What it’s like to start your career at Renzo Tonin & Associates?
Four of our graduate engineers talk about their experiences so far.
What do graduates look for in an employer?
For most university students about to enter the workforce, hands-on experience, a vibrant workplace culture, and opportunities for career development are high on the list.
That’s what Minh Nguyen, Ben Panarodvong, Hayden Puckeridge and David Kim found when they started at Renzo Tonin & Associates.
For Minh, who holds a Masters of Engineering Science from UNSW as well as a Bachelor of Engineering from Ho Chi Minh City University of Technology, securing an internship at Renzo Tonin & Associates marked an exciting new beginning for him – and for the firm.
“When I started my internship, I was the only international student. I was given lots of mentoring, guidance, and was welcomed into the family – with lots of work opportunities, but also after-work drinks on Friday, weekend sport and other team-building activities,” said Minh.
“Everyone has the chance to advance their career. There is a clear structure of how you progress in the firm: from intern, to graduate, to project engineer, all the way to team leader or even principal. Renzo Tonin & Associates strongly promotes equality in the workplace.”
“I was lucky to start working on a really interesting project as an intern – developing a device to generate, detect and analyse ‘infrasound’, low-frequency sound that’s inaudible to the human ear. We’re still working on the project, which won $2 million of government funding and is due to be delivered in 2018."
Ben, another of our graduate engineers, narrowly missed out on an internship placement before graduating with a Bachelor of Mechanical Engineering from the University of Queensland in 2014. However, later that year he got a call from our team in Brisbane:
“They asked me to come in for a trial,” said Ben. “I’ve been with the firm ever since, and moved from Brisbane to the Sydney office in July 2016.”
“It has been great to have so many opportunities to try different things. We also have fortnightly knowledge-sharing workshops for all engineers – from grads to principals – so everyone in the firm is always learning.”
Hayden, after graduating from Sydney’s University of Technology with a Bachelor of Mechanical Engineering and Diploma in Engineering Practice in 2015, joined Renzo Tonin & Associates’ Rail Transport Infrastructure team.
“Graduates here are given support to help them develop as engineers. Access to workshops and conferences, experience on-site and being given responsibility for managing projects has been really beneficial for me,” Hayden said.
“I have had the opportunity to not only work on a diverse range of rail projects, including a visit to Singapore to measure rail noise and vibration, but also to be involved in other areas that interest me, such as construction vibration.”
David, who graduated with a combined Bachelor of Commerce/Bachelor of Mechanical Engineering from the University of Queensland in 2015, was attracted to the Renzo Tonin & Associates’ specialisation in environmental acoustics, having studied engineering acoustics at university:
“After completing an internship last year in Sydney, I went on to successfully apply for a permanent position in 2016,” David said.
“If you’re interested in acoustics, it’s probably the best place you can work.”