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Highlights of a day in Vaisala product development. Pictures and stories are by our former Giant Leap summer interns Timo V. and Timo K. who are now developing products for our industrial customers.
CEN Offering is the place where ideas are developed to actual final products. To accomplish the goal, hard work and smart people (you?) are needed. And some coffee.
It’s surprising how many fields of science are covered in Vaisala. We can start from thin film chips and wonder how their nanometer scale layers interact. The spectral range of one micrometer is full of information. The inaccuracy of one millimeter can ruin your miniaturized optical measurement and ten centimeters may mean a lot in the dynamics of measured fluid. How is electricity conducted through these structures? Is heat dissipated well enough? What are their optical properties and how do they respond to ambient conditions? Why are the results of computer simulations different to experiments? And the most important question: How could a little giant leaper know all of this?
First of all, you can’t and you are not even expected to know. But, if your studies have dealt with such subjects you will learn. And it’s a great motivator that these problems have a true meaning for real products. Vaisala really invests in product development and is therefore a very interesting place for students starting their working careers.
Vaisala’s own cleanroom facilities allow us to design and test different thin film structures for our sensors. The mysterious peak won’t stay hidden from Timo K.
In addition to different fields of science and technology you may find yourself working on different levels of R&D. It can be basic research focusing on e.g. literature research, computational simulations and early phase prototyping. Or it can be closer to final products having the emphasis on reliability testing, their statistical analysis and improving the processibility of different parts. Both hands-on tasks and data handling are needed. All these steps affect each other so you are encouraged to follow also your colleagues’ work and report results of your own. All in all you will see how your skills are valued. And so they are not only the products that are developing but also your own competence.
Trust me – I speak from experience. I started here as a Giant Leap intern 18 months ago and have already faced the topics mentioned above. And this has been only everyday life of the controlled environment business area. Vaisala’s other business area, weather, would broaden the playground even more. Sure your path will be different but not less diverse. I had a master’s degree in physical chemistry when I started and now my know-how has extended to areas I knew nothing about before.
Timo Venäläinen / Giant Leap intern 2013
After a few test rounds the chip structure is optimized, as Irene (Giant Leaper 2010) here has just found out.
I started my career with Vaisala as a Giant Leap intern in the summer of 2013. I must admit, that after four years of intensive studying at the School of Electrical Engineering of the Aalto University my mindset was rather technical. At those times, if someone would have asked me about which study field is the most important, I would have told them hands down that it was technology and engineering. I was, to some extent, a bit narrow minded.
Fortunately, during the summer internship my eyes began to open up. One of the best part about the Giant Leap internship is the diversity you get to be a part of: your fellow interns are not only from your field of studies. During the joint project review sessions, we got to learn what other schools are actually about in addition to getting to know each other. It didn’t take long for me to push my prejudice aside and acknowledge that also non-engineers can be super smart and that there’s a great professional demand for them! Shortly after this I began to realize, that Vaisala is actually filled with pretty talented people. It was very important for me to learn that a company consists of much more than merely product development. Since I had been focusing only on engineering in my studies, it was a real eye-opener to actually see the slot that engineering takes in the big picture of a company. Seeing the big picture also helped me to find my own role in the company.
In further tests Timo V. (Giant Leaper 2013) makes sure that the electrical properties of the chips are ok. Yep, it’s linear!
It has been over a year now since the summer internship ended for me. Since then, I’ve completed my Master’s thesis for Vaisala and I’m currently working here as a Research Scientist. I’m very fortunate to have an interesting position, where I can fully utilize the knowledge I’ve spent so many acquiring at the University. It’s very motivating for me to be able to contribute to the sensor chip development in one of the leading MEMS sensor companies. Regardless though, of what you learn by getting your degree, the learning never stops. The ability to continuously learn is perhaps even more important than the traditional competence which we all learn at school (although you always need a strong basic knowledge of your field).
Vaisala is a great place to be when it comes to learning new things. Our wide product range necessitates an equally wide knowledge range, which means that we have a lot of professionals in the company. No matter how tricky of a problem you’ll run into, you can be sure that within a 10 minutes walk you’ll find someone with extensive knowledge on the issue. It’s hard not to enjoy working in a company where you’re surrounded by cool and smart people.
Timo Kerola / Giant Leap Intern 2013
Almost ready! Should we prefer a white or blue package? Plastic or metal? Just make sure it’s RoHS compatible.
The application period for Giant Leap Summer Internship program 2015 starts on January 8th and ends on February 8th 2015. For more information, visit www.vaisala.com/giantleap and find us on Facebook www.facebook.com/VaisalaGiantLeap to stay in the loop of the recruitment process.
Vaisala is a global leader in environmental and industrial measurement. Vaisala employs over 1,600 professionals in 15 countries, and serves customers in more than 150 countries each year. Vaisala’s technologies provide information on weather and other environmental phenomena for meteorologists, road authorities, wind farms, and tightly controlled industrial environments, for example.