#Gradstories Aishling Quine, Process Engineer, Intel

What does a typical day look like for you?

A typical day for myself would start with a meeting. We go through anything that happened on the previous shift and any of the tools that could have gone down or any issues that could have been caused. They kind of run through all that so then we kind of get a heads up of what happened then later on in the day we'd have a meeting with my direct team but the main part of the job of a process engineer would be looking through the charts and the data that would come in from our tool set to make sure that it's them up and it's healthy it's running production and well and if there was something that was potentially going to cause an issue we would check that and make sure that we could action it straight away rather than leaving it long time. So as a process engineer you would be maintaining a certain tool that you're over and making sure it's healthy and and that it can run production smoothly and with no issues.

What skills do you need to be successful in your role?

Time management is an important skill because you can have days where you have five or six things come at you at once and you need to prioritise what is most important and what needs to be actioned straight away and then what can be pushed slightly so that you can deal with it a little bit later on in the day.

The second one that I would say would be communication skills and because within intel there are so many different people from different backgrounds that may not have English as their first language so you need to be able to be clear and concise and be willing to pick up the phone or send an email to someone and explain a problem or ask for help. At intel you could be dealing with people who are in the States or people who are in Israel so you'd need to have strong communications.

How did you get into your job?

I did my undergrad at DIT and it was in pharmaceutical and medicinal chemistry and and I then went on and did a PhD in polymer chemistry. At the time, I could only get a laboratory technician role because I didn't want to be in academia and it was actually a friend of mine who works in intel who I'd known since my undergrad and who said that I should apply with Intel. One of the biggest things that I noticed when I started at intel was it actually didn't make a huge difference what science or engineering background you actually had because within Intel you are given all the tools and that you need to succeed in the role regardless if you're a process engineer or a technician or a manager.

What advice would you have for students?

Do not be afraid of applying for a job. I did kind of pigeonhole myself that I was only looking for chemistry jobs not specifically science in general. Don't be afraid to apply for a job, if you don't get an interview you move on.

What do you love about your job?

Intel has a very strong policy on equality so they don't really mind if you're male or female as long as you can do the job everyone is happy. At intel everyone is a team player and if you had a question or if you were struggling with something and you really needed to ask someone, everyone is there to help you, everyone is there to help Intel succeed because that's where we work.

How have you adjusted to working from home?

It was strange for everybody but intel supply you with your own work laptop they help you with a setup if you need a monitor or keyboard. They made sure that you had the proper setup to work comfortably.