What's your job about?
Stantec New Zealand is a multidisciplinary consultancy with many offices around New Zealand. A big part of what Stantec does is provide engineering services for public and private sector clients, including in the transportation space.
I work in the Transportation Planning team in the Stantec Auckland office. Transportation Planning is mainly working with clients to assess the traffic impacts of future infrastructure projects. A typical day for me would include attending meetings with my team and clients to discuss the progress on our projects, data analytics (with an emphasis on Excel skills), traffic modelling using SIDRA and AIMSUN, and writing reports such as Transportation Assessments. I also do some GIS work which involves creating interactive map solutions for internal and external clients.
Traffic modelling uses different software suites to model a future scenario for a traffic network. The future scenario would have different road configurations or altered phasing operations, which we would test against the existing network. We use real traffic counts to input into the models to make sure the model is based in reality. The end product can be used for visualisation purposes, with AIMSUN showing a cool 3D model of vehicles driving through the network – kind of like Sim City!
What's your background?
I am originally from Kumeu, Auckland and attended Massey High School. I had no idea I wanted to be an engineer back in High School, but I knew I had a knack for maths, science, and graphics. I studied Civil Engineering at The University of Auckland and graduated in 2018. I decided in my final two years to focus on the transportation aspects of Civil, as transport seemed to lean more on the soft engineering side, including the incorporation of design and communication.
I completed 800 hours in my final two years. I managed to hear about my old company and Stantec from seminars held at university – it definitely pays to go to these events, and the free pizza is a plus!
I started as an intern at Stantec Wellington after I had completed all my exams in my final year of university and stayed on as a graduate. I have come to realise that quite a few people take the route of interning in their final year, so don’t feel pressured if you have left your hours to the last minute.
After being in Wellington for two years, I decided to transfer back up to the Auckland office in 2020, which was a super easy process. Through the constant inter-office collaboration around NZ, especially with the other grads, I had already made friends in the Auckland office, and I slotted into the team easily.
After the awesome experience transferring within the company, I am now following my dream by transferring to the New York Stantec office in April 2022. Working for a global company like Stantec, with a massive network of people at your fingertips, has been so beneficial to making my dream a reality. Over in New York, I will continue to do transportation engineering within the transport planning realm.
Could someone with a different background do your job?
No. At university, we learnt a lot of the basic engineering principles that are put to use at work, so a background in engineering would be needed to allow for an understanding of the fundamentals. Someone with an analytical mind is also needed to come up with engineering solutions.
I have also found, after working at consultancies that are client-facing, that communication skills and confidence is key. Engineering is not all numbers and coding!
What's the coolest thing about your job?
My favourite part of my job is creating customised solutions for clients and receiving recognition from them, along with the potential facilitation of a secondary piece of work and funding off the bat of the initial deliverable. Bringing fresh ideas and digital smarts (modelling, interactive maps, etc) for solutions to problems faced by clients is the most rewarding feeling.
What are the limitations of your job?
Extra-curricular learning is sometimes required, whether it be googling ‘how-to code XYZ or watching youtube videos for useful excel formulae and tricks. Sometimes smart solutions like coding or excel analytics don’t work, and it requires extra time to figure out where the error is sprouting from and how to debug your work. When your solution does work, however, it’s the best feeling.
3 pieces of advice for yourself when you were a student...
Don’t stress about timelines. It’s normal to not know exactly what you want to do, even when you’re later on in your university career. Also, leaving your interning hours until the end is OK, as companies will take you on as a graduate after your internship is finished.