Meet Ana, our PCB draughtsperson. Find out how Ana thinks careers for women in engineering has progressed & her advice for aspiring female engineers. What it's like to be a female engineer?To be a female engineer is like being part of change, as it was for the first female engineer and for the first girl at all going to University. Its about learning by yourself, developing your analytic skills and independence; your progression and where you get depends on you and how hard you work. How well do you think careers for women in engineering has progressed?During my years at University in Spain, I noticed the number of female engineers increasing and in my final year there were a really high number of us. However, when I arrived in England it really surprised me when people said that I was the first female engineer they had ever met, so I suppose there is still a lot of work to do in order to change that. What area of engineering do you work at in ETL & what are you responsible for?I work within the mechanical team as a PCB layout draughtsperson and within my role I develop the integral design of PCB components with Altium Designer, develop variant up issues, continusoually improve the PCB library database and write modification documents to improve and clarify design rules for the manufacturing team. What is your typical day like?I come into the office everyday knowing that I am going to learn something new, with each task you get more knowledge and a better understanding and perspective of what working on engineering projects and in engineering companies involves (which is a lot). What is the best part of the job?The best part of the job is to be surrounded by so many professional and interesting people, that’s the best way for anyone to learn & improve. What is the biggest challenge you have faced so far?There was my dissertation, it was a completely new field for me and it involved a really high workload. Apart from that, working in this field, in a foreign language is also a lovely challenge that makes me feel very fulfilled. What is your advice for aspiring female engineers?It is a hard field, but do not ever give up; you can get there if you really want, and if you work hard. Think you'd be a good fit at ETL? BRowse our current opportunities;Live vacancies