Name: Maciej Habant
Location: Kraków, Poland
Role: Senior Software Engineer
Expert at: Attention to detail and finding bugs 😉
Favorite app: Spotify
Currently watching: Nothing now, I don’t watch series too often
Currently reading: Babel: Around the World in Twenty Languages
When I was starting my adventure with automotive, I remember being overwhelmed with the vast amounts of customer documentation and industry norms, full of incomprehensible jargon and abbreviations you can’t simply search for in Google. My advice is: be patient, keep reading, ask your colleagues and it will all slowly start making sense 😊 Apart from that, just pay attention to details and don’t hesitate to raise questions because pinpointing issues early on makes everyone’s work easier in the long run.
Of course, not every day is like that, but working on pioneer technologies can be exciting – basically stuff the end customers will see in their vehicles in a couple of years’ time and go: ‘Wow!’. You get to learn a lot about the inner workings of the amazing façade modern cars are.
Also, depending on the project you’re part of you might have a chance of taking some luxurious sports car prototypes for test drives, which is definitely not something you can easily experience elsewhere 😉
I guess it’s because I wanted to know what it’s like to be fixing a ton of bugs instead of reporting them, haha. I’ve been wanting to experience the automotive software development process from “the other side” (and get to learn something new and useful in the process) for quite some time now, and the circumstances were just perfect for such a smooth transition between roles. I can’t tell you too much about it yet, since it’s still a relatively new thing for me and there’s a lot of learning ahead, but I’m enjoying it so far.
The change fortunately didn’t require me to fulfil any harsh “entry criteria” because the new role is closely intertwined with what I’ve been doing as a QA Engineer, and I can learn on the go. I’m currently filling the gaps in my knowledge of C – stuff like the MISRA C standard or some less frequently used nuances of the language. I also need to learn more about embedded systems architecture and how to code them effectively and safely. Last on my development agenda for now is the AUTOSAR platform, which is an indispensable element of any automotive software project.
This will probably be the most boring answer ever, but I’ll say it’s my phone. I wouldn’t go as far as saying I couldn’t live without it, but life is so much more convenient when you have an all-in-one device in your pocket. It lets me keep in touch with people wherever I am, capture beautiful moments, listen to my favorite music or podcasts, helps me navigate new places… you name it.