Engineer a Career

Jaksot

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  Formula Student to Formula One 29.09.2026 47min

  Episode 68 of the Engineer a Career Podcast, with Josh joined by TJ Scott, a Formula One engineer and fellow Glasgow Caledonian University alumnus.TJ grew up building fast, unlikely cars with his dad in the family workshop. That was where he first asked how you take something that works and design it properly on paper before cutting any metal. School didn't go to plan. His route through education ran through City of Glasgow College, two difficult years at Strathclyde, and a fresh start in first year at GCU, where he stayed through to his masters.At GCU he helped found GCU Racing, the university's first Formula Student team. He talks through starting it in 2019 and keeping it alive through COVID from his bedroom. The team restarted in 2023 with a store room, an old welder and five weeks to build a car before Silverstone. During powertrain design judging that week, a judge from Mercedes picked him out, and he went straight to a final interview.TJ joined Mercedes High Performance Powertrains as a graduate in 2024. Within months he was designing oil pump internals, and he went on to work on the hybrid system under the new 2026 regulations. The conversation covers what Formula Student teaches beyond engineering and why industry keeps hunting for ten years of experience instead of growing it. TJ also explains why he gave up his chance to drive the car so the team could run without him. His advice to students in any year is simple: find the society that is building something, and get stuck in.A conversation about false starts, sideways moves, and what happens when capability finally gets seen.
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  Thinner Wires, Bigger Grid: Superconducting Cables and the Race to Rewire Britain | Superconducting Machines & Systems | Episode 2 - Power Transmission 22.09.2026 12min

  Professor Weijia Yuan, who is part of the University of Strathclyde's Applied Superconductivity Laboratory, joins Josh again to explain how superconducting cables can already replace copper in the grid at a fraction of the volume, why the real barrier isn't the technology but the economics, and where the UK could build a manufacturing capability rather than just watch this happen elsewhere.This is Episode 2 of the Superconducting Machines & Systems series with the University of Strathclyde, UKAEA and Engineer a Career.
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  Hotter Than the Sun: Engineering Fusion's Magnets | Superconducting Machines & Systems | Episode 1 - Fusion 15.09.2026 22min

  Professor Weijia Yuan, who is part of the University of Strathclyde's Applied Superconductivity Laboratory, joins Josh to explain how superconducting magnets, not the fusion reaction itself, are becoming fusion energy's hardest engineering problem, and why the next decade could see the first real fusion electricity hit the grid.This is Episode one of the Superconducting Machines & Systems series with the University of Strathclyde, UKAEA and Engineer a Career.
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  Building Regeno: An Engineer's Leap Into Deep Tech 08.09.2026 23min

  Every engineer's instinct is to chase efficiency: more power, better shapes, cleaner numbers. Adarsh Bhardwaj thinks that instinct is exactly what's holding the renewables sector back.In this special episode, Josh is joined by Adarsh, an engineer turned entrepreneur and founder of Regeno, the deep tech startup building a plug-and-play wind turbine that can be installed and maintained without a specialist team. From Formula One dreams to Rolls-Royce to raising serious investment, Adarsh shares why practicality beats performance, how logistics and deployment quietly kill renewable projects, and what he learned about backing yourself as a founder.A conversation for anyone in engineering who has ever wondered whether the real bottleneck isn't the technology at all.Follow Engineer a Career -LinkedIn: @engineeracareerInstagram: @engineeracareerTikTok: @engineer.a.careerYouTube: @engineeracareerWebsite: www.engineeracareer.co.uk
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  Software Engineering Isn't Dead. AI, Careers and the Engineering Mindset. 01.09.2026 51min

