Greta Bekerytė began out cleansing workplaces and ended up designing electronics for EV charging stations. It’s superb what you possibly can accomplish in your profession once you observe your goals.
It wasn’t straightforward. Bekerytė moved from her native Lithuania to Norway in 2010 to benefit from the nation’s free college tuition, however first she needed to discover a option to assist herself. She took the cleansing job, and scrimped and saved to pay for Norwegian studying and writing courses, a requirement to attend a college. It took her 4 years, however she was lastly capable of afford the schooling for the language programs, which price hundreds of U.S. {dollars}.
Greta Bekerytė
Employer:
Zaptec, in Stavanger, Norway
Title:
{Hardware} engineer
Schooling:
Bachelor’s diploma in industrial automation and circuit design; grasp’s diploma in robotics and sign processing, each from the College of Stavanger, in Norway
She went on to earn a bachelor’s diploma in industrial automation and circuit design, adopted by a grasp’s in robotics and sign processing, each from Norway’s University of Stavanger.
As we speak she works as a {hardware} engineer at Zaptec, which makes electric-vehicle charging stations and can also be based mostly in Stavanger. For her contributions to the sphere, in 2022 she was chosen as one of many Top Women in EV by the organizers of the EV Summit, a number one world e-mobility occasion.
Bekerytė credit her success to following her coronary heart. “Do what you like,” she says. “Then it is possible for you to to undergo all of the challenges that come up, and you’ll have the dedication and drive to really develop into what you wish to develop into.”
A specialist at coronary heart
Rising up in Šiauliai, Lithuania, Bekerytė appeared destined to develop into an engineer. She remembers that when she was about 5 years outdated, a good friend of her mom’s, who labored as {an electrical} engineer at an organization that constructed energy transformers, handed her some outdated schematics from her job to make use of as drawing paper.
Bekerytė remembers being impressed that somebody might perceive these unusual symbols. As an alternative of drawing, she pretended she was working at an workplace as an engineer who understood the schematics.
“I bear in mind pondering, ‘Wow, are there actually individuals who perceive what that is?’” she says. “So I used to be desirous about that type of factor fairly early.”
Bekerytė’s father, who labored in development and likewise mounted automobiles, was one other main affect. He was a DIY fanatic keen to strive his hand at absolutely anything, from electronics to plumbing. She was at all times inquisitive about his initiatives and remembers him educating her to solder on the tender age of seven.
Whereas Bekerytė excelled in math and science, she additionally was desirous about music and artwork. By the point she graduated highschool, she had mapped out three potential profession paths: an orchestra conductor, an architect, or an engineer. All she knew for sure was that she needed to excel in no matter she pursued.
“I at all times knew I needed to be a specialist: an individual that others would go to as a result of they knew one thing rather well,” she says.
That will grow to be tougher than anticipated.
A courageous transfer
Bekerytė graduated from highschool in 2010, the identical yr Lithuania drastically elevated its tuition for state universities. Not desirous to financially burden her mother and father, Bekerytė determined to relocate together with her boyfriend to Norway, the place they’d pursue levels and discover work. That path, nonetheless, was harder than they anticipated.
Increased schooling is free in Norway, however the world job market in 2010 was nonetheless within the doldrums following the 2008 monetary disaster. Regardless of diligently searching for jobs for six months, they’d no success and determined to maneuver again to Lithuania.
“Don’t take heed to others, simply take heed to your self. Discover that factor that you’re actually desirous about and go for it.”
“We didn’t have any cash for lease or meals,” Bekerytė remembers. “We determined that on Saturday we’d purchase ferry tickets, however on Friday I acquired known as for a job interview.”
She was employed to scrub workplaces, and her boyfriend discovered a job washing the within of oil tankers. Since each jobs had been sporadic, it took 4 years to avoid wasting sufficient cash to pay for the language courses.
Making an impression at an engineering contest
After finishing the one-year language course on the College of Stavanger in 2016, Bekerytė enrolled within the faculty’s bachelor’s diploma program in industrial automation and circuit design.
The course was demanding, notably since she was nonetheless working half time. Out of 48 college students who started this system, solely 10 accomplished it. She determined to proceed on on the college and pursue a grasp’s diploma in robotics and sign processing.
Towards the tip of her research in 2019, she acquired her huge break. She utilized for an engineering competitors run by the Norwegian world energy engineering agency Aker Solutions, additionally in Stavanger. Bekerytė’s group was tasked with bettering the operations at an oil-rig development plant utilizing Web of Issues units. Her group didn’t win, however the firm was so impressed together with her that it supplied her a job as a security automation methods engineer. The job concerned designing signaling methods on subsea oil wells. She began two weeks after graduating.
Greta Bekerytė works on the Zaptec Go electric-vehicle charging station. It weighs 1.3 kilograms and expenses as much as 22 kilowatts. Zaptec
The abilities {hardware} engineers want
In 2021 she was contacted by Zaptec for the place of a {hardware} engineer who would assist design its electric-vehicle charging stations. She accepted the supply.
Few corporations have roles involving hands-on {hardware} growth, she says, one thing she cherished doing in class. The job entails constructing units within the lab and operating testing and verification packages.
“It’s my dream job,” she says.
A {hardware} engineer requires a deep understanding of electronics and robust mathematical abilities, plus information of pc structure and low-level programming, she says.
One other, usually underappreciated facet of the job, is having good communication abilities, Bekerytė says. “You steadily must interface with nontechnical groups like advertising,” she explains. “Which means you want to have the ability to clarify technical particulars in ways in which nonexperts can perceive.”
Breaking by the EV glass ceiling
Though she’s nonetheless studying, being named one of many high ladies in EV has given Bekerytė industry-wide recognition for her work.
The award got here as a shock, Bekerytė says, as a result of she was nominated by a colleague with out her information. However she was flattered and glad to seek out that there was an award recognizing ladies in a male-dominated discipline.
She says her colleagues jokingly name her a unicorn as a result of ladies working within the EV {industry} are so uncommon. She thinks offering visibility to ladies is necessary to beat stereotypes about who can and may work within the discipline.
For essentially the most half, she says she’s confronted few boundaries due to her gender. However there have been occasions when she has felt she needed to struggle to achieve the respect of others.
“Generally I’ve felt that I have to show myself somewhat bit greater than others do,” she says.
However should you do what you like, Bekerytė says, all boundaries are surmountable. She admits her journey to changing into an engineer was powerful, and the one factor that acquired her by was her deep curiosity for the topic.
“Don’t take heed to others, simply take heed to your self,” she says. “Discover that factor that you’re actually desirous about and go for it.”
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