Elisa-Jayne Barber
Consultant Electronics Engineer
My Journey to Engineering
From a young age, I wanted to be an inventor because I loved taking things apart to see how they worked. I never went anywhere without my trusty toolbelt, which included a pad and pen ready to jot down designs and ideas of devices and contraptions to help others. At school a teacher pushed me to do an intro to engineering; a career in using interesting technologies to design something new, which included things like prototyping ideas, refining products to be ready for production. All the things I loved doing, at scale, and making a positive impact on others. So I decided to go to Bath to so Electrical and Electronics Engineering.
Internships, Year in Industry and Finding TTP
Each summer I went to a different company for an internship. After 3rd year of University, I was looking at companies closer to home and found TTP plc which then had the slogan of ‘The Space to Invent’.
But what initially stood out to me because of my childhood dream of becoming an inventor, turned out to be better than I had imagined as I discovered that TTP worked on a wide range of technologies and development areas
From helping clients in Life Science (such as diagnostics and cell and gene therapy), and Deep Tech (including space & satellite and sustainable energies), to Heath Tech (from biosensing and neuro technologies to medical devices and surgical tools), all of which I would be able to learn about during the internship. So, I decided to apply.
My Experience at TTP plc
During my internship, I found myself contributing to client facing projects really quickly and taking on greater ownership and responsibility in projects than I thought possible on a summer internship. I worked within the surgical tools and devices team, adding capabilities to devices and developing equipment for surgeons that could be safer and more accessible.
I really enjoyed being able to walk through labs, seeing some of the vast number of projects running at the time, and asking colleagues what they were working on and how things worked.
What stood out to me during the internship was how everyone was so passionate and willing to share their knowledge about each project, and the freedom I was given to work on any project, in any area, across the whole company.
After graduating, I decided to come back to TTP, partly because of that breadth it afforded me. and I was thrilled to find some of the technology I had worked on during my internship had progressed to later stages of the development cycle, and some of the products I had contributed to were being used by clients and patients. I could see that the hard work I had put in during my internship was making a difference. Today I feel lucky to say that I do one of my main hobbies as my job: designing electronics, prototyping interesting electromechanical systems and inventing new technologies that help people.