  Josh sat down with Ryan to talk through his journey from the wee computer guy fixing the school projector to co-founding an AI advisory business, and how a career in software engineering shaped the way he now thinks about the biggest question in the industry.What stands out about Ryan's story is that the through-line was never really the code. It was the problem solving. From jailbreaking his iPod as a kid to building a Where's Wally clone in Visual Basic at school, the instinct was always the same. He got exposed to programming in fourth year of high school, fell in love with it, and never looked back.From there it built brick by brick. A placement year at BT that meant driving down to Ipswich in a beat up car for the assessment centre and living alone in a studio flat at twenty. Four and a half years at a startup where he was thrust into cloud infrastructure and told to make it happen. Then the audit world, and eventually founding Adastra with his co-founder Dan a few months ago.The heart of the conversation is a claim worth sitting with. A developer's job was never to write code. It was to solve a problem. It just so happened you had to write the code by hand to do it. Ryan makes the case that AI does not threaten that job, it sharpens it, and he reaches for the tractor and the arrival of animation software to explain why the fear of a new tool rarely matches what happens next.He is candid about the gap he sees in businesses right now. Everyone feels like an expert engineer overnight, but few understand the security, the scalability, or how to verify the thing actually works. His advice to students is the same thing he has said for years. Go build something, deploy it to the cloud, put it out in the world, because barely anyone can claim that and it is the real differentiator.The conversation also gets into why "we must use AI" is the wrong place for any business to start, why the younger generation's lack of preconceived ideas may be their biggest advantage, and why becoming literate in AI is the vocabulary of the future.If you are a student wondering how to stand out, a graduate weighing up the job market, or an engineering director trying to build an AI strategy, this is an honest conversation about solving problems and building a career without waiting to be picked.Follow Engineer a Career LinkedIn: @engineeracareer Instagram: @engineeracareer TikTok: @engineer.a.career YouTube: @engineeracareer Website: www.engineeracareer.co.uk
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  Applying for a Graduate Role? Ready.Steady.Go 25.08.2026 6min

  Applications open in weeks. The people who get the internships, placements and graduate roles are the ones who are ready before they do.In the last of four episodes for the new academic year, Josh shares what he'd tell any engineering student or graduate going after a jobTreat getting the job like a module and give it time every week. Build a base CV and tailor it to every role. Get in early, because some companies hire as applications come in and close when they're full. Josh is honest about a process he thinks is flawed: early-career recruitment is problematic, and it pushes too many good students to the back of the queue. He can't get you a job. But he can help you build towards one and these are the steps he'd take.Ready. Steady. Go.
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  Start The Rhythm. Your Engineering Journal. 18.08.2026 8min

  The simplest habit in this episode is the one you'll wish you'd started sooner.Sixteen years ago, in his first job, Josh was told to keep a notepad. He still does over 25 of them now, filled with notes from across his career. When it came to becoming a chartered engineer, those notebooks were the record he built his whole submission from.This episode is about starting yours. Not a tidy diary, a working log. Josh walks through the rhythm he'd tell any engineering student or graduate to build now, before the new academic yearWhy writing it down matters more than where. Why keeping the record is the thing, not the tool.Why this one habit sits underneath everything that comes later, your applications, your interviews, your chartership years down the line.Recorded at the University of Strathclyde.Part of a four-episode series for the new academic year: Reflect (60) · Recognise (61) · Record (62) · Apply (63).—Follow Engineer a Career on LinkedIn, Instagram and TikTok, and come along to our events across Scotland this academic year.
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  Stop Underselling Yourself! 11.08.2026 12min

  Josh is back with more steps to build your way to a career in engineering.This one's about the skills you already have and aren't talking about. You go to university or college, you get the degree but the part-time job, the society, the volunteering, the side project are all building capabilities employers want. Most students undersell them, or forget they count at all.Josh breaks down where these skills come from, the bar job, the Formula Student team, running a society's finances, managing a golf team, the AI side project and why they belong in your CV, your applications, and your interviews. The message is simple: what you're doing right now is valuable. Tell your story before someone tells it for you.Follow the podcast on Spotify, YouTube, Apple, Instagram and TikTok and come along to an Engineer a Career event this academic year.Follow Engineer a Career -LinkedIn: @engineeracareerInstagram: @engineeracareerTikTok: @engineer.a.careerYouTube: @engineeracareerWebsite: www.engineeracareer.co.uk
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  Starting an engineering degree? 04.08.2026 20min

  Episode 60 of the Engineer a Career Podcast, with Josh going solo at the start of a new academic year to reflect on his own engineering degree what he got right, and what he would do differently.Josh started his degree at Glasgow Caledonian University in 2010 and has since gone on to become a chartered engineer, a project manager, and a business owner. He walks through the decisions that shaped that path: joining the Institution of Mechanical Engineers within his first six months, helping revive the university engineering society, taking on the class representative role and finding himself sitting on industrial advisory boards, and choosing the sandwich route that took him to a placement with Volvo in Sweden. The common thread is a continual pull towards industry, from society site visits through to industry-sponsored BEng and MEng projects.The second half is the more honest part. Josh reflects on the time he did not spend understanding his own capabilities or tracking how his skills were developing, the pressure he put on himself to have a career plan long before he needed one, and the applications he left too late with graduate schemes opening in September, he argues the job search deserves to be treated like a module rather than an afterthought. He also looks at the routes he never properly explored, including a PhD, and makes the case for seeing the degree as a stepping stone rather than a destination.A useful listen for any engineering student heading into a new year, and a reminder that the value of a degree is decided as much by what you do around it as what you study in it.Follow Engineer a Career -LinkedIn: @engineeracareerInstagram: @engineeracareerTikTok: @engineer.a.careerYouTube: @engineeracareerWebsite: www.engineeracareer.co.uk
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  From Electrician to Chartered Engineer 28.07.2026 56min

