CAREER: PORTFOLIO
How to Build an Engineering Portfolio From Course Projects (Automation and Controls)
Certificates say you finished; a portfolio shows you can do the work. What to put in an automation portfolio, how to publish it, and how the EDWartens course projects and document packs fit in.
An engineering portfolio for automation and controls is two or three finished projects, each presented the way a real job is delivered: a short summary, the design document, the I/O list, the program, the test record and a video of it running. It beats a list of certificates because a hiring engineer can open it and see how you structure logic, test your own work and write, which is exactly what the interview is trying to find out.
Checked 1 October 2026. Figures about hiring come from the research listed under Sources; facts about EDWartens projects come from the site itself on that date.
Why do portfolios beat certificates in hiring?
Because they answer the questions employers actually have. A certificate answers one: did you finish the training? A portfolio answers the rest: which platform, how you structure a program, whether you test before you hand over, whether your documents could be signed by a client.
Hiring is also moving towards skills evidence. LinkedIn's Economic Graph research on skills-based hiring (March 2025) found that searching for workers by their skills, rather than by previous job titles, expanded talent pools by a median of 6.1 times across the countries it analysed, and by 8.2 times for AI roles. That is good news for career changers and new graduates, but only if you can show the skills. And as Harvard Business School's work on automated hiring shows, most applications are screened by software first, so evidence needs to be both readable by people and named in words a search will find.
What should an automation portfolio include?
Think of each project as a miniature delivery. Real automation projects produce documents, and many of them follow conventions that employers recognise: functional design specifications, I/O lists, alarm lists, factory and site acceptance tests. IEC 62381:2024, for example, defines requirements and checklists for the factory acceptance test (FAT), site acceptance test (SAT) and site integration test (SIT) of automation systems in the process industry. A junior engineer who can produce a believable FAT record has already shown something a certificate cannot.
For each project, include:
- A one-page summary. The problem, the platform and version, the scope (number of I/O, screens, drives, axes), and what the finished system does. This is the page most people read.
- The design document. A functional design specification (FDS) or control narrative: numbered clauses saying what the system does in each mode, how it starts and stops, what happens on each fault.
- The I/O list. Every point with tag, description, address, signal type and terminal, with normally closed devices (E-stops, overloads, float switches) recorded as such, and spares.
- The program or project archive, opening cleanly in the vendor's software, with consistent tag names and comments.
- An alarm list or HMI screenshots, where the project has them: priority, set point, action for the operator.
- A test record. A FAT-style sheet of tests referencing the FDS clauses, with results. Include at least one test that failed and how you fixed it; a record where everything passed first time reads as invented.
- A two-minute video of the system running in a simulator, narrated or captioned.
- A short review: what you would change with more time.
Which projects make the best portfolio pieces?
Pick projects that look like the jobs you are applying for. For a maintenance or controls role, a pump station or conveyor with interlocks, alarms and a FAT. For SCADA, a multi-site telemetry system with history and a report. For panel design, a load list, schematics and a verification record. For industrial AI, a model trained on real plant-style data, with its evaluation and a note on how it would be deployed beside the PLC. Two strong projects in your target area beat six unrelated exercises.
How should you present it on LinkedIn and GitHub?
GitHub is a free public home even when the files are binary. Make one repository per project, each with a README that repeats the one-page summary, a docs folder of PDFs, the project archive or exported code, and a link to the video. Where the software can export text (structured text, PLCopen XML, Rockwell L5X), include it so people can read code in the browser. GitHub shows a profile README at the top of your profile if you create a public repository with the same name as your username containing a README.md; use it as the index of your projects.
LinkedIn has a Featured section near the top of the profile, where you can add links to external sites, uploaded documents and videos, and your own posts. Add each project there with one line saying what it is and the platform, and link to the repository. A short post per project, with the video, often gets more views than the profile itself.
Your CV gets a Projects heading with one bullet per project in the verb, system, outcome pattern: "Designed and tested an S7-1200 two-pump station in TIA Portal and PLCSIM: wrote the FDS and I/O list, ran a FAT and corrected the two failures it found", with your own real counts in place of the example. Our guide to an ATS-friendly automation engineer resume covers the wording.
Confidentiality. Do not publish an employer's or client's programs, drawings or documents; they usually belong to them and are often under a confidentiality agreement. Describe that work on your CV in words and numbers, and publish only training and personal projects.
How do the EDWartens course projects help?
Every free course on EDWartens has a project brief, one per course for the engineering courses and two for some of the AI courses: 162 briefs across the 150 courses. Most (138 of them) come with a sample document pack: the documents a real delivery of that project would produce, filled in for an invented plant and company, so you read a worked example before you write your own.
