Farewell ABB

(by Gonçalo Guerreiro)

In what felt like a blink of an eye since my last post, my internship at ABB through Blind Applying has just come to an end. The time spent at the Corporate Research Center in Krakow allowed me to have a glimpse into all the work behind innovation at ABB, meet great people, and have my first experience of full-time work.

The Project

I previously wrote about the project I was working on - developing a proof-of-concept for a “new” type of predictive controller. Before I left, I managed to have a working version of the software for the controller. Unfortunately, there was not enough time to proceed with testing it in real situations. The work I developed showed that the usage of parallel processing is likely to bring an improvement for this type of controllers but further testing will be necessary. I am happy with the outcome!

Final Weeks

My final week was particularly interesting. Besides giving the final touches to my project, I got to know more about its possible applications. Turns out that the type of controller I was developing is very similar to the ones used in ABB’s ENVILINE products. The ENVILINE consists of a range of devices aimed to reduce power consumption in railways by recovering some of the energy when the trains are breaking. It was very nice to see that my work was not very detached from real applications.

KrakÓw

It is a very culturally-rich city, full of people from everywhere and overall a nice place to live. I definitely enjoyed spending this period living here and is for sure a destination to re-visit in the future!

What’s next?

After this short experience, it’s now time for me to “start” my career (maybe it has started already…). I am looking forward to starting working in engineering either in the Power/Energy or Transport industries in the near future. I have been sending applications for quite some time, attended interviews and will keep doing so until I find a nice fit.

I will be back home in Lisbon for now with two main purposes: to enjoy the sunny warm weather and explore another interest I had for some time now which are tech startups. By looking at the weather forecast, the first will be quite easy to achieve. About the second: I will be working part-time in a tech startup, mainly doing operations and business development and I am quite excited to see what this three-month-long drift from pure engineering will bring.

With these lines it’s time to say goodbye. I enjoyed sharing my experience with you all, I hope you enjoyed reading!

A month in Krakow

(by Gonçalo Guerreiro)

Yesterday, while talking to my colleagues, I realised that it’s one month already since I started my 3-month internship in Krakow at the ABB Corporate Research Center. I knew this already but it still feels like I have just arrived - that’s probably a good thing! Besides the time spent at workcarrying on my tasks (I will share more about it in another post), I got to see and know nice things about Krakow and today I will share some highlights with you.

Burgers are a thing!

Hipster-ish hamburger places are taking over Krakow and even though I was not a huge fan, I am somehow getting converted, lunch break by lunch break.

… as well as small breweries.

Self-brewed beer seems like another big trend here and as a consequence pubs with craft beer can be found a bit everywhere too.

Krakow is FULL of internationals.

The city is very international-friendly as most people are used to interact with the tourists and with the crowd of Erasmus students and foreign workers. I’ve met already several young people who just moved to the city too.

It’s cool to be a tourist.

I must admit that I haven’t exploited the full touristic potential of the city yet but what I’ve seen so far was great and there’s much more waiting. I took the picture below during a visit to Wieliczka Salt Mine with some friends. The impressive part: this room is located about 100 meters underground and surrounded by almost 300 (!) kilometres of galleries.

The internship at ABB is on!

(by Gonçalo Guerreiro)

Just like a strike, my first two weeks at ABB Corporate Research Center (CRC) in Poland passed by. These were quite intensive weeks: from moving and settling, to finding my way around my new city, Krakow, and having my mind flooded with new information. A lot of things! Or at least it felt so.

I want to start by sharing how I got here because it was quite an unusual path of joining ABB (or any company by the way). Back in November, close to completing my master thesis, I was diving into the job-searching world trying to spot any opportunity that seemed like the way for me to go. I don’t remember exactly how, but I found the Blind Applying website and it was compelling. How did it work? 21 employers scattered around the world were offering internships and you couldn’t just pick one. You would submit your CV to the pool hoping for your profile to be matched with one of the employers for an available placement - that is if you would match at all. I decided to give it a try.

One day in December I got a phone call: ABB was interested in having a first online-interview with me! Fast forwarding, it seems I was a good match as I ended up here writing these lines, in Krakow.

My first weeks were an interesting experience. On my first day I was welcomed by one of the HR managers I had been in contact with prior to my start at ABB. I had a short training on the building safety procedures and some logistics of the daily life at the CRC with the office manager. Some data about R&D at ABB was presented to me, and I was introduced to my supervisor, Daniel with whom I spent a couple of hours talking about what would be my main task. Quite a day!

The days following my start have been more focused, and filled with challenges and learning. Even though I was not a complete stranger to the system I am working with, there is now a whole new level of complexity, functionality and, as a consequence, possibilities. I am surprised with my own evolution since day one and yet, only two weeks have passed.

The ABB research facilities are located close to the city center and this allows me to go every day for a pleasant walk while searching for a new place to enjoy my lunch break. I am kind of a foodie and Polish cuisine is another promising world to explore during my stay in Krakow. It seems very good and eating out is relatively cheap here.

During my first weekend, which was quite sunny and warm compared to the weekdays (like every weekend should be right?) I took the chance to wander around the city and get into tourist mood. Krakow is a beautiful city with nice people. I took the pictures below last Sunday at the Wawel Castle.

At this point my hope for the next weeks is for the work to keep being as challenging and full of learning as it has been so far and that my newly developed skills will eventually allow me to do cool things with my assignment. I hope to make some new local friends and to become able to understand some Polish words too - for now my vocabulary is non-existent.

The adventure has just begun!

We’ll keep in touch,

Gonçalo

Meet Gonçalo, the Blind Applying champion of ABB!

Gonçalo has studied in Lisbon and Karlsruhe. He is starting his internship just today at Kraków.

How excited are you to be starting an internship at ABB?

I am thrilled by the opportunity to have this first experience with ABB, a company that I very often heard about while studying. I am curious to see the innovation in R&D from the inside, and I am also looking forward to meeting great people during this internship. Can’t wait to start!

Which sight in Krakow are you looking forward to visiting the most?

I don’t have a particular “must-go” place. Krakow seems super interesting, as well as the whole region. I definitely see some opportunities for cultural and hiking escapes around!

In your opinion, which is the coolest innovation in technology in the last 5 years?

Even though these have been around for more than a century, I must say electric cars. Not only there have been promising developments the past few years, but also the future possibilities seem to be endless. Self-driving cars anyone?