  Josh sat down with Ryan to talk through his journey from electrical apprentice to chartered engineer, and how he ended up working as a senior project manager in Perth, Australia.What stands out about Ryan's story is that nobody handed him the way in. He failed physics twice at school and never considered university an option. When he couldn't get an apprenticeship, he did a pre-apprenticeship course at college, and when that placement couldn't take him on, he printed a brochure, looked up twenty electrical companies and drove round Paisley handing them out door to door. That is how he found the apprenticeship that started everything.From there it became a long process of building it brick by brick. Night classes for an HNC while completing his trade papers, then a day release bachelor's degree, then a part-time masters, all while working full time. Eight years of study without a free afternoon, and a fifteen thousand pound pay cut to make the move from the tools into design at an SME consultancy.Ryan is candid about why he made that jump. There was nothing about being an electrician that he disliked, but he could not picture forty years of the same work. That honest conversation with his line manager is what opened the next door, and it is a reminder of how much a good manager can change someone's direction.The conversation also gets into what he now looks for when interviewing graduates in Australia, why intentional work experience matters more than a grade, and the free software anyone can download today to put a real skill on their CV. Alongside that, there is a long-held goal to move to Australia, set during his first years as an apprentice and held through several pivots until it happened.If you are trying to get your first opportunity, weighing up an apprenticeship against university, or wondering whether a trade background is a strength or a setback, this is an honest conversation about building a career without waiting to be picked.Follow Engineer a CareerLinkedIn: @engineeracareerInstagram: @engineeracareerTikTok: @engineer.a.careerYouTube: @engineeracareerWebsite: www.engineeracareer.co.uk
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  Engineering, Entrepreneurialism and The Energy Institute 21.07.2026 33min

  It's Episode 58, and it's time to share what it's really like being a member of one of our strategic partners, the Energy Institute.Ubong Essien is a PhD researcher at the University of Strathclyde and Secretary of the Energy Institute Young Professional Network.He studied mechanical engineering in Nigeria, where apprenticeships were not a common route into the profession and university was effectively the only path available. A master's in production engineering introduced him to sustainability and moved his interest towards energy. After a year working in the palm kernel oil processing industry he returned to academia as a lecturer, then began a PhD in Morocco before leaving after sixteen months and starting again at Strathclyde, where his research covers materials for fuel cells and ammonia decomposition as a route to hydrogen.In this episode he talks about deciding whether a PhD is the right choice and what makes one worth finishing, how membership of the Energy Institute led to panel sessions at All-Energy and a feature in New Energy World while still a student, and why he believes the sector needs people from business, economics and marketing as much as it needs engineers. He also discusses where hydrogen realistically sits as a fuel, and his plans to commercialise his research after completing his PhD.An honest conversation about building a career across three countries, and about taking opportunities that feel bigger than you are.___If you're student and you're interested in energy you can be a part of a global community of 20,000+ members from across the entire energy sector,j oin the Energy Institute for free - https://www.energyinst.org/membership-and-accreditation/membership/membership-types-v2/individual-membership/student___Follow Engineer a Career -LinkedIn: @engineeracareerInstagram: @engineeracareerTikTok: @engineer.a.careerYouTube: @engineeracareerWebsite: www.engineeracareer.co.uk
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  How Engineering Chose Me 14.07.2026 35min

  Emma joined Network Rail in 2019 as a technical clerk, providing admin support to a team of civil engineers. She had no engineering background, she'd left school in 2000 with Highers in languages, and her route since had taken her through two unfinished degrees and a series of admin and call centre roles.A senior asset engineer asked whether she'd ever considered becoming an engineer. Emma hadn't. What followed was several years of self-directed study relearning maths from scratch, an Access course through Aberdeen, then civil engineering on day release at Glasgow Kelvin, funded by Network Rail. She moved into an assistant asset engineer role in structures, and last month started as an Asset Engineer in the buildings team.Emma talks about what it takes to retrain mid-career while raising a child on your own, the people who backed her before she'd proved anything, and why she feels a responsibility to the people coming in behind her.She also makes the case for site visits, explains why context changes how you read a defect, and describes the appeal of a discipline where doing the job well means nobody notices.This is what the Engineer a Career podcast exists for, the stories of today's engineers, told by the people living them.
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  Your Way of Thinking Isn't Wrong 07.07.2026 36min

