Inside View
Paul Smith
Lead Engineer
Siemens Building Technologies
How did you come to work for Siemens?
I joined the fire safety division of Siemens Building Technologies when the business took on a service contract for Pfizer, the pharmaceutical company, nearly four years ago.
How do you spend your time?
As a lead engineer it's my job to plan the work required to upgrade or maintain the fire alarm systems at a customer's site for the day ahead, liaising with my contacts there to ensure it goes smoothly and making sure that the other Siemens engineers on site know what they need to do.
What’s challenging about your job?
The biggest challenge in my job is making sure that my customers stay happy. Sometimes that's just by arriving on time and having the correct equipment to do the work satisfactorily, but mostly it's keeping them up to speed with our work and basically doing what we say we'll do.
And what do you enjoy about it?
I live in Ramsgate and nearly all of my work is in London - places like the BBC, Harrods and offices in the City. It usually means a long day but I enjoy going to different places and meeting different people.
I'm no stranger to the office environment as I'm usually at our HQ once a week and speak regularly to the team there about the jobs I'm working on. Siemens has always looked after me and boosted my confidence in what I do in the last seven years, so it wouldn't be a shock to the system if I was to be based there more often in the next stage of my career.