From Graduate to Senior Engineer in seven years

Rebecca Crowther

Marketing Executive, Professional Technical

​Sandra Maduka started as a Graduate Engineer seven years ago with one of the UK’s leading engineering, procurement and construction companies. Having successfully progressed to a Senior Instrumentation Engineer in this time, we share her story and the advice she has for females considering a career in this field.

Born in Nigeria, Sandra Madukas’ interest in engineering started in secondary school. Her inquisitive nature gave her a keen interest in understanding how things work, this, along with her natural ability to excel in Maths, Physics and Electronics, prompted her mentor to ask Sandra about considering a career in engineering. "This is what started to fuel my goal and ambition for the future and I do feel that without her prompting I may have taken a different route" says Sandra.

---

Although from a family of Engineers, her father, brother and uncles all studied and trained to become Engineers, Sandra was the first woman within the family to pursue this career path of which they are very proud.
 
Sandra moved to the UK to study a Masters in Control Engineering at Coventry University. After which she was successfully accepted onto a Graduate Programme with a global provider of differentiated professional services and technologies, across the asset and program life cycle within the Hydrocarbons and Government Services Sectors.
 
Being the only female in the Control System Engineering Department on the 2010 Graduate Programme within a male dominated environment did not faze Sandra, she stated "being a female in Engineering does not limit you on what you can achieve, it has certainly brought out the best in me and being part of the team that successfully design big oil and gas facilities has motivated me to keep striving for excellence".
 
Her passion for the industry and determination to succeed has given her the platform to grow both professionally and personally. "My role has developed to the point where I now take on a lot of responsibility and it has afforded me the opportunity to work on some amazing projects" Sandra has worked on multi-billion dollar projects such as the design of LNG (Liquefaction Natural Gas) Plants, Oil and Gas Refineries, FLNG.
 
Focussed on the Oil and Gas sector, her work is varied, ranging from long term Engineering Procurement and Construction (EPC) projects over 5 years to initial concept stages on to commissioning of the plant. As always, there are challenges she faces in her role, Sandra tells us "keeping up with new technology can be challenging. I try to attend technical lectures and training courses organised by the various engineering institutes to keep up to date as I can to provide the best outcome for my client".
 
Looking to the future, Sandra will soon become a Chartered Engineer, something she is very proud of and is excited to see where this will take her career next.
 
Having had amazing achievements and a great experience over the last seven years, Sandra feels strongly about celebrating females within the industry and highlighting equal opportunities. She feels it is important for young girls to be inspired and understand engineering is a diverse, exciting career with equal opportunities for everyone.
 
Her advice to young females aspiring to be engineers; "Don’t think of it as a male dominated industry as this could limit what you can achieve. I have found that being a female in engineering, you can potentially progress more quickly because the industry realises that we need to highlight women and it should be celebrated".

Professional Technical, founded in 2010, are a technical recruitment company specialising in finding, talented engineers for the design, built environment, service/maintenance and manufacturing engineering sectors, UK wide. www.professional-technical.com
​