  Episode 56 of the Engineer a Career Podcast, with Josh joined by John Casey.John Casey started his engineering career at 16, spending eight weeks of work experience at a wind farm in southwest Scotland after bombing his fourth-year exams and pouring everything into boxing. Nine years on, he's a senior engineer who's returned to that very same wind farm, this time delivering its extension. In this episode, John talks through the apprenticeship route that took him from four days on site and one day at college through to a civil engineering degree, and the honest reality behind a LinkedIn profile that looks like a smooth, gradual climb. We get into the imposter syndrome of being the first in his family to go to university, the crunch point in second year when he nearly walked away from engineering altogether, and the mindset shift that turned his career around. John shares why attention to detail and problem-solving are the skills he leans on every day, the role mentors played in empowering him to step up, and winning a regional ICE Princess Royal Award for his work on temporary works governance. It's a candid conversation about integrity, hard work, and trusting your own way of thinking, whatever your report card says.
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  Earning and Learning: Apprenticeship to Chartered Engineer 30.06.2026 39min

  Katie started her engineering career at 18, turning down a university place to take an apprenticeship at Jacobs, a decision she had to make before she'd even sat her Highers. Eleven years on, she's a Chartered Engineer who's worked on site at Grangemouth, spent nine months on assignment in Malaysia, and built her career the earning-and-learning way.In this episode, recorded back at GCU where it all began, Katie talks through the apprenticeship route and why it suited her, the reality of balancing four days of work with a long day at uni, and the imposter syndrome that came with walking into an office at 18, including the two-minute trick she has used to managed imposter syndrome.We get into life on site versus the engineering office, what it actually takes to achieve chartership, and why she's a believer in measuring your career against the UK-SPEC competences.It's an honest conversation about backing yourself, asking the questions, and the long game of building a career one project at a time.
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  There's Space in STEM for Everybody 23.06.2026 44min

  It's International Women in Engineering Day 2026 and this year we are so excited to introduce our guest Jessica Gagen.Jessica is an aerospace sales engineer at Gulfstream Aerospace, a Miss England and Miss World UK winner, and one of the most visible STEM advocates in the country. Her route into engineering didn't follow a straight line, it went through a modeling career, a supermarket shelf, a physics resit at 23, and a pageant stage in front of cameras from 112 countries. But every step of it made her the engineer she is today.In this episode, Jessica talks about why she chose engineering after reverse-engineering the careers of global CEOs on LinkedIn, what it actually means to be a sales engineer, and how skills from modeling and pageantry translate directly into high-pressure technical environments. She also shares her honest take on what holds young people back from engineering and what visibility really means when you're the first engineer to win Miss England.Whether you're a student trying to make sense of where your degree could take you, or someone who still thinks engineering means overalls and a lathe, this one is for you.
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  Your Network is Your Net Worth 16.06.2026 44min

  Josh sits down with Mamta Singhal MBE, who found her calling early, taking apart plugs and mechanisms as a child long before she knew the word "engineer." Inspired by James Dyson and a Tom Hanks film about a toy designer, she set herself a single goal: to engineer the things that make children smile. She studied product design engineering at Glasgow University and the Glasgow School of Art, landed a graduate placement at Dyson, and at 23 was working at Hasbro on Star Wars, Lord of the Rings and Action Man.In this episode, Mamta takes Josh through a career spanning Hasbro, Coca-Cola and Mattel, and into her incoming role as Vice President of the IET. She talks about form and function as inseparable, the importance of company culture over title, and why she's never had a plan B. The conversation moves into the territory that drives her now: getting more women into engineering and keeping them there, the role of male allies, mentorship as a duty rather than a favour, and her new venture, the Top Percent Club, supporting senior women navigating the altitude at the top of the profession.Mamta is honest about the failures behind the awards, the Hoover rejection before the Dyson job, the dozens of knockbacks for every success and makes the case that engineering needs less stereotypical engineers, not more of the same.A genuinely inspiring conversation about purpose, resilience, and leaving a legacy.
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  Workforce, Capability and the Engineering Pipeline 09.06.2026 41min

