Speaker 1: This episode of engineer your career. We talked to Justin Ayres a control system engineer a caterpillar in Peoria, Illinois, Justin graduated from Michigan Technological University with bachelor's and master's degrees in computer engineering 2009 and 2011 during this time in college get internships with DTE Energy and the Michigan Department of technology management and budget since starting a caterpillar in 2011. Justin has worked in electronic control systems for mining equipment ranging from hydraulic mining shovels to large wheel loaders in our conversation. We talked to Justin about the different roles. He has held in control system engineering as well as a personal system has implemented to be available to help his co-workers and Mentor new employees. Welcome Justin to EYC. Welcome everyone to this episode of engineer your career. I'm Brendan Tamarac and is always I'm joined by the great for about 1 Troy

Speaker 2: High everyone. Welcome to the show really glad that you listening today. I think we're going to really good episode.

Speaker 1: Yeah, me too. It's always good to do these talking to someone new every time so yeah, what's what's new in life of Troy since we talked last

Speaker 2: middle of January now, so back students are back on campus which is which is always different. It's always the start of the semester one of the cool part about being on campus if you get that buzz right this the everyone's back I was excited. No one's like overwhelmed with homework. So people are talking and having fun. And so that's one cool part about being back on campus as you get that energy of Campus, which I don't know. It's it's rejuvenating. I'll say at the start of every semester especially in the fall. But

Speaker 1: yeah, you really kind of seasons of of energy and flow and people who know, I don't coming in coming out all being like on the same page like everyone on campus is I guess not ever. I want to listen to undergrad population. I'm sure it's all yeah, we all to start a new semester or I was doing fine. I was like everyone's all along the same path same time. I feel like an industry that was different. Like maybe you'd

Speaker 2: get it a little bit at the start of the new year when people had a few weeks off and stuff but it's never it's never the same many people will maybe a reset a little bit but I don't know. I always I always found that the comebacks from industry to be not not quite the rejuvenating experience like when you get together with people, but that was just my experience.

Speaker 1: I think it's definitely cuz it's excitement as you can like slide into a longer break. But that's over a holiday or something where people are kind of like, yeah, it's almost like time, you know, we all get a few days off to go home or to be at their families for extended. Of time, but then like when you come back, it's like all right. We're back

Speaker 2: Turtle new Fresh Start write all the project they sell to work on her still there where I was when you started semester, like literally it's all new to all new glasses. So, Are things going for you?

Speaker 1: They're good. I I've started exercising more. That's not a silly New Year's resolution since we are recording in January, but we got some exercise equipment wife and I were both kind of back on the train. So it's good. It definitely gives me more energy get home exercise little bit. I don't feel like tired from the day. So I don't have

Speaker 2: that. We like we try to survive like for example, like if you don't wear in a bad State like everybody fights us like if we have any for sick, right? Everybody will go in and try and fight like it has these Natural Instinct of things that want to make us better, but then there's these other things like everybody hates exercising was too good for us and those like in some ways. I think everybody wants to live but in some ways I think everybody wants to Die

Speaker 1: 2 .0 bodies want to live when we are mines don't I don't know the episode today. We have Justin Ayers Justin welcome. Show thanks for having me. Yeah, it's great to have you on try and I both know you from many years back going to school and it's good too. Good to catch back up with you and hear about what you're doing cuz I know what you are doing some pretty cool stuff right now.

Speaker 2: Yeah, we're pretty busy here. We got a lot of different projects going in flights and it's certainly an exciting time to be an engineer

Speaker 1: well to start us off give us kind of the overview of of how you got to where you are now. Yes, so I

Speaker 2: graduated Michigan Tech back in 2009 with my bachelor's degree in computer engineering and at that time to the economy wasn't very good. I had a hard time finding a job around that time. So that was part of the influence for me choosing to get my Master's Degree. And so I got my master's degree in 2011 and computer engineering job outlook. The market was a lot better at that time. So I had interviewed with a couple of different companies at the career fair. And ended up accepting a job at caterpillar in the engineering rotational development program specifically in the product development program. In that program, I had rotations and electric hydraulic controls Hydraulics research manufacturing and Proving Grounds validation and certainly after graduating that program. I ended up coming back to the electric hydraulic Implement controls group and stayed there for about six years working on hydraulic mining shovels and then about two years ago. I moved into my current role as a electronic system integration engineer for our large wheel loader product line experience. I feel it sounds like a lot of companies are doing this rotational program. So, can you talk a little bit about your experience in that? How did you figure out where you were going to be placed in were you able to use that to decide where you were going to end up as you were interviewing with the companies? They would Market this rotational program in and as you mentioned a lot of companies have some type of rotational program at caterpillar. They have different track solo have like a supply chain and Manufacturing track a product development track for the product development track. It's typically Anywhere from one to two-year program depending on your your experience. And what you'll do is you'll sit with your manager to determine and what year rotations are your first start with your home group and that'll be basically or hiring manager and you'll work with him or her to develop your rotations for that program some of those rotations you get to choose they have like a cross-functional rotation, which I chose kind of the manufacturing side of things but then you also have some influence from your manager because ultimately you're going to be coming back to his or her group your home group. And so they want and they know the skills and expertise that you're going to need to gain in your rotations, ultimately bring back to your home.

