What's your job about?
My job is about solving problems! The problems can often be quite complex in nature and it’s my job to understand the problem, think about potential solutions and ultimately decide and develop a working solution. As a software engineer at Saab Australia, I work in the Maritime Department which means that the day-to-day code I write might eventually end up on one of the ships in the Royal Australian Navy. How cool is that!
I have been a part of two teams so far as part of my Graduate program. One was in more of a research and development role in the Modelling and Analysis team and my current role is more akin to a typical software engineer using Java and JavaScript to write, test and review code.
What's your background?
I was born in Chennai, one of the most densely populated cities in India. My family moved to Australia in 2003 and although I’ve been back many times and travelled around the world, I still call Adelaide home! As a young child, we moved houses and schools a lot, but one common theme was always my ability to make friends through sports. Sometimes without even talking or introducing myself, I would somehow always find myself playing soccer or cricket or anything with other kids my age. This led to a passion for sports, playing Basketball for most of my life as well as Table Tennis, Badminton, Volleyball and more throughout primary and high school.
Along with sports, I grew to love technology, making my first website in Year 11 of high school about my favourite game at the time, Team Fortress 2. I loved writing software so much that I decided I would choose a University degree where I could do something cool with technology. I selected a double degree of a Bachelor of Mechatronics Engineering and a Bachelor of Mathematical and Computer Science. Like everyone else in the degree, we all thought we would get a job doing something incredibly fun and cool like building robots. While my current job as a Graduate Software Engineer at Saab is not that cool, it is close! I get to work with amazing people on really cool projects and as for building robots … we’ll see where the future takes me.
Could someone with a different background do your job?
Absolutely. The incredible thing about engineering-related roles is they all revolve around the ability to solve problems. Some of the best engineers I know come from completely different engineering disciplines and sometimes didn’t even study engineering at all. Being resilient, curious and adaptable will take you a lot further in your career than just technical skills.
What's the coolest thing about your job?
The coolest thing about my job is knowing that the code I write today might be used on the Royal Australian Navy Ships to help protect Australia in the future. It highlights the importance of my work as well as the impact I can have in my role.
What are the limitations of your job?
Within the software, there are vastly different types of work. Sometimes you might not always be working on what you are passionate about or very motivated to do. At times like this, it might be difficult to handle adversity or any obstacles that might pop up. That’s why it is so important to identify what you enjoy doing, and what you are good at doing and try to align those with your current role. You are much more likely to perform better when you care about what it is you’re doing.
3 pieces of advice for yourself when you were a student...