The teachers are very helpful and friendly

How did you secure your first position?
I mostly used networking when looking for my first job opportunity. To me, networking is far better than responding to job ads on websites. By making direct contact with someone you know or someone you have something in common with, like your school or a previous position, you have a much better chance of being in the right place at the right time. I completed my Master’s thesis at ABB CRC in this way. I looked on the KTH website and contacted a professor at KTH who had supervised a thesis worker at ABB CRC. He gave me the details of a contact there who I emailed. A few weeks later, someone else at the company emailed me back with a job offer.

Tell us more about your job. What happens during an ordinary day?
When I was working at ABB, I worked with the YuMi robots, the collaborative dual-arm robots. It was quite an exciting job because there are very few of us in the world who have worked with this robot so far, since it was only launched a year ago. YuMi is a collaborative robot, which means it is meant to work in collaboration with a human. The key aspects of such a robot are its safety and its simplicity. As a robot programmer, I wrote programs and demos to show how the robot could be used and for which applications, and tried to find solutions to make the robot easy to use by a non-expert. I had a great time there. I quickly gained a lot of responsibilities and I was involved in many different projects. The people who work there are very friendly and open-minded, and have great ideas.

What are the career prospects within your field? Do you have a dream job?
I personally think it’s quite difficult to find jobs in a company directly related to robotics. To work in that field, the best thing is to do a Ph.D. As I said earlier, I’m about to take up a new position. Even though I loved my job at ABB CRC and I think I could have stayed a bit longer, I had to leave ABB. As I’m living with my French girlfriend, it was a little challenging to find two jobs at the same place at the beginning of our careers. Since we both have really good engineering degrees from Supélec in France, it was easier to find a good situation in Paris. My next job will be a permanent position at Aldebaran Robotics. I will be working in sensor design for humanoid robots at a company with 400 employees. I think this will actually be a very exciting job. The company has the vision of introducing robots into our daily lives to help us in our tasks and for entertainment. I always dreamed of working with robots. Since I’m a bit of a kid, I play with electronics and build small robots for fun. I think what I’m doing today is excellent work experience, linking my hobby and my work.

What are the other students from your class doing now?
Actually, I’ve lost contact with them a bit since they were mostly French and they came back to France two years before me. I know one of them has worked on defence projects at Thales and is now doing a Ph.D. at ENSTA Paris Tech. Some others are still working on Ph.D.s at KTH.

Would you recommend KTH to others as a place to study?
Definitely! I think it was a perfect place to learn through application. The teachers are very helpful and friendly. The university is really well-known. I still had a lot of time to travel and discover the Nordic countries.

What advice would you give a student who is thinking about applying to KTH?
Go for it!