Speaker 1: It seems like a lot of these rotational programs are out there for you when they're hiring new grads. I know. I started my job my manager actually talk me out of going into the the rotational program that they offer to GM, but I know it's a lot of new people are going into that and I think depending on the time frame and how long you're in each those rolls. Maybe I determine how much you benefit out of it. But what was what was like the biggest takeaway you got from doing that because I think a lot of people are going into these. I think it's easy to be either like hey, I know what I'm going back to is so I'll just make it to these rotations or there are some programs where it's like I'm doing rotations at the end. I'll get a full-time assignment but was what would you say was the the big takeaway for you for going through it

Speaker 2: a couple takeaways for me the first of which I didn't have an internship at caterpillar prior to applying for a full-time job at cat. So I wanted to get a flavor for what cat had to offer certainly it was interested in infant rolls. But I wanted to also kind of experience what else cat had to offer and so the rotational program was something that interest me. Also as I was interviewing with other companies. I wanted to understand what happened after the rotational program and in caterpillars case with a product development rack you end up coming back to the group that you started with and for some of the other tracks it differs.

Speaker 1: Okay, so you got to pick that product development track that you were in then or was that just because you were you were hired into that track specifically, where did you get any choice in what you were doing? So

Speaker 2: I specifically applied for the product development track base with my background and experience. I didn't think I would be a good set for supply chain or manufacturing but the the rotations themselves based on the home group and in my skills and experience. I didn't have a whole lot of experience in Hydraulics and if I was going to be in Electra Hydraulics controls engineer, I definitely have the electric side of things. Certainly the Hydraulics was an area that I need to brush up on and sew a lot of my rotations were focused on building that Hydraulics knowledge for those who are listening. Right? What I would I would love to hear is what the electric hydraulic controls engineer position is like in what you were doing, but I'm really interested in this idea of your perception of that and then would want you through it kind of what it was but it's actually like but I guess let's just start with just telling people about what that position is, like what's the day today? Like what are your responsibilities at? The think so an electro hydraulic controls engineer is responsible for making machine move to put it simply. In my case. I was the engineer for the hydraulic mining shovel product line and so on the hydraulic mining shovel. It's it's basically a very large excavator that you would see on a highway or in a construction site, but the mining equivalent of that and so very large machines couple stories tall and I would be using software to make the machine move. We would control the boom function the bucket function swing travel control up stroking pumps as you were moving and Implement and all of that is model-based code. So Matlab simulink State flow. so we would work with our process Partners to make sure that the machine moves that meets the customer's

Speaker 1: requirements. So are you like kind of drawing up the physics of how this is going to the system is going to function or are you designing a specific algorithms for its I will with your kind of like specific role that you had in this life or hydraulic area.

Speaker 2: So in this Electra hydraulic area, we read in pressure sensors. We read in a joystick pwm duty cycle switches Implement lockout switch, for example, all of that comes in for Matlab control model and I think last time I checked we have no over 400 inputs that actually come in for model. Not only what the actual signal is from a value perspective. But also is there a halt that is tied with that and Altima comes out of our model is were driving solenoid current commands, which would then actuator valve to actually make the machine move. Yeah, I think that's really interesting it to expand that for the people who may be don't know. What controls is this idea. I think if you if you want to see you want your bucket to turn left and you wanted to stop at a point. It's not as easy as saying go there you have to constantly monitor it and check these things and control for overshoot. Like it's about to go too far in my protein. Do I need to slow down? There's a lot of elements to controls that are very very challenging and so did to your point doesn't sound like there's many inputs that are a function of a control algorithm that determine how fast is it going to move? Was it going to stop now? Is it going to stop a half a second from now? Does it need to stop due to a faulty like a limit switch or safety switch? There's a lot of interesting things that sounds like a lot of that we talked about his in Matlab is that your primary programming language? Yeah, a lot of our control models within caterpillar model base, so they used to be just regular seat code. part of the driving factor for moving to model-based code was that we found it was more streamlined to Do model-based Willy call model on the loop testing. So I'm machine time is very expensive and we're trying to do more development earlier on in the R&D process. So the more simulation that we can do using our computers or getting into the labs and doing software in the loop model on the loop hardware-in-the-loop testing before we even get on the machine and workout as many hugs as we can by the time we get to the machine we can really focus on the stuff that wasn't able to be tested in the lab and in ultimately save time and money.

Speaker 1: I think that's a good point to point out to people that your design is control system for a very large machine that cost hundreds of thousands of not million dollars. I had assumed it so you can't just you can't just go out and drive around to make sure everything works. You're doing all this. What's all this work up front before and everything goes in a machine to say? Yeah, we think based on how we assume the how we assume the machine will move or interact or the variable that are part of that that that are model will will function correctly it is that right?

Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely in to give an example. I've mentioned that we read in joystick commands and ultimately process those into a solenoid current command were ultimately modulating the spool of the valve to make the machine move all the customer wants her sometimes a customer wants a faster response. Sometimes a customer wants more of us a fine-tuned control. So we have various operator profiles depending on what type of application they're they're working on do they want more of a fine controller not we also have calibration jobs that are available as well. So over time if the component where's which have a calibration routine to Get that up to speed. It sounds like a lot of things going on and I think there's a key term just in that used to talk about this Hardware in the loop software in the loop testing and I think that means a lot to you when those were there but I think there's a lot of people that hear that and they're not exactly sure what that means. Maybe you have an illustrative example of maybe a previous. That's something that you worked on to illustrate what maybe Hardware in the loop testing is software testing is yeah, so I called speak to hardware-in-the-loop first. So hardware-in-the-loop really what we're trying to do is get as many of the components on the machine as possible into our lab space so that we can try and replicate the system as best as we can in the lab. So we'll have the electronic control module ECM or ECU will have a lot of the sensors will have a lot of the control solenoid will use the same type of wiring strategy and really put the actual software on those. Vice is reading the actual sensor make sure that we're doing the frosting quickly and then make sure that when we're driving that solenoid current command out of our model we can trace it and actually measure that at the solenoid source and make sure that what were commanding is what actually is being received. Yeah, it's really important. You know, cuz it's Mac might well, why do why do we have to do that? But you can't just wait for a full two story excavator to be ready to go for your lab to start your testing, you know, it's not practical from a timeline perspective, but there may be a subset of components that would be ready earlier in time, you know at the end of your house the halfway through the main production phase or whatever purpose of face that you can really start a lot of the debugging then that sounds like a great tool to be able to do that. Absolutely and I'm a model base side of things what we do. Is we can do a lot of that validation in the in the modeling world? So this doesn't have the hardware that we talked about with hardware-in-the-loop strictly on your computer and your really validating if I read in my sensors and I I stimulate those messages in Matlab simulink and I read out those values. Does that correspond to what I expect and you can certainly as you get brought your your R&D process you'll be able to collect on machine data and then replay that through the model to actually see what the model responses in case you need to troubleshoot Fortuna Matt Hardware in the loop. It's really just testing of Hardware before the full thing is ready to test software in the loop software before the full thing is ready to test kind of in the loop is almost this idea for testing before the full systems. Then that's what that kind of the term in the loop means. Yeah, I'd agree with that summary.

Speaker 1: You started out doing this. I was after you finish your education rounds. And so when you came into this role was like one of the biggest challenges you had or one of the things like that you had to learn how to look quickly on the job to get up to speed to be contributing to the team and then to work on these these

Speaker 2: projects. So I mentioned this earlier on but really I didn't have the Hydraulics knowledge that I really needed to be successful. And so I had the coating background from a computer engineering degree. I knew my way around a wiring diagram and electrical diagram but want to change to look at a hydraulic schematic I scratch my head. There are some parallels between us electrical schematic in a hydraulic schematic. I needed to really develop that expertise and I won't call my cell phone Hydraulics expert but I would say that I at least know enough to be dangerous now and I can look at a hydraulic schematic can understand. Okay? Yep. That's a pressure sensor up to control solenoid. And yep. That's what I'm reading into my model or that's what I'm demanding from my ECM. I think it's important to understand there's your programming but your programming a physical thing that's moving. So, you know imagine imagine you're standing on Fox closing your eyes and you're going to run forward and you're going to have different inputs, maybe a person immediately. Next you telling you when to stop or a person who's a hundred yards away telling you where to stop at your feedback sensor do just based on where it physically is can determine your success on stopping at the appropriate place in a lot of controls can be about that even yellock not only does my signal have a voltage of one but where is it physically and what does that mean for time delay of where it's of the signal that it? There's a lot of physical properties that you have to understand in order to be successful in controls

Speaker 1: to where you are. Now it was what was the next step you made?

Speaker 2: Yes, right after completing the engineer rotational development program my team back to my home group and eh controls and I ended up staying there for 6 years, which is typically I think a caterpillar we see individual staying in their role 3 to 5 years and they can choose to stay longer if they want to become technical experts in that area or they can choose to find a new group and chain experience in that area. I alternate Lee expanded my role in the hydraulic mining shovel product line within those six years site initially worked on the 6015b hydraulic mining shovel, which is in production today and is doing really well and I've moved on to other a new product. Production programs that we've been working on as where you know updating the product line for reminding shovel and then really gained some experience with different Sheen's that's part of the driving factor for moving into a new position as a electronic system in a greater role for a large bill of about two years ago. I really wanted to get experience with a different product line. And then I also wanted to look at the machine system from a different ones not working as an electronic system integrators at your title. I think my official title in the databases electronic system engineering specialist, but really my true title as electronic systems integration engineer sounds like that's more of a higher level roll. I know them curious to understand the differences in your day today from that type of position versus controls April. Are you going to more meetings? What's the difference in the day today? Yeah, so an engineering specialist really is the same pay grade as an engineering team leader. I think they're a little more checks call in a team leader day today is very similar to my rollback is a electric hydraulic controls engineer, but I am attending more meetings. I'm coordinating with other software developer. So I'm not doing this early all the software for large wheel loaders. I have a team of individual to I'm working with now, that's not say I didn't do any software at all. I still have responsibilities for a couple of our model-based systems, but in their system integration roll, we have machine software features, which aren't I would say as complex as some of our control strategies for like electric hydraulic Implement controls the group I'm in now. How is mostly coordinating between various subsystems Weatherby Implement transmission remote control collision avoidance. Those those types of subsystems are making sure that they're interfacing well-off from an overall machine and for my sight standpoint, what is that work

