Dawit

Dawit Seyoum has been with Royal HaskoningDHV for a little over a year and currently works in airside systems as an airports civil engineer.

What he loves most about it, he says, is that, in the short time that he’s been here, they have been able to implement a few huge projects that saved a lot of time and money. “It’s been very interesting,” he says.

But airside systems isn’t all he does.

“I'm also involved in the other parts of the business. I helped put together a machine learning algorithm that helped refine information from five million images down to 60,000, saving a lot of processing time. I'm also part of airport planning and consulting services, doing data analytics, and I'm currently involved in an initiative called Green Baggage. It's a new thing where I act as a data analyst.”

Dawit’s favourite project has been working on the Sydney International Airport.

“It was the first project I worked on when I joined. It allowed me to start implementing my programming skills to automate the majority of the tasks, and that allowed me to understand what was required and how I can contribute using my data analytics and programming skills,” he says.

What makes RHDHV a unique and exciting place to work, he says, is the ability to work on international projects and interact with different cultures around the world.

“I've also had the opportunity to work on multidisciplinary projects, with people from different cultures, backgrounds and personalities; which require different ways of approaching things, different ways of speaking, and so on.”

The diversity that RHDHV offers is of particular importance to Dawit.

“There are many opportunities where you can work on multiple things. For example, I'm an engineer, but I'm also working as an analyst doing forecasting. You can really do just about anything you’re interested in. You could travel down many paths, and there are no limitations if you know how to interact with people and network.”

In business today, change is the name of the game, and in Dawit’s role, this is no exception. What he’s most excited to see is the shift towards digital ways of working and the implementation of programming data analytics and automation in day-to-day tasks.

“The company's openness towards those activities gives me insight into how the company would look down the road, which is more of a tech engineering hybrid company.”

When Dawit isn’t all business, he likes to make notebooks in a medieval fashion. “It’s stitching the books, grading the spine, and so forth. It’s more English-style books, created about 200 to 300 years ago. It’s pretty awesome,” he laughs.

And his advice to youngsters hoping to follow the same career path?

“I think, in general, it would be to understand that the world is moving towards tech-based solutions in all fields. It’s not limited to engineering; it's not limited to accounting; every field is shifting towards that. So, it is very important to be aware of the tools that will help you do your job faster and better. I would also encourage people to at least start programming and doing simple data analytics, languages like Python, and so forth. But the idea is, be aware of the digital landscape and how it's evolving, and how it applies to you, as well, whatever field you're in.”

He adds that it’s also important to be aware of how to interact with human beings that have diverse personalities and personal agendas and to be able to recognise that and try to see how you can add value to those people's lives so that you get to have a more valuable and fruitful relationship with other people in the work environment.

“It's very important because, to a certain degree, your qualification and what you can do matters, but the most important part is your ability to work with others.”