I managed a group of 10-12 software developers – engineers and CompSci grads of varying experience and confidence. It was quite a change to see the railroad industry perspective. There’s a lot of opportunity in the railroad industry, for sure, and Wabtec is well placed to provide solutions! The Wabtec Winnipeg group makes some cool products, basically hardened network infrastructure, internal/external communications, sensors, and edge computing resources for the locomotive.
During my time at Wabtec, one of our brilliant junior engineers went off to work at Tesla Motors, so sad. On the other hand, I was asked to hire three more people, which I did in December 2019/January 2020.
Unfortunately, during the recession connected to the COVID-19 pandemic, locomotive sales declined, and this had a big impact on Wabtec. A large number of staff were laid off in June 2020, including me. You never know what the future will bring!