An Engineer’s life at Hexa: Ricardo Vendone
Our Senior Engineer Ricardo Vendone gives a behind the scenes look into life at Hexa Consulting, from sworn by morning rituals to day-to-day activities.
Getting started
Whether I’m heading into the office or working from home, I always make time to go outside and get some natural daylight in the morning - usually with a coffee. This allows me to start my day properly before I begin work, and I find it's key to my mental wellbeing and productivity to get a good start. Flexible working means I can make time for things I think are important outside of work too. Plus, a four-day week, working from either the office or at home enables me to focus on personal goals and activities as well as my work schedule.
Daily details
Every day I am working on different projects ranging from industrial to residential and the education sector, all of these come with particular objectives to achieve. My favourite part of my role is being creative and finding solutions - not always having an instruction manual or set instructions to follow allows me to have creative freedom. A lot of the time, I find myself able to flex my creative muscles by applying first principles to projects, coming up with ideas and developing bespoke solutions. Personally, the education sector I think gives the best arena for creativity while also being time and cost efficient.
Other day-to-day tasks tend to be very varied. I spend a portion of time in both internal and external meetings, speaking with my colleagues and our clients. This way, we can keep up to date, especially with flexible working and when we can sometimes be out of the office. As I don’t need to spend too much time on site, I can efficiently and effectively use my time to create the best outcome for my colleagues and clients.
Other parts of my day involve creating designs such as CAD drawings and using software like Causeway Flow - a design programme used to create drainage networks and determine the size of below ground structures. No project or design is the same, so we always have to look at sites with a fresh mind.
My advice for anyone looking to start their career in engineering is to ask for everything in layman’s terms to begin with. When I first started out and struggled to understand all the jargon that I was hearing at the time, a basic run down of terminology and procedure would have been a great help. So, for any budding engineers, go back to basics.
Culture is key
Eight months ago, when I joined Hexa, I was excited to be in a smaller business environment while still gaining new experiences and being challenged. I have since been able to work on a range of projects that have helped to further my career.
I’ve always thought that it’s easier to have a more social culture in smaller businesses and having known some of the team that already worked at Hexa before I started, I knew that a good work culture wouldn’t be a problem. Alton Towers, BBQs and a beer festival are just a few highlights of Hexa’s social calendar so far!
