Meet Rish - Senior Integration Engineer

As an undergraduate, I spent a lot of time with BAE Systems, including a summer internship and a year in industry with the company. I moved through the business across different programmes and air platforms during that time, which exposed me to the global scale that BAE Systems operates at. Following this, I was offered a place on the graduate programme, which I gladly accepted.

During my time with BAE Systems, I’ve had the opportunity to work on a number of significant contracts, which has given me experience of being involved in projects from beginning to end. This has been really beneficial and I’ve been able to take that knowledge into the Global Combat Air Programme (GCAP) which we are currently working on from concept and will see right through to development, production and support of the aircraft.

A highlight of working on GCAP is being part of the team leading the international discussions; working with my Italian and Japanese counterparts has been incredible. I’ve been out to Italy and Japan and it’s been great getting to understand how people work and experience the different cultures of these countries. It also gives me an appreciation every day of the scale of this multi-national programme, and the huge decisions that need to be made.

One of the major milestones in my relatively short career was being accepted for the Future Talent Programme. It recognised the STEM work I’d done and the stretch assignments which push you to work a couple of levels above what is expected in your day role, as well as my portfolio of work on large contracts. It helped to give me a more strategic view of the company and of my role in the Future Combat Air System (FCAS) programme.