  What does it actually take to build a career in engineering when the path is anything but straight?In this episode, Josh sits down with Susan Ipri-Brown, immediate past president of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, one of the oldest engineering institutions in the world. From a grandfather who never doubted she'd follow him into the profession, to internships at General Motors, to teaching, to leading ASME, to starting her own company, Susan's "squiggly line" is a masterclass in adaptability.We get into the gap between what universities produce and what industry needs, why students underestimate the story they've already built, and how knowing your capabilities, including the ones you don't yet have, changes the way you grow. Susan also makes the case for professional societies as a place to lead before your job lets you, and reflects on what mentorship really looks like across a career.A genuinely transatlantic conversation on workforce development, self-awareness, and why engineering is, at its heart, about possibility.Follow Engineer a Career -LinkedIn: @engineeracareerInstagram: @engineeracareerTikTok: @engineer.a.careerYouTube: @engineeracareerWebsite: www.engineeracareer.co.uk
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  Heat Networks, Chartership and Backing Young Engineers 02.06.2026 57min

  Paul is an independent consultant working at the nexus of public and private heat networks, having most recently spent five years at Vattenfall and, before that, a long career at Whitby Bird and Ramboll.His route in started early, a grandfather he knew as an engineer without ever learning what he did, an uncle's stories over slabs of Irn Bru, a laser lab in Liverpool, and a week of work experience on a harbour build that showed him the scale and impact of real infrastructure. A gap-year CAD job became a general engineering degree at Cambridge, which became geotechnics almost by chance when Whitby Bird won the BBC Broadcasting House project, which eventually became energy, and then heat networks, the only thing he does now.In this episode, we explore what a non-linear engineering career actually looks like from the inside why exposure matters more than knowing exactly where you'll end up, how the mentors who gave him space to learn and fail shaped everything, and why he went from "total skeptic" of district heating to total advocate. We talk about the Scotland Heat Map he helped build, the economic case for backing young engineers early, and what it really takes to move from doing the engineering to leading the people who do it. We also get into chartership why he failed the first time, why he deserved to, and what the second attempt taught him, plus his belief that the future of heat lies in coordinated regional energy companies rather than 32 organisations repeating the same lessons.This is an honest conversation for students and early career engineers wondering how a career builds when you stay open to the pivot have a spark, keep feeding it, and be careful not to overfeed it.Connect with Paul Steen on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/paulsteen Follow Engineer a Career -LinkedIn: @engineeracareerInstagram: @engineeracareerTikTok: @engineer.a.careerYouTube: @engineeracareerWebsite: www.engineeracareer.co.uk
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  Episode 50 - There's No Straight Line Into Engineering 26.05.2026 39min

  Episode 50. Two years, 56 guests.There's no straight line into engineering. In this milestone solo episode, recorded at the National Manufacturing Institute Scotland (NMIS), Josh shares the four things 49 conversations have taught him about how people actually build careers in engineering, why the routes in matter far less than what you do once you're there, and why there's never been a more important time to back young people into this industry. Josh also joined by Kirsty Pinnell, who leads the internship programme at NMIS, to talk about what a real route into industry looks like in practice. ______National Manufacturing Institute Scotland - https://www.nmis.scotNMIS Internship 2026 Programme -https://www.nmis.scot/work-with-us/careers/internship/ ______Follow Engineer a CareerLinkedIn: @engineeracareerInstagram: @engineeracareerTikTok: @engineer.a.careerYouTube: @engineeracareerWebsite: www.engineeracareer.co.uk
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  Engineering, Energy and Self-Discovery 19.05.2026 47min

  Tobias is a renewable energy engineer, founder of Embodied, and one of the most layered guests we've had on the podcast.His career has taken him from Germany to Sweden, the United States, China, Norway and now Scotland — through solar cell research at Fraunhofer, hydrogen compressor development, and into his own boutique engineering consultancy. But the most interesting part of his story isn't the geography. It's the mindset.In this conversation, Tobias and Josh get into why most jobs are never advertised, and why Tobias made a decision to never apply for a role again. They talk about the shift from negotiating for a job to laying out what you contribute, and how serendipity, openness and existing relationships have shaped every step of his career. From there the conversation moves into why "energy sovereignty" is a more useful frame than net zero, the embodied emissions hiding inside the renewables industry, and what it actually takes to bring engineering teams together around a shared cause. They close on how self-discovery, mindfulness and bio-inspired thinking are changing how Tobias designs.If you're a student or graduate engineer who's tired of the application treadmill, or an engineering leader thinking about how your teams really work, there's something in this one for you.