What's your job about?
Arcadis, the company I work for is a consultancy firm that does a high level of detailed design solutions for the construction of transport and building services.
I am part of the transport team focusing on the design of communication cables/equipment that would be built on site. This comes with all kinds of responsibility, like the design of racks, what they would have in them and making sure that the design complies with the client requirements and it fits in the bigger design of the building/equipment room, making changes wherever necessary.
Sometimes it’s a lot of reading because you need to know a lot of design guidelines, other times you are looking for the best product/solutions that are on the market and will work best given the situation and financial restraints. You also have the opportunity to offer more innovative solutions that are not yet a construction standard. These could be ideas you might have come across at a conference or during your university studies.
What's your background?
I’m originally from India where I did most of my undergraduate studies in a Bachelor of Electronics and Communication. I was the first from my university to go on an exchange program that was set up with UNSW (University of New South Wales) for a combined bachelor's and master’s degree which is how I ended up in a Master of Electrical Engineering Course at UNSW, Sydney. From there, I got a job with Arcadis after graduation and moved to Perth.
I have been in the role of Graduate Engineer at Arcadis for a month now. Previously I interned at a semiconductor fabrication and design facility in India as part of the testing and verification team. In Sydney, I interned with a start-up that designed self-driving cars using LiDAR technology and wrote some code for automating some of the testing done on the engine. I also worked at Woolworths after graduation and I learned so much more about working with people than any of my internships.
Could someone with a different background do your job?
I feel anyone with a basic understanding of electrical systems would be able to do my job as long as they aren’t afraid of the steep learning curve that comes with the responsibilities. I majored in signal processing applications and now I am doing communication equipment design. If you can communicate effectively, are confident in your own abilities, willing to learn on the job and spend a few extra hours to get a holistic understanding, you can do your job.
What's the coolest thing about your job?
I love that there’s an opportunity to improve and learn every day. We have a daily meeting where everyone in the team puts forward some design questions or some problems they ran into on their tasks and all of us have an opportunity to contribute. It’s a great way to learn about things that you might not have come across in your current task but might come in handy later.
Additionally, as a graduate, I am not very sure about what kind of engineer I want to be yet so it’s good to be part of a company that always has interesting projects that I could be a part of if I approach the right people.
What are the limitations of your job?
As a person, I am very inquisitive, so I need to remember to hold back and limit my understanding to the level that is required. Sometimes, you don’t need to do in-depth research to get the answers (even if you want to), someone else in your team would already have the answer however you can always learn why that is the solution and expand your overall understanding. I like to make a folder for idle reading because you never know what your random reading might lead to!
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