“What pains us trains us.” An Interview with an Engineer.

Here is a little look into the mind of a quality testing engineer. We recently interviewed Meng Yuan to allow us to share a little more about who we are, what we do, and what our employees find important about their jobs. Enjoy.

What did you study? 

I studied electrical and computer engineering for my bachelor and master. I enjoyed my major because I was studying science theory and verifying it by myself, while engineering is a good balance of ideas and execution.

Did you join ePropelled straight after graduating? 

ePropelled is my second job. My first job after graduating was at Pegatron. I was there for 2 years working as a failure analysis engineer and quality engineer in iPhone repair department. At ePropelled, I am focusing on our UAV side.

Do you have a good mix of actual hands-on mechanical engineering and theoretical work or is your job heavily skewed towards one?

My job is mix of actual hands-on mechanical engineering and theoretical work.

For theoretical work, based on the specs for our products, I need to design a quality testing plan for every model to evaluate performance of our products, find the damage limit and operation limit to make our design better.

For hands-on mechanical engineering work, I need to execute my testing plan to test our products. During testing, I can make some adjustments to my original testing plan and generate a hands-on, step-by-step standard operation procedure.

What are you working on right now? 

At the moment, I am working on our UAV families: iPS, EES, IAMC series to make sure all functions of the units are perfect so that they are ready for shipping. I am also working on the RMA customer return units, which need to be repaired and go through all testing steps again.

Is there anything about the technology you’re working on that is new or interesting for you? Is there anything you have been doing at ePropelled that has been a steep learning experience?

To be honest, all UAV stuff is a new area for me to explore, since my last job was phone-related. So I must admit it gave me a hard time in the beginning to familiarize myself with our technology quickly. The propulsion motors, the electrical speed controllers, our intelligent power system... all of it is kind of new for me. I only learned a little basic theory from school but never had a chance to do a deep dive into them.

Working in ePropelled gives me a fantastic opportunity to touch all this cool stuff and I really enjoy learning about it. As we all know, what pains us trains us. When I am working, I can unlock more potential and have more confidence, which will make me into a better engineer.

Which part of your job do you enjoy the most? 

Testing. It's a fulfilling process during which I can verify the knowledge and theory.

What’s your process when it comes to engineering? Do you theorize and tinker at the same time, experiment, or is there an order of things you don’t deviate from? 

First, I do a lot of research about testing method design and make a testing plan based on our product specs. Then I execute my testing plan, make adjustments for testing steps, and generate a hands-on, step-by-step standard operation procedure for the operators’ reference.

Is your job what you expected it to be when you were younger? If not, what are the differences? 

No. Far from it. When I was a kid, all I ever wanted was to own a clothes store. Being a clothes store owner meant to me that I could wear all kinds of beautiful clothes for free every day. So there you go. That was the first dream I ever had.

And then, overtime, I got more sensible. I wanted to choose a major which would take me far in life. And I thought that maybe engineering was a good choice because it is interesting, and it allows me to verify something that’s only a theory all by myself.

What are you most proud of when it comes to anything you’ve done at ePropelled? 

I defined a professional quality testing process for every model.

What would you like to achieve in your job?  

For my short term 24-month goal, I wanted to join a creative, innovative and motivated team and deep dive into one domain. A positive team can always inspire and encourage me. At ePropelled, our team is better than I expected.

I want to acquire more technical knowledge to become an experienced engineer in my domain. Not only in theory, but also in hands-on experience.

For my long-term goal, I want to be an expert engineer in my work domain. I want to become irreplaceable. Also, I hope I can be more compressive and more powerful. 

Career-wise, is there somewhere you would like to go in the future or is quality testing THE life for you? 

I would like to try machine-learning. I think it is really cool.

Technology-wise, is there something you always wanted to invent, improve? 

I hope we can have an automatic hair washing-drying-together machine.

Do you think the fact you’re a woman was/is an obstacle in your studies and career or do you think it helped? Or do you think we’ve finally reached a point culturally where it didn’t matter at all? 

I don’t think it was an obstacle in my studies and career and I was never made to doubt being qualified.

I don’t think there are any real barriers preventing women from pursuing such careers. It is more a matter of barriers to women being accepted and respected in such careers. ePropelled is very progressive and inclusive, which respects women and women tend to thrive here.

What would you recommend to young people interested in engineering? 

It’s always helpful to have a plan and a strategy!

What do you need (personality- and interest-wise) to be a good engineer? 

• The ability to think logically
• The ability to study failure and learn from the analysis
• Consistent action
• Always be curious
• Be circumspective and active
• Good at team-work communicating
• Most important: work hard