The packs use the document kinds the job uses. Across all the packs, the most common are FAT records (60 packs), reports (56), procedures (55), registers (50), I/O lists (49), operation and maintenance manuals (44), alarm lists (42), risk registers (41), bills of materials (40) and test reports (40). Others include functional and software design specifications, user requirements, tag lists, HMI specifications, network architectures and IP address plans, cause-and-effect charts, loop checks and calibration records. Some examples:
- [Siemens TIA Portal](/free/siemens-tia-portal): a two-pump water station, from I/O list to signed FAT on an S7-1200, about 16 hours, with an 11-document pack: user requirements, FDS, I/O list, panel general arrangement, bill of materials, tag list, alarm list, FAT record, a loop check sheet, an O&M manual (operation section) and a handover certificate.
- [Ignition SCADA](/free/ignition-scada): four-site rural water telemetry, Modbus RTUs to a Perspective SCADA with alarms, history and a daily report, with a network architecture, IP plan, alarm philosophy, HMI specification and FAT among its 10 documents.
- [Electrical Control Panel Design, Building and Testing](/free/control-panel-design-and-building): a combined MCC and PLC panel for a mixer line, from load list to an IEC 60204-1 verification record and FAT.
- [Industrial Instrumentation](/free/industrial-instrumentation): a deaerator and feed-pump instrument package from P&ID schedule to datasheets, loop diagrams, cable and junction box schedules, a calibration record and a signed loop check.
- [Computer Networking and CCNA Prep](/free/computer-networking-and-ccna-prep): a segmented office and plant network for a bottling site in Packet Tracer, with an IP plan and an ACL and NAT register.
The brief sits in a Project tab beside the lessons. Enrolled learners can download the pack as a spreadsheet workbook, one sheet per document, so you can start your own I/O list beside the sample. You submit a written account of what you did (at least 150 characters), with an optional link to your GitHub or notebook and an optional file up to 25 MB. An AI reviewer marks it against the brief's rubric, usually in about a minute; 50% passes, and you can resubmit as often as you like, with each attempt kept so the record shows the improvement. If the automatic review is unavailable, the submission waits for a trainer to mark it.
The honest limits
The scenarios and companies are invented, though the engineering is meant to be real, so present the project as a training project, never as client work. The pack is a worked example: copy its structure, not its content, or the portfolio shows nothing of yours. An AI mark is feedback, not an endorsement an employer will recognise. And the project is optional: the EDWartens Certificate of Completion depends on the final assessment, not the project.
Start with one
Pick the course closest to the job you want, open its Project tab in the first week so you know what you are building towards, and finish the project before the final. Then publish it the same weekend. If you need a route through several courses, the free learning paths guide shows how to plan one, and the free course catalogue lists every course. Learning is free in full; the optional certificate costs from US$2.99 and can be checked at edwartens.com/verification.
Take the free course
Questions
What should an automation engineering portfolio include?
Two or three complete projects, each with a one-page summary, the design document (FDS or control narrative), the I/O list, the program archive, an alarm list or HMI screenshots where relevant, a test record such as a FAT, and a short video of it running. Depth in a few projects beats a long list of small exercises.
Can I show work projects from my employer?
Usually not the files themselves: programs, drawings and client documents normally belong to the employer or client and may be under a confidentiality agreement. Describe the work in words and numbers on your CV, and use training or personal projects for the files you publish.
Should a PLC programmer use GitHub?
It is a convenient public home for a portfolio even if PLC project files are binary. Put each project in a folder with a README, PDFs of the documents, exported code where the software allows it (structured text, PLCopen XML or L5X exports) and a link to the video.
Are certificates useless, then?
No. A verifiable certificate shows you completed a course and passed its assessment, which is a reasonable filter. It does not show how you work. Use it alongside a portfolio, not instead of one.
Do I have to submit the EDWartens course project to get a certificate?
No. The certificate depends on finishing the course and passing its final assessment. The project is optional practice, marked against its rubric if you submit it, and you can resubmit as often as you like.
Sources
- LinkedIn Economic Graph: Skills-based hiring (March 2025), PDF
- Harvard Business School Working Knowledge: How to tap the talent automated HR platforms miss
- IEC 62381:2024 Automation systems in the process industry: FAT, SAT and SIT
- GitHub Docs: Managing your profile README
- LinkedIn Help: Manage featured samples of your work on your profile
Written by the EDWartens engineering team for general education. Product names are trademarks of their owners; mentioning them does not imply endorsement. Prices and terms of other providers were checked on the date shown and can change.
