Excel, develop and lead the way for the future
Aavash Devkota MIET is a graduate engineer for IET Corporate Partner Schneider Electric. Eager to learn and develop, he hopes to use his engineering skills to solve real-world problems on the path to Net Zero.
What inspired you to become an engineer?
Looking at the current state of the world, increasing emissions will have a negative impact on everything from the global environment to the economy. This effect will in turn have a detrimental impact on people's health as the air quality decreases, which means people are not able to work and carry out societal functions.
The built environment is responsible for about 42% of annual global CO2 emissions, therefore this is a massive sector to focus on. For me, I am truly excited and motivated to utilise my engineering skills to solve these challenging world problems and to help achieve Net Zero, in line with the 2050 Paris Agreement.
Can you describe your career in engineering so far?
Currently, I am undertaking a graduate position with Schneider Electric as a graduate digital building performance engineer. Within this position, I have undertaken the following:
- Remote engineering in the CSH (Connected Services Hub), utilising root cause analysis to identify and solve BMS problems for customers, which has reduced the overall need for engineer site visits by 86 percent, in turn saving customers money. This gave me experience in Trend, Tridium, Sigma, EBO & Continuum.
- Alarm handling and optimisation services to ensure that buildings operate efficiently, while minimising downtime and disruptions. Manual overrides and system faults are minimised through proactive monitoring and timely fault resolution.
- Managed Schneider’s remote support customer database on Salesforce, utilising advanced data analytics to investigate and improve response times for customers, whilst identifying areas for improvement.
- Provided a service to ensure correct control of all aspects related to Building Mechanical and Electrical systems, in order to provide improved environments for occupants and reduce effects on the environment. This helps clients meet their environmental targets, set by the government.
An exciting project I'm working on now is developing and looking at new services we can provide for customers to increase the customer experience and added value for our clients.
What has been your biggest challenge in your career so far?
Shifting my mindset from thinking like a student engineer to a professional engineer. At university, all the projects that I worked on were fictional and it had no detrimental impact if I made a mistake. However, when you work for a company with real clients, you have to remember that there are real people on the receiving end of the services you provide. Therefore, transitioning your thinking to ensure your customers and clients receive the best service is extremely important and is an important way to think.
Starting in a company and learning new concepts, new software packages and working in new teams has been challenging. I would say it was a very steep learning curve. When I first started, I had no clue about anything and couldn't wrap my head around anything that was being explained to me. However, I was intrigued to learn more, and I was passionate to expand my knowledge. I did this by asking questions and I utilised "My-Learning" which is an eLearning site within the company.
What are your goals for the future?
My goals are as follows:
- Get more accustomed with client sites and become more familiar with the customers.
- Network more - this is extremely important as a greater network leads to increased opportunities.
- Develop my understanding on Building Management Systems.
- Work on my coding skills to automate certain tasks and to also allow increased productivity on projects such as data analysis.
I have recently received my IET membership and it's very rewarding knowing my skills and education have been professionally recognised. This inspires me to work harder and develop myself. My next goal will be to become a Chartered Engineer (CEng).
Do you have any advice for those looking for their first role in engineering and technology?
My advice would be to ensure you look for a company that has similar values to you, and that compliments your way of thinking and your personality. If not, the problem you'll face is clashing methods of approaching tasks, which may lead to conflicts of interest.
Ensure you have a passion for what you plan to do within your proposed role. There's no point going into a role if you have no passion behind it, you'll just be wasting your time staying in that company.
Always be eager to learn and develop. If not, your job will end up becoming stale as you're not progressing. Learn new skills, and help on other projects. The most important thing about a job is the people you work with, what they can teach you and how they can help you grow.