What's your job about?
At Cochlear we develop implants that allow people to hear again, or even for the first time! We also develop devices and tools that allow recipients, surgeons, clinicians and caregivers to achieve the greatest possible outcomes from the implant. These include sound processors, chargers, surgical tools, cloud services, mobile apps, and countless others.
I work as an Electrical Engineer in Research and Development. This means my department is responsible for designing the electronics that go into all our devices, as well as testing them to ensure they meet the needs of our recipients whilst at the same time being as safe and reliable as possible. Currently, I am working in the implants development team, whose role is to develop the next generation of implants. Day to day this looks like testing prototype devices to ensure they are working exactly how we expect, creating documentation so that everything we do is thorough and logical, and meeting with people in and outside my team so that we are always in agreement about what, when, how and why we are doing what we are doing.
What's your background?
I grew up about 5km from where I work now, and even from a young age I think it was clear to those around me that I would be an engineer someday. I had ‘the knack’ (for those Dilbert fans out there), always intrigued by how and why things worked. In fact, one of my favourite books as a child was called ‘Mechanical Harry’, filled with images of flying bicycles and Rube Goldbergesque machines for doing daily chores. Throughout school, I gravitated towards maths, physics and chemistry. I often did quite well in these subjects, not because I was particularly smart, but simply because I found the content interesting, and so learning was mostly quite enjoyable.
After high school, I did a mission gap year and afterwards found myself in an electrical engineering degree at UNSW. Much like high school, I found a direct correlation between how interesting I found a given subject, and how well I did in it. Throughout my degree I did an internship every summer (would not recommend this), working largely in machine learning and data science. As much as I enjoyed that, I felt drawn towards a job where I could both make something physical, as well as use my skills to help people in a more direct way. I applied for the internship program at Cochlear, those stars aligned, and I haven’t left since. I’ve worked in a few roles since then, most recently joining the implants team two days ago!
Could someone with a different background do your job?
Yes, all engineering really benefits from having a wide variety of backgrounds and experience, especially when there is a need to solve problems in creative new ways. That being said, my role relies on a strong understanding of electronics so would be very difficult without some sort of electronics degree or experience.
What's the coolest thing about your job?
I just find it absolutely amazing that we design things that go inside people for the rest of their lives. I find that simultaneously terrifying, awesome, and incredibly humbling. It means that everything we do has to be done well, and that we are set up in such a way that when mistakes do get made, none of them are able to make it out the door.
What are the limitations of your job?
For me, the biggest limitation is that our devices must be completely safe and reliable. Since humans make mistakes, there are necessarily a lot of hurdles to jump before something can go to market which takes a lot of time and engineering effort. A consequence of this is that it can often take a while to see the fruits of your labour which can, at times, be discouraging.
3 pieces of advice for yourself when you were a student...
What has been your career journey at Cochlear?
I first joined Cochlear in 2019 as a summer student in the electrical engineering stream, after which I was invited to stay as a casual engineer to wrap up my project and the following year to join the graduate program. The amazing thing about the grad program is that I was able to choose both where and how long each of my rotations was; allowing me to spend time working in global marketing, advanced innovation, systems engineering, manufacturing, and firmware, all in the space of 12 months. After that year concluded I moved into a permanent role in the sound processors electrical engineering team, and most recently into a senior engineering position in the implants team.