Speaker 1: kind of look like in the in the sense that it's easy to imagine someone I guess who's modeling who is creating cold or creating these models and in doing work that way to Creek have an output but when you're when you're doing more coordinating and integration on that side, what does that what does that look like since it's maybe not as Hands-On technical on the computer but more of a motor coordination roll.

Speaker 2: Yeah. So there's a certain way a lot of interfacing with individuals typically will have a lead for each of the different subsystems that were integrating. Whether it be no transmission control Power Systems, those type of individuals we try and get them into a room once a day for our daily stand-up. Swear. We kind of review what activities we have to get done in a day and if there any roadblocks to getting those activities done and certainly touching base with them making sure that our system is interfacing well with with their system one of the bigger surprises that I had no moving into this role in moving into the engineering in general doesn't necessarily focus on one individual company, but You can have the most complex control system. But if it doesn't interface well with the other corresponding systems, you're not going to go anywhere. And so the importance to collaborate while making sure that your interfaces between software subsystems are correct. You're looking at data type you're looking at scale interface names those types of things are incredibly important at the end of communication in with caterpillar being such a large company. Are you interacting with people all over the world or is most of the team that you're interacting with and have a meeting with with you in person? Most of our team is local we have most of our hubs are in Peoria, Illinois. We have some of our performance and controls Engineers up in Aurora, Illinois. We have a pocket of software developers that are are offshore team. They're mostly based in India. And so we try and break up activities for them to work on. It's nice having an offshore team because You're getting more work done in a day or so after my day ends and I have like deliverables my requirements that I put together and they can try to pick up where I left off where they can be working on a completely separate feature. So it really increases the overall efficiency of the software development.

Speaker 1: What are the specific deliverables that you have for your job?

Speaker 2: So ultimately our team is responsible for the flash file that goes on to our machine ECM. So for large wheel loaders, we have a number of flash file that we all Summit League compiled and provide to the product group into the End customer into the factory, but there's a lot that goes into and so were not only responsible for the software side of things but also coordinating the Electrical schematic so making sure that the pain that were tying into the UCM just connected to the right power the right ground making sure that that panel Gavin software to so I'm talking a lot on the software side of things. But our team is also responsible for making sure that everything is aligned on the schematic side of things to it. Sounds like there's a lot going on in this physical domain. Can you tie this back to your education at your undergrad and computer engineering Master's in computer engineering? Where are you taking classes related to the hardware while you were taking software classes or how did you how did you a line that with school or would you have recommendations for people who are in school right. Now out of the people that I work with today have a mechanical engineer electrical engineer. I don't work with too many Computer Engineering individuals. I went to Michigan Tech with computer engineering because I wanted to be kind of the person that's in between electrical engineering and computer science, but didn't want to see programming 24/7 but I didn't want to be completely on the electrical side. I wanted to be kind of a hybrid and I found the computer engineering was a way for me to meet the middle ground interesting. So when you were taking classes you were you were trying to take like pure programming classes, but then also like physics and up bike more advanced like electrical classes. Is that how you were able to pick your degree classes yasso with my master's degree program. It wasn't a research-based program. Was it more of a project in class work? Program I focused a lot on the program inside of things actually so C C plus plus I didn't have a whole lot of model-based experience that I got a taste of that during my first year in college, but didn't really work too much with model-based systems really insuline. I joined caterpillar. It's always different becoming a full-time engineer always working at work on a project an interacting with people it's different than what school is like, I guess if you put your hat back on to when you were a grad student undergrad student and you looking to the Future and saw what you thought work was going to be like in the now that you've lived at what are some of those differences what like what are the the things that you couldn't have anticipated when you are a student that really where reality when you went through them. Certainly, the number of people that are involved in in any type of design is Nelson going back to my experience with construction and mining equipment. I had absolutely no idea, you know going into college hear how much software how much Hardware how much collaboration was involved in that ultimate deliverable and I learned a lot about that kind of threw out my different internships that I had not with in the construction and mining equipment sector, but two completely different areas one was with DTE Energy in Detroit and the other with the state of Michigan and Lansing and as I learned about just the various people that were involved in the overall design of a deliverable. It was really eye-opening to me how important Dream I education learning to collaborate learning about various forms of communication learning about documentation and how to design software appropriately all of those really factored into my learning and help me to be successful in my current role.

