In the ‘Employee speaking’ section, staff explain what makes working at Qimarox so much fun. Want to learn about the ins and outs of the position of international service engineer? Insider Luuk explains!
‘I’m Luuk and 24 years young. After completing the Mechatronics programme in 2015, I started as international service engineer at Qimarox. In the past 4 years I have had the opportunity to learn, see and experience a lot. Below is a short piece about what you can expect at Qimarox and what makes it a fun place to work!
Hired! Now what?
Qimarox has customers all over the world, which offers you lots of opportunities! I indicated at the outset that I would enjoy working externally with customers in the future. This is a great challenge because it requires a lot of independence and knowledge of the products. For the first six months to a year, I worked mainly from our location in Harderwijk. The assembly of our various product lifts and palletisers was explained to me in detail so that I could gain knowledge of the products.
This year, we have also started offering an even more extensive induction programme for new employees. New employees are supervised by an experienced engineer who is their mentor and point of contact during the induction period. With the help of an induction schedule for the first week and a checklist during the two induction months, new employees know exactly what to expect. A new job is exciting and it’s nice that the tension is made manageable this way!
Engineer at Qimarox, anything is possible
For me, the ideal ratio is: 50% working abroad and 50% working from our location in Harderwijk. There are also people who enjoy working abroad most of the time; a lot is possible. The jobs abroad vary from a few days to about two weeks, depending on the planning. Flexibility is appreciated, but also rewarded with flexibility in return. We’re compensated for working overtime, in the weekend or in the evening.
Why is working internationally so much fun?
Once I had gained enough knowledge of the products it was time to tag along with a fellow engineer on external jobs. First these were jobs in the Netherlands, then Europe, and now all over the world. By now, I’ve been to many different countries in Europe, India, America, Brazil and Mexico and experienced many other cultures! In most cases you don’t visit the tourist spots, which makes visiting the country a purer experience. Now that I have enough work experience, I regularly get sent on external jobs on my own. This can be extremely challenging because you end up guiding and helping the integrator or end customer’s own engineers. These are often engineers working for local companies which means you must deal with different cultures. It’s hard work, but there is regularly a bit of time in the evening or before a flight to explore the area with your temporary foreign colleagues.
Working on location in Harderwijk
About half the time I work from our location in Harderwijk. Here we test and assemble machines and components which are then transported. There are also opportunities for additional challenges; for example, I recently started supporting the assembly supervisor. In this role I coordinate all work and tasks related to one of our product lifts, the Prorunner mk5. I like the extra responsibility and it feels good that this trust is placed in me. I arrange that the necessary parts are present, the planning is in order, I discuss and check if the machine is built properly and if necessary, I communicate with other departments such as the purchasing department. In the meantime, I regularly receive questions from colleagues, for example because they encounter a problem during the assembly of a machine.
I now have enough experience to pass my knowledge on to others. I regularly give training to national and international relations / customers, which I give at our location in Harderwijk. Customers follow training with us on location so that they can then independently install our machine without needing one of our engineers. I build the machine together with the customer. We consider how they will receive the Qimarox machine. I then provide the customer with some information about machine maintenance.
