Author: Lauren O’Mahony, MEng(Hons) Integrated Mechanical and Electrical Engineering with professional placement
When I started searching for a placement, I was looking for a role where I could take on real responsibility, make a meaningful contribution and use the year to explore where a career in engineering could take me. I applied to Mercedes AMG PETRONAS Formula One Team out of interest, but with little expectation that anything would come of it. At that point, I had never seriously considered motorsport as an industry I might work in. Fast forward two months and I was accepting an offer to spend 13 months working as a Reliability and Engineering Process Industrial Placement Student at the team’s factory in Brackley!
Inside the Workplace
One of the first things I noticed about working at Mercedes was just how much happens in one place. The car is designed, manufactured, assembled and prepared for the track on site, so there is always something going on around you.
My desk overlooked the race bays, which I think is the best seat in the Design Office! I could see the cars being assembled and taken apart, while the open plan office meant there was constant collaboration between different departments.
There was something quite surreal about going from sitting in a lecture hall to working alongside the engineers responsible for designing and developing Formula 1 cars. As I settled into the team, I became much more comfortable asking questions and making the most of the knowledge and experience of the people around me.
The other placement students were also a huge part of the experience. There were more than 30 of us across the company, all roughly the same age and living away from home. We shared advice and experiences, started a lunchtime run club and spent plenty of time together outside work. Having such a great group around made the year even more enjoyable, both socially and professionally.
My Work and Experience
Going from university to Formula 1 was definitely a significant but exciting change of environment.
At university, students are often given a defined problem, a deadline and a pre-selected team to work with. On placement, I found that there was often more to work out before I could even start: what actually needed to be done, who needed to be involved and what a successful outcome looked like.
My work covered a broad range, including process improvement, CAD, routine reliability tasks and materials science. Some projects were relatively small, while others continued for months and involved several departments. I was definitely kept on my feet!
One of the biggest things I learnt was what ownership actually looks like. Having taken over a legacy car part quarantine workflow on an unfamiliar software called SAP (Systems, Applications & Products), I started with limited knowledge of the system but ended up becoming a key point of contact. I learnt that taking ownership does not necessarily mean having all the answers. It means asking the right questions, understanding the needs of each stakeholder and taking responsibility for moving things forward.
My long term project involved investigating the effect of laser etching on component fatigue life, taking me into areas I hadn’t expected to work in, including materials science, microscopy and fatigue testing.
It also came with plenty of setbacks, from manufacturing issues to equipment failures and changes to the testing programme. Things rarely go exactly to plan, and I learnt to adapt without losing sight of what I was trying to achieve.
I also discovered how much good technical work relies on communication. Progress could depend on explaining an issue clearly, getting the right people involved or taking a step back and reconsidering the approach. Much of what I learnt came from the people around me and their willingness to take the time to teach me.
And then there were the experiences you simply can’t recreate at university. I supported race weekends from the Race Support Room, including a win at the Singapore GP, and travelled to the Chinese Grand Prix to hand carry equipment to the team.
Being trackside gave me an invaluable insight into the scale and pace of a Formula 1 weekend. Watching the garage operate during live running and seeing the cars on track was completely different to being in the factory. It really showed me how many people and processes have to come together behind the scenes simply to get a car onto the track.
The Value of a Placement Year
My biggest piece of advice would be to apply for opportunities that interest you, even if you’re not sure where they will lead.
You don’t need to have your career mapped out before starting a placement. A year in industry gives you the chance to see how what you learn at university is applied in practice, while working out what you enjoy and what you don’t. Both are useful things to find out.
Thirteen months flew by much faster than I expected. I’ve returned to Bath with a much better understanding of what engineering looks like in practice, a clearer idea of the areas I want to explore next and, perhaps most importantly, a better understanding of myself as an engineer.
I’m incredibly grateful for the experience and the opportunity to discover just how much there is to learn beyond the lecture hall.
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