Insights behind the scenes
There are some interesting personalities at STABL Energy who are invaluable to the company.
Today we sat down with our Head of Engineering Julian to learn more about him and his role at STABL Energy.
What is your story and how did you come to STABL Energy?
I joined STABL Energy in November 2019 as its first full-time employee. During my master thesis, the four founders and I were in the same lab and so I got to see first-hand what the guys were working on. Since I also wrote my master's thesis on power electronics and multilevel technology, I was a great fit for the team and I was able to join immediately after graduation.
Before joining STABL Energy, I studied electrical engineering at the University of Applied Sciences and the Technical University of Munich and was able to gain a lot of practical experience. My role as a team leader in an FSAE Formula Student team had a particular impact on me and I was able to develop my skills, especially in terms of working in a "fast paced work environment". An absolute highlight of my studies was an internship at Tesla in Silicon Valley and a Head of Engineering role at a small start-up in San Francisco.
Speaking of which, what does a head of engineering do all day?
The tasks are very diverse. Since STABL Energy is still a fairly young start-up, each employee has several areas of responsibility and duties.
As Head of Engineering, I coordinate the technical team and am responsible for turning the objectives into reality. This means that I coordinate, organize and provide the infrastructure so that the development team can work as effectively as possible. I also coordinate with the other departments, for example Sales and Purchasing, so that the development of our product goes as quickly and smoothly as possible.
In addition to this role as coordinator, however, I am still heavily involved in the development process of our product. Here, I mainly work in the areas of hardware & software development and prototype construction. Basically, I mostly help out where I am needed the most.
My other tasks also include making personnel decisions, supervising the technical team and setting milestones in consultation with the employees. Since team cohesion is important to me personally, I also like to organize team events such as hut trips.
Do you work more in the office or more in the lab?
That depends entirely on the workload. On days when you have to communicate a lot with suppliers or do administrative work, I tend to be in the office.
However, on days when I'm more focused on the development tasks, I also like to spend the whole workday in the lab or container. In addition to working on the hardware, such as setup and modification, repairs or other soldering and tinkering work, we can test and further develop our code on our test battery storage units.
If we only have programming tasks to do, it's not an issue if we work from home. Since Corona at the latest, everyone in the company has become accustomed to this and with digital tools such as MS Teams or Confluence, collaboration also works very well remotely.
Is there such a thing as a typical working day for you?
Since the tasks are very diverse and new challenges and opportunities present themselves every day, it is difficult to generalize about a typical workday.
In general, we have a few cornerstones that give structure to the day. As a team, we communicate several times a day. Every day at lunch time, our development team has a short stand-up meeting that provides opportunities to ask questions and get feedback or advice. Every Monday, we have our Weekly, where all departments announce what happened last week and what's coming up in the week ahead. This way we make sure everyone is pulling together and is always up to date.
In all our meetings, we make sure that they do not impede the flow of work, in line with the motto "as long as necessary, as short as possible".
Otherwise, my work varies greatly and is based on what's going on in development at the moment. The flexibility of the working hours also allows me to plan each working day according to my own requirements.
How do you like working at STABL Energy?
I value my work at STABL Energy very much, as it offers me countless opportunities to develop myself further.
My work presents me with new challenges every day. The approach of our technology is so radically different that many problems have to be solved from scratch. This is a lot of fun, but of course it also requires a lot more thinking than working with conventional systems.
The fact that you go through the entire development process at a start-up - i.e. from design to implementation to testing - is a positive aspect of my work for me. This way, I can learn a lot about the development of hardware and software alike and help where I'm needed most.
In such a small team with highly competent people, the demands on management are naturally quite different from those in a large corporation. I have to meet high standards in order to make the engineers' work as efficient and smooth as possible. Of course, it's not easy to live up to this responsibility, but it's a very exciting challenge that I'm happy to take on.
I also really enjoy supervising working students because I can pass on my knowledge and at the same time participate in the creative approaches to solutions of the next generation of engineers.
Another point why I enjoy working at STABL Energy is that I feel I am really making a difference with my work and contributing to technological progress and the energy transition.
Not to be neglected, of course, is the working environment at STABL Energy, with a great team, lots of fun at work, and the flexibility to plan my work so that it fits into my everyday life and my life and not the other way around. Of course, there are also stressful days, especially before important deadlines, but we take great care to ensure that all colleagues have a reasonable workload on average.
As we are constantly growing, the team is also constantly gaining new personalities and specialists. It is exciting for me to get to know these new colleagues, to work with them and to advance our technology through mutual exchange. So I am also particularly looking forward to the future and to experiencing how STABL Energy and its staff continue to develop.
Would you like to be part of the team?
STABL Energy is always looking for committed and creative employees in various areas of the company. If this brief insight into the processes at STABL Energy has excited you (and if you would like to meet Julian in person), then why not get in touch with us and become part of the team?
Are you ready for new challenges that you can grow with? We are looking forward to your application!
Even if none of the advertised positions suits you, you are welcome to apply to us proactively. Maybe you are exactly the employee we need without us knowing it. If terms like power electronics, kWh, electricity storage or embedded software mean something to you and you don't just think of Highway to Hell when you think of AC/DC, you could be a good fit for us!
You want to become part of the team? Then check out our career page or send a proactive application to jobs@stabl.com!
Are you interested in a STABL storage system?
Feel free to contact us! We look forward to hearing from you and answering your questions.
