Marie Shi started her career at Schneider Electric as a Method Engineer, working within the production line and performed lean-related work.
Marie seized the opportunity to learn Robotic Process Automation (RPA) through the talent development program, which enabled her to then transition to the Global Supply Chain China Digital Solution Team as an Application Engineer.
Marie now focuses on RPA, as well as developing other skills, such as VBA, VBS, Tableau, SQL, and C#. Recently, Marie shifted her work priority to application analysis and design.
After joining Schneider Electric upon graduation, the talent development program helped Marie define a new career for herself. Celebrating her 5th anniversary at Schneider Electric, Marie reflects on the key learnings she’s gained over the years.
Admiring Schneider Electric's sustainable vision
Marie considered Schneider Electric to be among her dream companies to work for long before she became part of it. It was close to her graduation when she decided to pursue a career at the company because of its sustainable vision.
After several interviews, she was finally offered a full-time position as a Method Engineer in Suzhou, China, which Marie describes as a "beautiful city with both classical and modern charm."
Delivering meaningful projects
In Marie's first three years as a Method Engineer, she was mainly involved in production sites where she gained valuable knowledge and experience. This included confirming capacity and supply to meet demand, responding to events that shut down production lines, building a new production line for several product types, and implementing new concepts to improve employee efficiency.
Marie explains, "Schneider Electric also offers systematic training courses for everyone of all positions.
"In your first year, you will be assigned a buddy to guide and assist you in integrating into the company culture and mingling with others. People in Schneider are delightful and friendly — they will not hesitate to help you! My colleagues formed a strong support system for me in my early years. I also had many opportunities to build my network and collaborate with people from different teams, countries, and cultures to deliver meaningful projects."
Learning about digitization
Schneider Electric encourages employees to innovate and explore new technologies to help improve business operations. The talent development program provided Marie with the opportunity to shift from the role of Method Engineer to Digitization. This program introduced her to the concept of Robotic Process Automation (RPA), which enables computer software to emulate and integrate actions typically performed by humans when interacting with digital systems.
"I used to struggle with repetitive tasks so I seized the chance to learn about RPA and use it in my projects when the opportunity arose. This allowed me to move to the Global Supply Chain China Digital Solution Team two years ago to work as an Application Engineer," she says.
Marie continues, "Now, I primarily focus on delivering digital solutions, and my main area is RPA. As the RPA Community Leader, I oversee various undertakings, such as community operation, talent training, project delivery, and license management. Leveraging my newfound expertise, I discovered other RPA techniques, such as VBA/VBS, C#, SQL, and Tableau, through exposure to different project requirements."
"Given everything I have learned, I believe RPA is a great experience to master new technology and improve business performance at the same time!"
Key learnings at Schneider Electric
Since digital transformation has evolved rapidly and Marie needed to adapt to her new team, she switched her work priority to a new area: application analysis and design. However, thanks to her years of experience, she believes she is ready for the new challenges ahead.
From her five years at Schneider Electric , Marie shares three key learnings:
- Business awareness is essential
Business awareness is an essential part of any project if you want it to succeed. Lean engineering is a theory, and digitization is a tool. Both can only generate efficiency for your company if they are utilized rationally in a business situation.
- Learn every day
Change is the only constant in today’s world, so nurture your curiosity and cultivate a learning habit. You can learn a specific technology that directly benefits your project or even something unrelated to your job. My Learning Link, Schneider Electric's web-based learning platform, lets everyone participate in different courses where it can help employees develop their skills every day.
- Be positive and realistic
As we live in the VUCA (volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous) era, we face many challenges not only at work but in our daily lives as well. Therefore, we need positivity to encourage us to think of solutions, instead of complaining about problems. Additionally, resilience is a practical soft skill that teaches everyone to learn to accept failure and imperfections in life, to keep improving, and to continue moving forward. Just like Schneider Electric's slogan, “Life is on,” moving forward is crucial.
Marie concludes, "I would like to invite you to join Schneider Electric, and let’s enjoy innumerable fascinating experiences together afterward!"
Forge a successful career at Schneider Electric
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Disclosure: Where Women Work researches and publishes insightful evidence about how its paid member organizations support women's equality.