What's your job about?
Saab is an engineering company that develop products within the defence, civil and security domains. Within Australia, a recurring theme of our products is in Command and Control (C2) systems – consolidating a tactical picture of an environment for operators to make informed decisions. On the seas this is the 9LV Combat Management System (CMS), on land, it’s the RBS70 Ground Based Air Defence system (with TaCCS as the C2 component) and in the civil space, it’s OneView security system. In my time at Saab, I’ve mostly been a software developer for 9LV, but currently, I’m supporting testing on the RBS70 system while transitioning into systems engineering on Saabs mobile hospital.
I’ll talk about my experience as a developer as that’s where I’ve spent most of my time so far. The development group is around 100 people-strong and is divided into smaller working teams, each working on an aspect of the system. My team primarily worked on the front-end of the CMS. A typical day would start by checking emails and code reviews I was assigned to, then planning what tickets I would start/continue today. At around 10.00 AM we would have a team stand-up, where each member would say what they did the previous day, what they’re going to do today, and what’s blocking their progress. The rest of the day is spent doing that work, which could include researching and planning for a new ticket, writing code for a current ticket, or merging in a finished ticket.
What's your background?
I’ve lived in Adelaide my entire life. Throughout school at Adelaide High, I had a huge passion for maths and science and I decided to study Advanced Computer Science at the University of Adelaide. I picked this primarily from a love of problem-solving, while programming is enjoyable my interest lies in the limitless scope of solutions that computer science-style problems can present.
My degree is very research-oriented. Every year, students do a “mini honours” project with a supervisor of their choice within the faculty. I used each project as an opportunity to study a different field of Computer Science. In my second year, I looked into evolutionary computation and neural networks, creating a system that evolved generated faces to present interesting artistic features. In my third year, I decided to pursue simulation and modelling, designing a virtual cryptocurrency market. I wrote papers for both projects and was later hired by the university to refine them, leading to academic publication. I actually presented the second one at a conference in China! After I graduated, I did an Honours degree in 3 Computer Science, in which I designed a memory allocator to protect against micro-architectural attacks
During my studies, the University employed me as both a tutor and researcher. While I enjoyed research immensely, I decided in my final year that I wanted to gain some experience and understanding in the industry. This led me to Saab and I have been here since 2020.
On the side, I participated in programming competitions. These exemplified the aspects of Computer Science that I loved and my team qualified for regionals at the top of SA and competed in Sydney against other states.
Could someone with a different background do your job?
Definitely! Saab is a diverse group with different passions, upbringings, values, education and personalities. In saying that, a diverse group does not necessarily mean there are not common skills and traits that are beneficial to the job. One of these is a positive attitude and strong interpersonal skills. Most roles in engineering at Saab are team-based and as such, having the ability to communicate your ideas effectively to others and gel with your teammates is important.
Aside from the obviously required background in engineering/mathematics, having a passion for problem-solving and the drive to improve existing systems or processes is also a very desirable trait. The defence is an industry with long deadlines and projects that span years. This means there is both potential and time for systems to be improved.
What's the coolest thing about your job?
While the tasks we work on are awesome, what drives me to work every morning is the care and respect that Saab gives to its employees. Over my year here, any time I’ve had a need, Saab has been more than accommodating in meeting it. In a similar vein, Saab has been encouraging ideas and suggestions.
Perhaps the biggest aspect of this, and the reason I picked Saab, is Grad school. There are skills that the university does not teach, both hard and soft. Every few weeks, graduates have lessons ranging from communication and presentation skills to understanding various aspects of the company. This is a symbiotic relationship, Saab upskills their workforce and graduates learn valuable skills.
What are the limitations of your job?
As I do not have much experience within the field, I’ll primarily speak of aspects that have limited me coming from University and a research environment.
In university, the projects were self-contained and I had a lot of ownership over their direction. In the projects I’ve worked on at Saab, the system scope is so massive that I’ve only touched a tiny portion of it. In addition, while Saab is supportive of suggestions and design improvements, proposing these changes in a massive system comes with as much bureaucracy as one might expect. Changes are slow and require escalating levels of approval to pass. For the record: this is a good thing from the perspective of responsible engineering and frankly, I enjoy the process of discussing the validity of my ideas with others. Nevertheless, coming from an environment where I could experiment and make executive decisions on the flip of a dime, it is a challenge of patience.
3 pieces of advice for yourself when you were a student.
1. Plan your subject choices across your degree. There are many interesting subjects at uni but a limited amount of time. Sometimes you want to do a subject but you’re missing a prerequisite or have too many core classes that semester. Look ahead a few years in advance for interesting subjects and then plan your subjects accordingly.
2. Don’t get too caught up with the “work” aspect of the university. While grades are, and should be, a primary focus, it’s important not to let it replace the extracurricular aspect of your life entirely. This includes personal projects, clubs, friends, hobbies, exercise etc. This doesn’t mean that uni doesn’t take priority, but you have more spare time than you think. Use it.
3. Go to the campus as much as possible. There are many positive aspects to being around the campus when you don’t have classes.