Speaker 1: Awesome. That is a really good takeaways that things are definitely different ended up like structure difference and the people and the process is everything. So yeah, I would say I had a similar experience not starting my role to Do you think that what you were learning in school and how it actually played out an industry is a lot different as a side from the story The model based programming that you're talking about was it was easy to transfer those skills over or was it like wow, there were these things that I wish I wish we would have learned. I wish you would have thought because very different and I guess that could be technically or or process wise to

Speaker 2: a lot of the projects that I worked on. It was usually myself or myself and a handful of individuals, maybe two or three. I don't think I've worked into many large groups as I can certainly as a grad student. But what I found was a lot of the stuff that I learned in college, troubleshooting standpoint helped I would say for my generic and a lot of their you know, the Deep skills and stuff that I learned as a computer engineer didn't directly translate into us the jobs that I'm currently working at him in the professional world. I would say that a lot of these soft skills that I learned when I was in housing and residential life in college directly translated over to the collaboration that I had to do team-building communication. A lot of those skills are incredibly beneficial in my current role. I think that's an excellent point just admit it something that I think people don't necessarily think about while they're doing extracurriculars while on University is this idea that you gained a lot of other additional skills that are going to be relevant to you when you get in the job for us. It's kind of a it's it's almost a suggestion to not just do academics while you're in school because you learn a lot of other really really important things that you're talkin. My destiny soft skills is ability to work with other people because you know what to be fair to schools, you know, it's not really practical for you to work in teams of a hundred people like it just not going to work logistically, but when your Involved in orientation of these other programs or you're going to be interacting with hundreds of people these big projects for maybe that goal isn't a technical goal. You still learn things. Like how do I interact with a big team trying to move from point A to point B and what's it like to be a part of that and how do I leave from the inside? And you know, if I don't have the official leadership title, how can I still help that process by being you know the boarding at leader and I think there's a lot of great benefit to doing those extracurriculars that it's you. Just a great example of what you talk about their Justin then it's a wonderful thing that I think people should should take the heart. I have the privilege of going back to Michigan Tech but once a year for for Caterpillar recruiting and I get the opportunity to speak with first-year students who are going through the Matlab simulink courses, and I'm able to at least show them in a high-level view of kind of what we work with. From a model based perspective and showing them. How are using Matlab simulink and stateflow is a direct connection to what they're learning at that time. I think it really motivates them to say all I can actually be using this skill set. When I graduate college.

Speaker 1: Are you doing any hiring any roller rink or any interviewing

Speaker 2: so I do get to do interviews? I'm not the person that all that'll do the hiring that'll be at the hiring manager who will do that, but I get to go on campus once a year and usually in the fall career fair. I'll go up there. We have an engineering recruiting team did Tavares from year to year, but it's mostly Engineers. I am and marketing folks and majority of them graduated from from the school that they're going to visit and so we hire Engineers for full-time positions and internship position. Because Michigan Tech is is farther away from kind of our Hub in Peoria, Illinois. We usually are up there for an entire week and will do interactions with students in the classroom environment in in various. Career Fair activities will go we'll visit cleaning classrooms and talk with professors talk with students career fair. And then we actually do on-campus interviews, usually while we're up there as well and I'm participating phone interviews as well as needed.

Speaker 1: What are some of the key things are looking for in someone is applying to work a caterpillar weather weather for an internship referral for a full-time position of their somebody's like kind of Stand Out qualities that the year specifically trying to hone

Speaker 2: in on. Yeah, there's a couple requirements again, depending on and what position you're looking to apply to but on the engineering side of things certainly grade point average were looking for a 3.0 or higher but we're looking kind of back to Troy's point. We're looking for an individual really to be a well-rounded. So not only are you doing a good job and academics, but I'm I'm looking for what other activities are you involved with non canvas. Are you involved in a fraternity or sorority? Are you part of a senior design project or Enterprise or housing and residential life? What activities do you do outside of your academics? Soft skills should certainly help you in your in your role within caterpillar. I think what a lot of people don't realize from adding on all these other things as it's going to be a lot and it's going to be overwhelming but that's really really a good time to learn how to handle that. That's something that I realize when I said, yes, too many times and undergrad and grad school where I just got so busy and I was just really really packed. It really helped me realize what I can and can't do and help me realize how to have time management and helped me realize how I need to effectively delegate and work with a team to accomplish many goals on different pipeline to that works just like that and Industry, you know you yeah, you're working on this team, but you're on a totally other two different team at the same time and they don't know your whole job scope and you have to manage and balances things all the time at work. And that's just how life is and showing that you can do that even an undergrad where it's yeah. I'm just, you know, maybe the experiences are different but showing that you can learn and handle multiple different. Things that you're trying to juggle is a is a skill to learn in that you can do that in college do and I think signing up for a bunch of other things shows that and it doesn't have to be all education-related. It can still be fun things. I can be intramurals. It can be ya sorority life or fraternity life. It can be all these fun things but it still shows that you know how to handle life and what life is like to manage a bunch of different things and when I'm at the career fair often times can first-year students who might not have maybe a whole lot of opportunity and mischley to participate in maybe up Professional Organization always quite yet. They would talk about their Hobbies. No hobbies that can tie to an internship like programming a raspberry pie or something like that. Those are certainly things that you would want to include on your resume with should certainly tie to an internship or full-time opportunity.

