Case Study: Manjot Chana
“I’ve always had an massive affinity for solving problems, for me life itself is a series of micro problems which need to be solved or optimised”
From robots to degree apprenticeship
Manjot grew up in Wolverhampton. As a young child he remembers being a big fan of Power rangers and playing with LEGO. He was always curious about how the robots fitted together. After his A-levels he decided to “break the norm” and applied for a degree apprenticeship at Jaguar Landrover instead of going to university.
‘You get paid and you get your degree, and I thought this is incredible! […] I need to start money ASAP to help out the family as oppose to purely the knowledge and the experience of a university degree.’
It took him 6 years to complete his apprenticeship. During that time Manjot, gained a lot of “hands on” skills which allow him to progress in his career.
Changing lives and help tackle climate change
Manjot works at H2GO Power, a company that is developing technology to capture and store surplus hydrogen generated from renewable energy sources. He joined this company as he wanted to use his engineering skills to help tackle climate change, and improve the quality of life of millions of people worldwide who don’t have access to a reliably source of energy.
As a senior integration system engineer Manjot needs to be logical as he makes different parts of systems to work well together:
‘I ensure the subsystems are communicating together: the data is flowing, the wiring is correct, the software is correct. As an integration engineer you need to know a lot about everything but only a shallow amount.’
The data never lies
Manjot is also extremely organised at work as he enjoys “closing loops” of pending tasks. He also believes that the data from experiments never lies and that it has a story to tell us. We just need to make sense of it! In reality, Manjot is obsessed with collecting data from life in general.
Break the norm and follow your dreams
Outside of work Manjot loves to read. If he could get a superpower it would be the ability to read and retain information faster. He also encourages others to take chances, to stay truth to themselves and to follow their dreams.
