What's your job about?
Nova Systems is a professional services provider, specialising in project support, engineering, and management services for the defence and defence industry. There are opportunities at Nova to work for a client onsite, remote, or on internal Nova projects. I currently work onsite with defence as a Systems Engineer. My day-to-day tasks involve applying Model-Based Systems Engineering (MBSE) to assist the defence in modelling the joint force. In this role, I have had to think outside the box to provide solutions for the client that are used to inform decision-making.
Prior to this, I worked within the maritime domain on SEA1180 as part of the Engineering Team where I assisted with reviewing engineering drawings and performing technical risk analysis. This role involved working as part of an interdisciplinary team to solve day-to-day problems for the client.
My first role at Nova was working on Air7000/7003 as part of the airworthiness and certification team. Day-to-day tasks involved reviewing various international UAS airworthiness regulations against current DASA regulations. In this role, I was also involved in a short project for CASA where we assessed civil aviation regulation compliance to international UAS airworthiness regulations. This work was an extension of a piece of work I also did for Nova as part of my time in the Nova Work Experience Program.
What's your background?
I have lived in Canberra since I was two years old and knew for about the same amount of time that maths and science were something I enjoyed. I originally wanted to be a pilot before changing my mind to become an engineer, so the logical conclusion was to study Aerospace Engineering. During my university studies, I took a role as an intern at Nova Systems over the summer break before my final year, which was a real eye-opener into what a future career for me could look like.
The most valuable part of the internship to me was being exposed to real-world engineering projects and getting an inside look at a potential future employer. After the internship, I applied for a graduate role with Nova Systems before receiving an offer during my final year of studies. I started working for Nova Systems in March 2020 and have been in this position for two and a half years now.
Since graduating from university I got married, started a new career, worked through the covid pandemic, and am now two months away from having my first child. The last two years have been an incredibly challenging time but also incredibly rewarding where I’ve been constantly learning and growing both professionally and personally.
Could someone with a different background do your job?
It is a requirement of my job to have an engineering degree or relevant experience as defined by Engineers Australia. As my job is predominantly working as a systems engineer, which is a multidisciplinary area of engineering, it is common for engineers of all disciplines to perform the same roles and responsibilities while bringing their own expertise to the field. Therefore, I would say if someone wants to do my job as a graduate, it would not matter what type of engineering they are currently studying if they are able to apply problem-solving skills learnt in their degree.
What's the coolest thing about your job?
The best part of my job is when I’ve been able to provide a solution to a difficult problem. In my job, I split a problem into smaller problems that form daily to weekly goals. This goal setting and achieving are crucial to job satisfaction and what I enjoy most.
As a permanent employee of Nova, we also have lots of social events to promote a healthy work-life balance and enable networking with people from other business areas at Nova.
What are the limitations of your job?
The biggest limitation of my job has been working on short engagements as part of the graduate program. There is a lag between joining a new project and being able to contribute to the work as part of a new team. This is inherent to most graduate programs, due to rotating through multiple roles in a short amount of time but was necessary to develop skills in various areas and decide what work I enjoyed doing.
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