Speaker 1: Justin for you, when when you already had your job and you will work at in six years before you can move on to something else. Obviously you were working on on other skills that whole time while you're working in Industry. So you could get up to a position that allowed you to do this coordination disintegration roll. Was there anything you were focusing on specifically to be like hey, I want to gain experience in this area. I want to Mentor other employees that are coming in things that kind of prepared you to make that next up.

Speaker 2: Yeah. Absolutely. So when I was a part of the rotational program, we had a lot of different committees within that rotational program one is the hosting and recruiting committee and I ended up being the chair of that committee during my tenure in the rotational program and that allowed me to take on a leadership position, even though I've really only been at the company for a year or so. and not only talked to individuals who were interviewing at caterpillar but also work with current employees to make sure that they were up to speed on hosting recruiting knowledge for the company great experience to be able to have the opportunity to do those leadership roles when you're wrong. That's great in such a large organization that they have the flexibility for you to do things like that. That's awesome. One thing I'm interested in Justin is how you continue to learn while you're in Industry. I guess if we go back to the electro hydraulic controls, I think if it's my I don't know I guess view being an outsider controls that controls like how you do control strategy controls theory that those things are changing relatively. Dynamically. There's a lot of different ways to go about solving the problem of how do we control this system and I'm just curious as to your thoughts on how you're able to stay up on that technically and how you approached that in your day today. They continually A lot of the learning that happens in my job is usually on the job learning. I attend some training courses over the years but most of those work safety related courses, like if I'm going to a mine site I have to take you and show training mine safety training in a functional safety training making sure that our our machines are complying but as far as learning, for example, the control models that I dealt with in college were very small in comparison to the control models that I was exposed to when I first joined chat and so I thought I needed a lot of hand-holding initially to work my way around the different prophecies that the company had learning about the tools. I will be version controlling software. How will we manage in our requirements whole wheat testing our software those things and so I really leverage the skills and experience of my co-workers to teach me and it took me. I would say probably 6 months before I really started feeling comfortable with taking on ownership of what I would call it easier to medium-sized features within the application and probably sell more comfortable taking an advanced features probably after a year's time the importance of having those clothes mentor is whether I know it doesn't nose have to be formal to you. Sometimes companies will have like here's your Mentor person. Maybe that's more an internship settings to but I think once you get into the workforce, it's it's amazing the power of having a mentor some curious just in a new perspective on how do you be a good Mentor? You know, now that you're in the point where your you know, you're probably technically mentoring people but you recently gone through the process of having a bunch of people as you can to the shopping and hold you but Mentor you to the position you're in how do you become a good Mentor? What are the some of the key traits of that person? I think the key to becoming a good Mentor is being approachable. I've had a lot of people interns and and newer employees who I've worked with in the past. And one of the first things that I say is never feel like you're you're bothering me with the question because I'm incredibly busy every day, but I will be more than happy to stop what I'm doing to help you out and make sure that any roadblocks that you have can be resolved. And so I would say out of anything for me that approachability factors key. I totally agree. I think it's because it's really hard. I think it's and I'm curious if your thoughts on this testing but how do you do that? Like, I mean I've been in history and I've had people come up to me that you know, it seems like I have I'm in the busiest day. I have a bunch of stuff going on. I got my head deep in the computer and I look over and I can see a younger person struggling and I know that I could help them where they're asking questions that lead me to believe they don't understand what's going on and they could use a little handle. You're a little help but it's so it's always so hard in those moments for me to be like, I'm so busy right now with my own stuff. How do you prioritize that in your mind? How do you how do you say no, I'm putting this down. Like what's with that thought process in your mind. So if someone comes up to me and need something of me usually if I'm certainly in the middle of something I'll I'll try and really quickly jot down a note. I use OneNote to track my action items for the day and I'll write a quick note on maybe what I was doing and so they might see me typing a note to myself before I actually turn my head and next to actively listen to what they have to say and it's not that I'm being rude light not turning my head right away, but I certainly don't want to lose track of of what I was doing. Now. There are times where we have a maybe a machine down or lying down in the factory that's requiring my attention. And I will make a point to let them know that hey I'm in the middle of something right now, but I will get back with you in an hour or so or feel free to put a half an hour on my calendar later today or tomorrow and we can work together to resolve

