Commission the Master, and New York Runs It a Hundred Times: An ABB Robot Contract in Albany

Q: What does "duplicated 100×" mean for the job?

The customer has copied this exact cell 100 times, so the cell you commission becomes the master the others inherit. That's why it's fully expensed.

Q: Where is it, and when does it start?

Albany, New York, automated assembly system. Starts July 15, 2026, runs ~2–3 weeks, days, ~60 hrs/week.

Q: What does it pay and what's covered?

$48 ST / $62.40 OT / $76.80 DT / $48 travel time. Airfare (up to $800), hotel ($130/day), rental car ($60/day), fuel ($60), per diem ($86/day, no receipts), travel-day per diem ($64), mileage ($0.725/mile).

Quick answer: An automated assembly line in Albany, New York needs a robot programmer to fully commission an ABB pick-and-place robot and its end effectors. The required experience is ABB — IRC 4 and IRC 5. It starts July 15, 2026 and runs about 2–3 weeks, days, around 60 hours a week. It pays $48.00 straight time, $62.40 overtime, $76.80 double time, and $48.00 travel time — and it is fully expensed: airfare up to $800, hotel at $130/day, a rental car at $60/day, fuel at $60, a per diem of $86/day (no receipts), a travel-day per diem of $64, and mileage at $0.725/mile. You can view and apply on the contract page free, or, if you are hiring, post your own work free or search the marketplace and request a professional directly. And there's a detail that makes this one unusual: the customer has already duplicated this exact cell 100 times.

The contract that pays for itself before you start

Name the last contract you took where the client covered the flight, the hotel, the rental car, the fuel, and fed you on top of the rate — before you had placed a single part. Take your time. Contracts like that don't come along often.

This is one of them. Look at the expense package as a block, because it tells you everything about how seriously the customer is treating this job:

Airfare — up to $800, receipts
Hotel — $130/day, receipts
Rental car — $60/day, plus $60 fuel
Per diem — $86/day, no receipts required
Travel-day per diem — $64/day, no receipts
Mileage — $0.725/mile for personal-vehicle use

Add it up and the number that matters most is the one you don't spend. Your entire cost of showing up in Albany — getting there, staying there, eating there, driving there — belongs to the customer, not you. On top of that sits the rate: $48.00 straight time, stepping to $62.40 in overtime and $76.80 in double time, with travel time paid at $48.00. On a roughly 60-hour week, the overtime is not incidental.

Why a plant pays like this

A full expense package is not a perk. It's a signal. When a company covers everything before you've started, it is telling you the work is worth flying exactly the right person in to do — and this contract explains why in one line on the posting: the customer has duplicated this cell 100 times.

Think about what that means. You are not commissioning one robot cell. You are commissioning the one that becomes the template for a hundred. Every choice you make standing up the ABB pick-and-place robot and its end effectors — how the tooling is configured, how the program is structured, how cleanly it recovers — gets inherited by ninety-nine copies. Get the master right and New York runs it a hundred times over. Get it wrong and the customer inherits the same flaw a hundred times. That asymmetry is exactly why they will fly someone in rather than settle: at 100× replication, the difference between "works" and "works cleanly" is enormous.

The contract is specific about the scope, too. This is full commissioning — "must be able to fully commission the robot and its end effectors" — not a tune-up. Files and backups are provided for upload, but standing the cell up end to end, grippers and all, is the job.

ABB, and why pick-and-place is its own craft

ABB is one of the world's "big four" industrial-robot makers, and it has a particular claim in this corner of the trade. ABB's FlexPicker — the ceiling-mounted delta robot running on the IRC5 controller — has been the fastest high-speed picking robot in the world for more than twenty years, moving product in food and beverage, pharmaceuticals, cosmetics and consumer goods at cycle rates that are genuinely hard to believe when you watch them. ABB pick-and-place cells are programmed offline in RobotStudio, and vision-guided variants lean on ABB's PickMaster software.

None of that speed happens by accident. A pick-and-place cell lives or dies on commissioning: the calibration, the end-effector behavior, the recovery logic, the handoff timing. That is the skill this contract is asking for — the ability to stand an ABB cell up so cleanly that a hundred copies of it will run without drama.

The Empire State is hiring

Albany is the capital of New York, in the Capital Region and the broader "Tech Valley" corridor that runs up through Saratoga County's chip-fab belt. It is a serious manufacturing region wearing a quiet face — which fits this contract, honestly. There is nothing quiet about the New York most people picture, but the state that gave the world the Empire State Building and the fastest skyline on earth also runs assembly lines that copy a cell a hundred times and fly in the person who can make the first one perfect.

For a contractor, the geography is friendly: Albany is easy to reach, and with airfare, hotel, and a rental car all covered, getting there and working there costs you nothing. Fly in, commission the master, and be home in a couple of weeks with the trip fully paid and a hundred-times cell behind you.

Why this fills on Automate America

Automate America is a global marketplace of thousands of skilled professionals across hundreds of occupations, in every industry — industrial, commercial and residential — worldwide. Not a staffing desk. A marketplace, where the company and the professional can see each other directly. It works two ways, both free: a company can post a contract, a job, or an RFQ and let qualified professionals come to it, or search the marketplace and request the exact professional it needs. Professionals can browse open hourly contracts, apply in a couple of clicks, and follow the companies whose work they want to see first. Everyone carries their own record — trusted professionals with completed contracts and customer reviews.

For the hiring side, the usual hesitations answer themselves. Is it really free to post? Yes — posting a contract, a job, or an RFQ costs nothing. Will you get buried in unqualified applicants? No — you see profiles of experienced industry professionals and you decide who to talk to. How fast does specialized work fill? You see qualified applicants within minutes of posting. And if you need a hand, you are one message away at info@automateamerica.com.

A fully-expensed, fly-in ABB commissioning job with a hard July 15 start is exactly the kind of narrow, time-boxed, specialist ask a general job board handles worst and a marketplace handles best. Robot programmers here work alongside the rest of the bench — controls engineers, automation engineers and maintenance technicians — the crew that keeps automated assembly running.

If you can stand a cell up clean, this one's yours

You already know whether you're the person who commissions cleanly or the one who patches until it holds. This contract is written for the first kind — because at a hundred copies, clean is the whole point. The flight is covered, the start date is set, and the master cell is waiting.

If that's you, the contract is right here. If it's someone you'd trust to stand up the master, send it their way.

More open work and industry writing lives on the Automate America news and contracts hub.

Frequently asked questions

What ABB experience is required?
ABB IRC 4 and IRC 5, with the ability to fully commission a pick-and-place robot and its end effectors — standing the cell up end to end, not just adjusting an existing program.

What does "duplicated 100×" mean for the job?
The customer has copied this exact cell a hundred times, so the cell you commission becomes the master the others inherit. Getting it right matters a hundredfold — which is why the contract is fully expensed.

Where is it, and when does it start?
Albany, New York, on an automated assembly system. It starts July 15, 2026 and runs about 2–3 weeks, days, around 60 hours a week.

What does it pay, and what expenses are covered?
$48.00 ST, $62.40 OT, $76.80 DT, and $48.00 travel time. Expenses covered: airfare (up to $800), hotel ($130/day), rental car ($60/day), fuel ($60), per diem ($86/day, no receipts), travel-day per diem ($64), and mileage ($0.725/mile).

How do I apply?
View and apply free on the contract page at Automate America. You can also be requested directly by companies searching the marketplace for an ABB commissioning programmer.