I started at SMD in 2001 as a Design Engineer, I’d previously worked my way up from apprentice level in other companies before I decided to take the plunge and go into a new emerging industry. I saw an advert in Professional Engineer for SMD which had a picture of a trenching ROV – it looked amazing and I knew this was the type of place I wanted to work. Halfway through the interview, coffee was called and I was sold.
Apart from a year out snowboarding and climbing, I have been here ever since. I had a great mentor in the then Chief Engineer, who for 10 years helped me shape my career into what it is today. I started as a Project Design Engineer in 2001, promoted to Principal Engineer in the ROV business in 2008 and in 2015 I achieved my goal of becoming Chief Engineer, it really was a dream come true.
From the day I started until now, the thing that impresses me most is the ‘We can do anything if we put our minds to it’ attitude and still today that is something I try to instil into the engineers in my team.
In my time at SMD I have had a lot of career highlights but delivering 4 new ROV designs in 12 months with a small team was full-on and being told I was ‘very very nice’ by a Singaporean crane driver was one of my most humorous moments!
If there is one piece of advice I can give to any junior engineers it would be to take responsibility for your tasks, work constructively with other departments and have the initiative to make something better. Your career is in your hands and you can make something spectacular of it if you work hard and really put your mind to it.