Speaker 1: it was myself. Thank you my situation where it's hard. It's hard to start a tear yourself away from what you're doing is especially when there is repeated distractions over and over from different people throughout the day even sometimes when you're maybe not even as busy just having people come up unexpectedly. And so I think what you're doing there with with keeping track of where you're at and works importance is easy to get distracted free where you're going but I'll see your comments about offering people. Another solution is now isn't the right time when I think about situations where I've gone to people and now wasn't the right time but there was no there was no way. There's no one now that I'm going to come back in an hour a day a week. When do I come back? So I guess really

Speaker 2: good, you know Brandon just shut me out. He's no interest in helping me which may totally not be the case. I may just been the wrong time and that's I think that's I like that system. Justin sounds like you have a system in place to be successful so you can help people and you prioritize that system and I think that's actually I think it's great advice for starting person to be able to appreciate that when they walk up to someone and ask you a question but also for those people 5 10 20 30 years 40 years out that have a lot to give the community that they sit in. So just when you were young, how did you go about then approaching people, you know, you can talk about this idea of how to be a good Mentor which I think is excellent. But how advice would you give to the starting engineer who wants to ask for help but doesn't necessarily know how that's a really good question the engineers that I work with each of them have different personalities and sometimes it's helpful to kind of sit there and being in an absorber sponge mode where you're sitting back and observing and it is hard sometimes to ask for help certainly, especially when you come from college and you've been involved in in so much for so long and you had a lot of the answers. We're now you're being exposed maybe a completely different environment and and needs some hand-holding be honest with the person about what you know, and what you don't know and then that'll allow them to help you. But also keep in mind that it's helpful to be challenged and sometimes struggling on something for a. Of time as helpful in your overall learning of the material. I don't like in college as it is it in the professional place of learn the personalities of the people around you because that can be a great way to figure out how you're going to ask them for help and when you're going to ask them for help based on just a personality type, but then also this idea of don't go and ask people for things that you haven't struggled on a little bit because then they won't listen to think that you're appreciating their time because they want to know that you've struggled with it sufficiently cuz you know, you don't you don't want to just waste people's time and I think if you come to someone and said, hey, I've been working really hard on this I've spent time but I'm really stuck that's different than a the manager just said I need to do. How do I do this? That's the other different situations in different questions and if people will appreciate the former over the ladder and I think it's a beautiful stration that you showed their. Yeah. I'm certainly willing to help a person who's really struggled through it and then thoroughly lets me know what they've tried what they have been struggling with and I can maybe not give them the complete answer but maybe Point them in the right direction to remove that roadblock and let them continue down the path of learning.

Speaker 1: What other advice do you have for someone who's looking to get into into those type of controls work that you're doing? Well that's specifically for you or maybe even in another role at caterpillar another industry in general. What's something that you would say to somebody they're coming out of college or someone looking to make a career transition into that. What is what is that one piece of advice you would have for them.

Speaker 2: There's a lot of learning that can happen and in various ways. I I did encourage certain. If you are involved in in controls or Matlab simulink and state flow in your coursework, and that's something that's of interest to you. You could enroll for your college with there are also free classes that are online yet YouTube or or Sarah or any of those various websites that you can certainly do a lot of learning that way project basis is important as well. So she have a certain projects that you want to get involved in being a Professional Organization on campus. I'd certainly encourage that I was a part of the integrated Microsystems Enterprise and that allowed me to get a little bit more of the Hands-On Hardware experience that maybe I didn't have as a computer engineer wires may be more focused on the software side of things and finally, I would say that you know. Career Fairs are great way to connect with Recruiters in person. So even if you aren't just looking for a job know that given year networking with with recruiters or other industry professionals, I think is important be at face-to-face or even online can use LinkedIn or or other websites to do that. And finally, I've encouraged individuals to certainly get into internships summer internships are co-ops where they can really learn to understand what they like and equally important what they don't like I think that is so true that there the value of knowing what you don't like is incredible and I think it's not often viewed like that, but I got I totally agree. I think it's a super super important to know what you don't want to do because then you don't have to get stuck in it for however many years and internship is a great opportunity to do that to me. It just sounds like disc controls have engineering praise probably happening all over the US. Do you know if there's geographic regions that this is tied to or is it that sounds like there's companies kind of all over the us if you have an interest in doing this is control Civ engineering. Oh, yeah. Absolutely. I mean, I'm I'm mostly talking in like the construction and mining equipment application but controls engineering happens all over I'm sure it's very prevalent in the Automotive Industries in generator business if you could go on and on anything really that has a an ECM in it near plane or a boat or or what not, you know, it's going to have software work and have Hardware tied to it and are people that are strictly focused on making sure that those devices work for really catch. Well, I think we're coming on Time Justin. We really appreciate you coming on the show man. I think you have some really really excellent advice technically, but also those sauce goes I really enjoyed that about our conversation really want to thank you for taking the time. Yeah. Thank you, Troy Brennan. Appreciate you having me on the show. I really appreciate the work that you guys are put into these podcasts. I'm confident that they're going to be really beneficial to students. Not only looking into engineering but looking after their careers as well. So thanks for having me.

