#GradStories Aoife O'Connor & Darryl Day, Process Engineers, Intel

What does a normal day look like for you?

Aoife: Here at Intel every day is going to be different. We start off the day with a meeting were we discuss any issues from the night before and what our priorities are going to be for the day coming. After that we talk to the guys on the floor to see if there's anything that needs to be addressed immediately. Then we have meetings with our counterparts in the United States and in the other factories where we discuss any problems that we have so there's a lot of problem solving and that would be the main part of my job as an engineer here.

What are the most important skills in your job?

Darryl: You need a variety of skills to be successful. You need your technical skills to be able to think fast on your feet. If you have to analyse data to make important decisions on issues and be confident in your decisions you need to be able to engage with your teammates, utilise your teamwork skills and build relationships.

What is the best thing about working in tech?

Aoife: The best thing about working at Intel is working for such an advanced company. We're working on the most advanced technology in semiconductors. I particularly enjoy the troubleshooting and seeing how things get fixed. We work as a team and so everybody has some input to get the final results

Darryl: The best thing about my job here at Intel is that I'm never bored. My job is so diverse and so different from a day to day basis that I'm constantly being challenged technically with my peers, with my managers and with all the activities I do.

Do you have any advice for students?

Aoife: The most important skill that I think would be useful is teamwork. We work as part of a team within our own tool set with our small meetings and then once we develop from that we work with factory level meetings where we're discussing different issues across the factory.

Darryl: The one skill I wish somebody told me and told me to work on when I was a 19 year-old is organisation. Be able to organise yourself on a day-to-day basis from a career point of view, from a work point of view and from a personal point of view. You have to balance your work your life and any projects that you've got going on. We have to take the time to say I need to focus on that over this to prioritise A over B. That is a key skill that is underutilised and underdeveloped.