Paul - a chartered engineer

Name:  Paul Job
Job Title:  Senior Engineer
Qualifications:  MEng in Mechanical Engineering,  Chartered Engineer
Started at Jee:  March 2002

After graduating from my degree, I was faced with the daunting task of deciding what career path I wanted to take.  My previous experience from a one-year industrial placement at ExxonMobil helped lead me into the oil and gas industry.  However, although the larger oil companies seemed appealing at first, I found myself settling into a new job at Jee in March 2002. 

Admittedly, when I was first made aware of the job vacancy, my first thought was - where’s Tunbridge Wells? (We have since moved to new offices in Tonbridge).  I was surprised to find that it wasn’t that far from London, only a short train journey.  So I came to the interview, and after spending the day working with everyone in the office I had a good idea of what life could be like at Jee. 

One of the main things I found appealing about Jee was the size of the company, which was around ten people when I joined.  I wanted to make sure that I would not become ‘pigeon-holed’ in my job, doing the same tasks every day for the next few years.  When working in a company of this size, you inevitably become involved in a broad range of work, and being a consultancy we find that the type of studies we are involved in changes constantly as the industry develops.  I found that from day one I was integrated into the team, and settled in to a very ‘hands-on’ approach to training by immediately starting work on a group project developing concept designs for some subsea equipment.  Since then, I have experienced working on a wide variety of projects.

With Jee’s strong background in training, I found that over the first two years here I quickly developed a broad knowledge of the offshore oil and gas industry.  It wasn’t long before I became involved in co-presenting the training courses, which brought about opportunities to travel and see how other companies work, and also required a steep learning curve!

Professional development has been an integral part of my work at Jee, with all graduates encouraged to gain chartered status through the company’s monitored scheme.  I have now completed my professional development scheme and gained corporate membership and chartered engineer status with the IMechE.  The support has been there to allow me to develop my career as I want, with the company always flexible in helping to develop skills in new areas.  This has included getting me involved in working on a number of projects away from our office, including placements abroad with clients and working offshore in the North Sea.

Living near Tonbridge
When I began working at Jee I lived in Tunbridge Wells which is a short commute from Tonbridge.  Life in Tunbridge Wells is much the same as in many other large towns or cities in the UK.  It has all the usual necessities, including a good selection of sports clubs, gyms, pubs and bars etc.  I found renting accommodation was cheaper than I would have expected for somewhere in the south-east near London, at around £70-£100 a week all inclusive.  The office in Tonbridge is close to the High Street and Station and we have staff who commute in from London, Surrey and other towns in Kent.

Current position
In 2008 I moved to Aberdeen to set up Jee’s second office.  This has led to an increased level of responsibility within the company, whilst changing my role to cover a more diverse range of activities.  Business development and office management are now central to my working day, whilst it was recognised by Jee that my main interests still lie in engineering consultancy and hence a high proportion of my workload remains in this area.