Speaker 1: I thought they just was great talking to you. Good luck.

Speaker 2: Thank you. Bye. Bye.

Speaker 1: I want to stuff that Justin talked about in our in our interview really kind of hit home for me. He talked about I mean the technical Parts but a lot of this soscol stuff that you talk to me about a true that it's something you don't always have experience with until you really start in your

Speaker 2: career. Yeah, I think it's awesome to be able to to get that feedback. Nothing. I really like doing this but I guess cuz it's so helpful for me too. Cuz I feel like it makes me just slightly better because I'm thinking about these other things like sauce goes. I thought it the other way Justin brought it out. That was excellent.

Speaker 1: Yeah, it's his comments about his kind of system for allowing himself to be approachable to people come to ask him questions really hit home for me. I think I find myself in my day. It is sometimes being a little cold the people who come up and ask questions unannounced being like I'm working on something that's something going on, but I don't have his system. Is he he did I like how he has a system. I'll make a note so I come back to it or if now is not the right time. I will tell them. Hey come back late time make an appointment or something. I got something I could definitely benefit from my interactions at

Speaker 2: work. I think it's a very big philosophy rights. It's the group Collective over yourself. And I think that's really really hard to do. I mean that I'm not saying that people are selfish by not helping others, but It's important to realize the power of the team and the team can accomplish so much more than the individual and in order to grow the team we have to sacrifice individually and I think he insane that necessarily like that but it's Society of penises support that and so he's a logical guy with yellow bottom and he's got the systems and that's his sister was like, okay. I see I see this better future in order to do that. I need to set up systems to make that successful and here's how I'm going to do it. I think that's awesome. I totally agree.

Speaker 1: Yeah, it sounds like it's really really working out for him, which is awesome

Speaker 2: for a couple episodes. You know, Eric was a software engineer computer engineer and then you know are is doing a similar thing. But so very very different in that it's around these models these physical models of these components moving and this model based programming and you know, this idea Pike hardware-in-the-loop testing and I'm a generic would you like software in the loop type testing? But how do you actually try that into hardware and it's Call to see where you could go. I think this is one of the great examples of the podcast to date of how you can have like a bass degree, but you can do two totally different things with it. And I think it's really cool to see that really cool to see how that's different. Even though the degree titles may be similar leaving the job name might be similar, but you can do very different things. And I think hopefully this podcast will help to illustrate more of those and now you can just with a certain degree do widely different things. Like maybe you're still interested in programming, but it you can do it different ways. And I think that's awesome. And I know that to be true and I think this podcast is really starting to show that pussy with these two interviews.

Speaker 1: Yeah, I think we're talking about it could be you could be working at YouTube like Eric working on something that billions of people are watching a Millions at least or you can be working on multi-story mining equipment because it's 11 all requires, you know that are required. Computer knowledge is code at the end of the day to make it. I'll run and it's pretty cool. It's pretty cool how you could be doing such different things and it's such a good aligned with your interest. Do you're interested in machines and I could go products but y'all center computers could be a great route to do it or if you're you're interested in the web and software programs that people interact with like you can also do that route to I think it opened up a lot of doors for people

Speaker 2: and the fact that you don't necessarily need to know that freshman year, right this idea of why I think I can have this interest like you can still start down that path. You can even get into junior senior year even get through the bachelor's degree probably and then be able to still decide which path I'm going to go but it'll East helps you understand what what direction you're going to start walking. That's the way I like to visualize it was his idea of you sending one place now, right you could walk anywhere you can walk straight and 0° you can walk behind you at a hundred eighty degrees, but you're going to start walking and you can walk, you know. Turn around 180 degrees for a little while realize it's the wrong way and then turn around and walk back toward zero degrees,

Speaker 1: but it's it's best to

Speaker 2: try to walk in the general area of interest and hopefully this podcast has to help people understand the general area that they might want to start walking and what is down that

Speaker 1: path. Definitely I couldn't have said that better myself.

Speaker 2: That's why I'm here.

Speaker 1: Exactly awesome,

Speaker 2: man. Adjusting recently had a kid and it's I think it's awesome for him to take the time you another example of how awesome Justin is in this sacrifice myself for the greater good eats. Y'all think it's great that he's willing to do that. Really appreciate him taking the time to come out

Speaker 1: definitely can't you know, I was thinking about other people like that about him for sure everybody.

Speaker 2: Well, I'll talk to you soon.

Speaker 1: Bye. Bye. Bye. Thanks for listening this episode of engineer your career with Troy Bauman and Brennan Tamarack for more information about the show visit our website at EYC podcast.com there you can find show notes for each episode of get in touch with Troy and I if you or someone, you know are an engineer with an interesting or even not so interesting career journey, I would like to be on the show go on the website send us a short bio and we made it to invite you to come on and share your And finally, if you want to show your support, please rate review like or subscribe to the show on your podcast player of choice. And finally, if you want to show your support, please rate review like or subscribe to the show on your podcast player of choice.