What's your job about?
Babcock Australasia is a subsidiary of Babcock International Group, a UK-based company that provides critical engineering services and asset management to a variety of industries, including defence, emergency services, mining, and aviation.
Babcock offers a Graduate Development Program that provides recent graduates with the opportunity to kick-start their careers in engineering or business management. The program is designed to give graduates hands-on experience in a range of areas within the company and to help them develop their technical and leadership skills. In my current rotation, I am part of the Asset Management and Optimisation sector for the LHD program (Looking after HMAS Adelaide and HMAS Canberra). Asset Management looks at the different systems aboard the ships and uses a variety of different techniques to develop strategies to improve the maintenance program, ensuring that the ships are at optimal configuration 20 years in time. Part of my job requires performing Failure mode, effects, and criticality analysis (FMECA) on numerous systems through Reliability Centered Maintenance (RCM) deliverables, which I never had a chance to dive into at University. I have been fortunate enough to have the opportunity to talk constantly with ship staff and deliver reports and proposals. There are so many highlights from my graduate experience, being able to walk onto one of the LHDs on the Navy base and move around on the helicopter deck knowing this is my Tom Cruise moment is a winner. The amazing view of the harbour and the overarching city is great as well, it's really nice to work in a beautiful location being a seclusive area.
What's your background?
I was born in South-West Sydney and have lived there most of my life. For as long as I could remember, I always had a passion for Ancient History and Robotics and the joint passion had inspired me to want to create a device that could map underground structures without disturbing the current environment. The Herculaneum burial that occurred due to the eruption at Mt. Vesuvius would be the perfect area to use this device on due to the current city built on top and inspired me to go towards picking the Mechatronics degree.
During my degree at UTS, I worked at Rebel Sport where I built my communication skills, learnt customer service capabilities, and perfected my exercise equipment sales pitch. This helped build my character into who I am today.
With UTS we are required to take two internships during our degree. My first Internship was at a security company being an Engineering Project Management Intern where I wrote proposals for clients for my second internship, I moved to Port Macquarie to work at a defence company as a Product Development Intern. This allowed me to work a lot with CAD, do a lot of verification and testing whilst becoming more independent, find some new hobbies, and release my inner Jamie Oliver.
I finished my degree with my thesis based on creating a robot powered by Raspberry Pi, mimicking a termite that used LiDAR to map and trace mine shafts. The LiDAR would activate and when mapping the surrounding terrain, its walking gate would alter to slow down or speed up and change direction.
Could someone with a different background do your job?
Yes and No.
For the Graduate Engineer program, you do have to have completed an engineering degree in either mechanical, electrical, mechatronics, civil or software majors. Although on the other hand, to list a few, Babcock offers graduate positions such as:
What's the coolest thing about your job?
The coolest part of my job is being part of a company that helps our Navy defend, protect, and serve our country by making sure their ships and submarines are in their optimal state. Babcock is big on making sure that your role is the right fit for you. What I mean by this is with our program, if we feel we have learnt to our best about our role and to its maximum capacity, Babcock inspires us to talk to our line managers about experiencing another area that’s in relation to our field of study (or not) or further progressing our role through workshops.
What are the limitations of your job?
The speed of work in the defence sector may be slower than in certain other businesses. This is appropriate for those who are self-driven and appreciate taking their time to do tasks effectively, but it may not be appropriate for those who perform best under pressure with short deadlines and a fast-changing environment.
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