What do you get up to in your day-to-day role?
I currently work in Primary Asset Management – Stations. This is essentially looking after all the assets inside a large power distribution station. These include large power transformers, circuit breakers, etc. Some of my tasks include building/developing models to assess risk and determine when the best time to replace an asset is, writing business cases to replace assets if required, updating standards/manuals/guides, and learning as much as I can about our existing assets and the best practice to maintain them. i.e. Over the past week, I have been working on a circuit breaker replacement project. To justify replacing this circuit breaker, I need to use the models I mentioned earlier to assess the risk. We need to compare that risk against the cost of replacing that asset (why spend $800,000 to tear down and rebuild a house when you can repair it for $2,000). We’ve concluded that replacing the circuit breaker is justifiable, and we need a business case to justify what we are doing and what benefits it will bring.
You can think of my role as determining the least cost options to ensure the electricity network is running as efficiently and at the least cost to the customer as possible.
This role allows you to rotate through many departments across the business, so if you don’t find one which suits you at the moment, you have a taste of it and you can look forward to future rotations in different areas which may suit you better.
What's your background?
I was born overseas but grew up locally in Melbourne. I was never particularly talented at anything, whether it was music, sport, or academics, instead, I was a good jack of all trades throughout high school.
I am interested in creating and tearing things apart. My grandfather would wire his own speaker system, and he would explain to me how to best optimise the placement of speakers. That passion has greatly influenced me.
After the stress of year 12, I decided to refine some of my skills in university, further pushing myself to seek out additional experiences. I started part-time work tutoring, trying to be an academic role model while also providing advice for how to approach balance school/family/friends/work. I entered many competitions in university, both in person during my early years of university and online competitions during my later years of university (due to COVID).
In terms of future careers, I highly recommend doing a summer internship/vacation program. I learnt more in my three months of work experience than in multiple years of my degree. Yes, the degree is useful for early concepts, understanding fundamentals and the logic for how assets interact, but most of it is very high level. A program like this really puts you apart from other potential candidates, as you have industry experience and experience in navigating a workplace environment. The CitiPower Powercor United Energy vacation program also gave me an opportunity to secure my current graduate job.
Could someone with a different background do your job?
Yes, I think someone with a different background can do this job. As mentioned earlier, most of the learning is on the job, and if you are willing to put in the hours to accommodate your different background, I think you will be able to thrive. I believe the most important thing for someone doing this job is to have curiosity, and a continuous desire to learn, improve, and challenge the way we approach tasks to complete them more efficiently and effectively.
What do you love most about your job?
I really enjoy being able to find ways to improve our process and improve the business. Learning new skills and adding additional fundamental knowledge is sometimes dry; sometimes making risk assessments difficult or tedious, especially with data quality issues. However, making logical assumptions, and understanding that my actions will eventually result in lower overall costs for the customer, increased reliability for both the customer and the business and increased performance for the business makes all the tedious and tiring work worth it.
So far, what has been the highlight of the graduate program? Was your graduate role as you expected it to be? Did anything take you by surprise?
The graduate program has been really fun. In the first year, we had a graduate trip and visited a power station. Every few months the graduates have a group knowledge sharing. This allows us to share experiences between departments, see which rotations interest us and allow us all to learn from each other. My rotations so far have been great. I would like to get more on-site and get more experience and physically see the assets we are maintaining/designing/ working on instead of predominantly working in front of a computer. You may need to take the initiative and ask/organise activities for yourself. There are also many opportunities for training, and my managers have been quite encouraging for me to attend as much training as possible.
Everyone is keen on maintaining a work/life balance, with that in mind what is the longest day you have put in and have you worked weekends at all?
I don’t recall working too many hours of overtime, the latest I stayed working was until 5.30 pm. I haven’t needed to work weekends. Work-life balance is quite good here, most teams here have a hybrid working model, 2-3 days from the office and 2-3 days from home. I prefer working more from the office, especially earlier in my career to meet more people. Most of my managers are perfectly comfortable with you coming an hour earlier and finishing an hour earlier if you have other commitments, just let them know beforehand.
Do you have any advice to potential graduates applying?
Find some way to differentiate yourself from the crowd. Everyone will have a similar degree. Try something new, experiment with personal projects and show off your creativity. If you don’t know something, show that you are keen to learn and take opportunities to further develop and challenge yourself. Everyone will have a slightly different background, and there is an opportunity to learn from everyone, especially if you are new to the business. Every mistake is an opportunity to learn. Reflect every few years to see what you can improve, but don’t dwell too much in the past and don’t let it dictate your life.