Rhys

What's your job about?

I’m currently working within the Armament Engineering section of Navy Engineering Branch. The workplace as a whole looks to provide engineering advice and technical assurance to the Royal Australian Navy fleet. This occurs for vessels over a wide range of their life cycle from acquisition, to in-service support and disposal. 

My main role as an Explosive Ordnance Systems Engineer is to develop a fluid dynamics modelling and simulation capability concerning high order explosive events on naval platforms. This modelling seeks to inform risk assessment activities for the RAN and feed back into policy and procedures around management of explosives on naval vessels. 

What's the coolest thing about your job?

I’m very lucky with my work, in the sense that not many personnel in my team get the chance to work on ‘innovation’ projects such as the fluid dynamics modelling project I am currently working on. As it is an entirely novel capability for the Navy, there’s really no frame of reference to judge the current progress of the project on. Whilst there is a clear end goal in sight, the path to get there has often changed, leading me to think of new, innovative solutions to problems I didn’t know would exist when I started!

In addition, it was also a goal of mine to work with as many classes of hazardous chemicals as possible, there aren’t many industries which deal with explosives, and having had many roles which deal with both their management and production very early on in my career was really fulfilling.  

What are the limitations of your job?

With the vastly open scope of the current work I’m undertaking, this does often lead to a lot of ‘dead ends’. Often I’ll have thought I’ve got a considerable lead or breakthrough ona certain way of approaching a problem, or using the data generated to inform other tasking I’m working on, I pour a lot of time into it all to no avail. 

I will admit, even with these shortcomings, I certainly do prefer work which requires an innovative workload rather than an overtly prescriptive or repetitive workload. Even if this does mean following a lot of leads which lead to dead ends. 

3 pieces of advice for yourself when you were a student...

• Travel as much as you possibly can. All of my most enriching life experiences have been from travel. Whether it be for work, study, personal vacations or simply relocating to interstate for work, a change of scenery is definitely worth its weight in gold. 
• Be open to a range of potential career options. I was initially hell bent on securing a job in the pharmaceutical industry as an engineer, to ensure I was using both of my degrees. I don’t think I would have enjoyed the role at a pharmaceutical company as much as I do now with Defence.
• Maintain a good work-life balance. Physical and mental health are both very important, if you start focusing too much on work (or study), this may start to impact you negatively in other ways.