step into it.
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3 天前If you want insight into what's going on in automation and industrial tech, you know that Nikki Gonzales is someone to listen to. Thank you for the great conversation Nikki!