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1. What made you want to get into engineering? And specifically, your specialization?
As a kid, I was always picking up everything from the ground and tried to touch everything I was interested in.
Now, I understand this intention way better, since I learn very well through my eyes and hands. I’m not as good by
learning things when I read it. Driven by that and the fact that I can keep things in my mind that I’m interested in
it, I was more focused on a career in engineering. I want to create things I can physically see and touch in the end
which is satisfactory for me. Also, I like thinking logically and it is something I’m good at. I went to a school with
a bigger focus on electric then on mechanics. I think that is because by dad was mainly working in this area. Over time
and as I started my studies in mechatronics, I noticed felt more positive and I was more interested directing my focus
on mechanics and designing. That provided a bigger value for me and made it more satisfactory. In my current role, I
still deal with electric, but it’s not in such a detailed level compared to laying out PCP boards or so. Designing things
which work in the end and see the product in millions of cars is the reason why I went into my specialization and because
I’m good in the job I’m doing.
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2. What advice would you give freshly graduated engineers?
Working for Littelfuse is different than working in a big company like Daimler, VW or Airbus. In these big
companies, you have your garden where you are working in. You see what is left and what is right, but you don’t see
the overall picture. In Littelfuse, you can see everything, meaning you deal with the customer on creating a good
concept, designing and working towards prototypes, defining test and get them executed, going thru setbacks but look
forward until the product went into serial production and supporting the MFG team to manufacture the part in the way
it should be. This is somehow unique and serves a big overview about the whole business and keeps the job interesting.
A new hire needs to understand this and want it, since it can be very hard to deal with the huge workload in certain
stages. An engineer needs to be more proactive here compared to other companies, because he need to drive things and
get the information he needs to do a good job/design. Not everybody wants this and therefore I think it is important
for a new engineer to understand the Littelfuse culture to not be surprised in the end. Employees from Littelfuse have
overall a high value for other companies as well, since the engineers know how the business work and not just know
their own department. Also, having the opportunity to grow within the company is always a possibility if you provide
good work and attitude. Usually you need to change the company to grow, but not at Littelfuse.
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3. What has been a project that you have worked on that you are proud of or that has been most interesting to you?
Well, my biggest/interesting challenge/project so far is the MIDI 70V development, since we went a long way
over almost 3 years now and we are one month away to kick off hard tooling. We went thru different concepts, multiple
setbacks, re-scoping of the project and through very dynamic times. To see this product now in mass production with
less scrap would be my biggest achievement. It has been my most interesting project with a lot of lessons learned.
The development of Single Zcase was very interesting for me as well, since we developed a new product with new
technologies and new material including a 3P event in Mexico.
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4. What is your favorite part about your job? Why?
I like to lead my team to get better and provide good output. Also, making the products I’m responsible for better
and more reliabeis satisfying to me, since I now have the role to implement my thoughts more easy and faster. I’m also
not as much involved anymore in so many projects, which has freed up more time to work with my team and think about how
to make things better and to work more towards standardization. Additionally, the bigger focus on executing company
goals and to actually manage the work is something I like.