Engineers Australia local events have been a highlight of Tanja’s career to-date, she tells us the best thing about them and her favourite thing about being an engineer. 

What is your favourite thing about being an engineer? 

While at university, I worked as a casual academic for two first year engineering courses. These were unique, because they were some of the only courses on offer that involved students from all disciplines. As a mentor to these teams, I witnessed first-hand how multidisciplinary teams can tackle complex and diverse problems effectively and efficiently.  

This of course, is the everyday reality within industry. The clearest example I believe is a hazard and operability study, or a brainstorming exercise to identify technical and non-technical risks in a project. As they say, ‘you don't know what you don't know’ and to be completely honest as a first-year graduate... you don't know much at all. So how can you possibly brainstorm something you've never heard of before? 

Well, by recruiting and leveraging the knowledge and expertise of a range of backgrounds, this problem has an easy solution. I believe this not only includes a variety of technical experiences, but personalities, upbringings and cultures as well. 

That's my favourite thing about being a project engineer. I get to coordinate and facilitate these sorts of discussions to solve problems. 

Can you tell us a bit more about the benefits of attending Engineers Australia events over the years?  

I started attending industry events shortly after starting my first role. I wanted to socialise with other graduate engineers to learn what work they were involved in, how they were finding their first role, and share some learnings. Meeting young engineers that had already finished their graduate programs also gave me some insight into what they wish they learnt earlier in their careers.  

I quickly found the biggest benefit was that they invited engineers from all industries. This was essential for me to gain some perspective on how others believe my industry is going, what it can do to improve, and how I can help make that happen. This has also made me come to appreciate the similarities in the work we do every day, and the skills I can hone that are most transferable across industries.  

At the end of the day, the events were also just really fun and enjoyable! 

What inspired you to join the committee? 

Attending local Young Engineers Australia events was one of the highlights of my year. After becoming friends with some members already on the committee, I realised how enjoyable the process of planning events was because I think you get more out of it than you give. And what kind of project engineer doesn't get a kick out of seeing plans come to fruition? 

What are your goals for the future? 

I'd love to help future graduate engineers connect and build contacts as they transition to full time work, post-graduation. I'm still just getting started, but I know this year with the committee will be great. 

With the amount of innovation and growth in my industry, I can imagine my future self in a role that I don't even know exists yet. My goal is not to limit myself and be open-minded to continue to explore opportunities of all kinds. If I'm working with a team of people that are kind, and on problems that matter, I'll be happy.