Mariajose, Senior Geotechnical Engineer
"When I was 23, I thought I had my life planned out, including my career. But it took a different path, and I love where I am now. You never know where you'll be in the future!
Perth, Australia
Discovering offshore geotechnical engineering
I've been working with Fugro as a Senior Geotechnical Engineer for three years. When I think about my dream job, I realize I'm already doing it. Wherever it moves in the future, I think it’s going to be great. I love what I’m doing and I’m pretty sure I’ll love whatever comes next as well.
I did my undergrad in Civil Engineering in Venezuela. At that time, I was interested in the conventional part of my career, I had no idea what offshore geotechnical engineering involved. My mind was blown away from the very first day when during an internship, at an offshore geotechnical company in Venezuela, they told me to imagine a building being built in the middle of the ocean. I was struck by the scale of these projects and the kind of designs we worked on. For this reason, I decided to do a PhD at the University of Western Australia in offshore geotechnical engineering, specifically on the soil-structure interaction for drill conductors.
The projects I work on
We mostly do foundation design for big platforms or offshore wind projects. We define the properties of the soil where the foundation will be placed and design for the loads that the foundation will be subjected to. It’s pretty cool because you get to see all these loads, cycles, and winds that it’s going to be subjected to. It’s massive—imagine waves of 10 meters or wind speeds of 200 kilometers per hour.
It is all about the size of the projects we deal with at Fugro, doing surveys in water depths of thousands of meters. Imagine that—thousands of meters of water depth! We survey the soil and collect soil samples at that water depth, test them, and determine all the different properties they have, and how these may impact whatever structure is going to be put there. With that data we also estimate what hazards will impact the structure. You need to be aware of what’s going on and make sure you can make the right decisions at the right moment.
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“My biggest advice to someone just starting their career at Fugro, is to be open to explore. Don't just have a fixed idea of what you want to do; be open to exploring different areas of work.”
Mariajose Guevara Castillo
Senior Geotechnical Engineer
Plans do change
There are many opportunities to grow, change career paths, and explore different areas because Fugro is such a big company. You don't have to stay in the same job or position forever. You can move forward or laterally, wherever you want. Sometimes in life, where you expect to be it is not where you will end up. When I was 23, I thought I had my life planned out, including my career. But it took a different path, and I love where I am now. You never know where you'll be in the future. It's great to have plans, but sometimes a different direction turns out even better.
