Employee story
Dynamic, inquisitive and communicative – these three words aptly describe our Michelle. As a safety engineer, she is responsible for functional safety in the automotive environment. Read on to find out exactly what her role is and what she particularly appreciates about ESE.
I wasn’t sure what I wanted to be after school. I’ve never had THE one career aspiration or THE one thing I’m good at. I therefore found it difficult to commit myself to just one thing by studying. After graduating from high school, I initially trained as an industrial business management assistant. I knew that I would go through several departments during my training as an industrial business management assistant so I could get a taste of many areas and decide what I liked or didn’t like.
After my apprenticeship, I studied business administration in Bremen and then came to Wolfsburg for my first job.
And then I came to ESE unexpectedly and in a roundabout way.
I was made aware of ESE through friends in Wolfsburg. A friend of a friend works at ESE, and he asked him if he would be interested in taking a look. This friend in turn thought of me when he saw the job advertisements and got me to look at the ESE website.
I then looked at various job advertisements and in 2-3 of them I thought: that actually sounds quite cool. I sent him my CV and certificates, as I wasn’t entirely sure at the time whether what I could do was a good match for what was advertised there. But then I had two job interviews that went really well and…
I am here now.
Exactly. The recruiters and employees at ESE were able to assess me very quickly – probably better than I was able to assess myself. They told me that the position of Safety Engineer would suit me well. I got involved and said that if you trust that it suits my strengths, that I can contribute well to the team and bring added value, then we’ll give it a try. And so far it has worked very well.
By the way, I’m still not talking about a proper application process that I went through.
It was more like this:
“Okay, I’ll send the documents, but don’t write a cover letter”
“Right, let’s have a chat”
“Okay, I’m here now”
“There is always the opportunity to find a place here. I think it’s pretty cool that you don’t have to change employers just because you want to see another subject area.”
I work in the automotive sector and, together with my team, I support our customers from the beginning to the end of the product life cycle. My focus is on functional safety.
Imagine you are driving a car into something. Then there must be functions that protect you as an occupant from injury. For example, the airbag must be triggered in certain situations.
Or you want to charge your electric car. To do this, drive to the charging station and plug the plug into the car. Then it must not happen that you get an electric shock when you touch your car or the charging plug. In the background, appropriate functions are needed to make the process, and therefore the car, functionally safe.
As a team, we take on the task of analyzing which risks exist for the various functions and formulate safety objectives and how these can be implemented. We look at the individual parts from many different perspectives and the formulated requirements are of course also tested at the end.
It starts with the components with software and hardware development, then the individual components are considered at a system level, then the components together with other components and then at some point in interaction in the entire car. It’s hard to imagine, but the individual functions are very extensive in themselves. In the overall context of the vehicle, however, they appear very small.
My colleagues were and are really important to me, because you spend most of your day at work and then it should be something you enjoy doing and, ideally, with people you enjoy being around. Our team is a total mix of characters, but I really like that. Everyone is very open-minded. We have many colleagues in the team who have been in the business for a very long time and who are really good at passing on their knowledge, from which we young colleagues benefit a lot, which I really appreciate.
We have made Wednesdays an office day. We go out for lunch together and have the opportunity to talk about things we don’t normally get to. Not only within our team, but also across teams. It sometimes happens that you learn new things about your own work unplanned.
I think if you don’t know the company, it’s difficult to understand what’s behind it. Yes, ESE stands for engineering and software development. Many people might first think of the programmer who programs software code on his screen in his office. But the ESE is so much more.
The fact that we cover the three areas of Automotive, Rail and Industry means that everyone has the opportunity to get involved. No matter what you are good at, in which direction you want to develop or whether you decide to do something else after 10 or 20 years in one job: There is always the opportunity to find a place here. I think it’s pretty cool that you don’t have to change employers just because you want to see another subject area.
No one could give a better insight into our everyday life than those who experience it every day. Therefore, we asked some of our colleagues from the various departments to describe their everyday lives and careers at ESE in more detail. This way, everyone can get a first impression of us and our diverse work.
Our fields of activity are just as varied as our areas of application. From software development and software testing to validation and assessment – start your career now!
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