Maternity leave supplemented
Martijn still vividly remembers his first day at Improvia in 2018. “I immediately noticed how close-knit the team is here; everyone is there for each other. Moreover, the company cares about its employees, which is evident in the secondary employment benefits, among other things. For example, I took advantage of my maternity leave twice, and the company supplemented it both times.” I think it says something when your employer does that.”
Martijn (34) is a graduate mechatronics engineer, a jack of all trades. He enjoys multidisciplinary work, as he’s known since joining Engineering Professionals in 2018. “It’s never boring here.”
“An engineer’s work naturally starts with technical knowledge. And so does analytical insight, which allows you to quickly improve a process or application. But what I find just as important is the ability to adapt quickly to a new situation. For example, I once worked on a pilot project for a client. The machine had already been built, but the electronics were still missing. And yet, the machine had to be up and running within a few weeks. So it was up to me on the first day to determine which long-lead items were likely to be needed – and to order those parts immediately. Sure, that’s not the usual design approach. But it was a lot of fun and just as educational. Working so ad hoc is probably not for every engineer. But it suits me well, as I have.” I experienced this during that project.
Collaborating on a robot
“It’s the variety that I enjoy so much about my work for Engineering Professionals. During my first project, I focused on a 10 kV distribution station for the production lines in a zinc factory. And not long after, I worked on a software conversion for the Rotterdam tram and metro, which involved two months of programming and five months of validation. Currently, I’m getting a lot of satisfaction from our internal study. We have a robot crawl through industrial pipes to inspect them. I’m the project leader for this and also supervise the students in our team. Together, we’re working on various themes, such as machine learning and PCB design. We’re also working with a digital twin, which we use to simulate the physical part of the inspection robot. This includes movements and the impact of gravity, so we can train the robot without actually having to do anything with it in practice.”
TÜV-certified engineer
“Our study with the robot is multifaceted. Moreover, there’s a lot going on in the market, for example, the possibilities and the limits of digitalization. The use of cybersecurity. And also machine safety, for which I took a course through our company. I’m TÜV-certified for machine safety, which will obviously be useful for future projects. I don’t know what those will look like. But every project is different, and that’s precisely what makes our work so exciting. Seeing many different things, doing many different things: it’s never boring within Engineering Professionals. And I think that’s very interesting for every engineer.
