RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Over the past 20 years, one of the pillars for Brazilian EMBRAER to reach the position of the third-largest aircraft manufacturer in the world, has been the company’s decision to work on training engineers actively.
When the company launched the Engineering Specialization Program in 2001, the idea was to solve the shortage of aeronautical engineers in the market. Due to its natural turnover and its own investment in research, innovation, and development, it is now critical to fill employees.
Most engineers are employed by the company, but through the partnership with the Aeronautical Institute of Technology (ITA), there are also professional masters to provide a little more theory.
Applications for the 2022 edition opened Monday, July 5. The entire selection process is scheduled to take place in the second half of the year. The duration of the program is three months.
In the beginning, there is a theoretical and practical leveling about aeronautical engineering and “career” opportunities that will be chosen by the new graduates.
According to the proposal, groups are formed in the third quarter of the course, and they model an aircraft from start to finish, from market analysis to technical issues to business plans.
In 2020, EMBRAER delivered 130 aircraft on order. The company’s strength is small and mid-size aircraft and military units such as the KC 390.
“They develop an aircraft from scratch and take ownership of the project, with a group of mentors to help them. One of the things we deal with a lot in the EEP is that the engineer owns what he’s doing. He needs to feel that sense of responsibility,” says Luiz Fernando Nolf, coordinator of the program.
“Our idea is to get even younger people up to two-year degrees, and our goal is to prepare them better to work with aeronautical engineering within EMBRAER because it’s a multidisciplinary environment.”
During the pandemic period, the course had to use a 100% remote format, but the perspective is a curricular grid with hybrid classes when the health situation improves.
Luiz Fernando also mentions that the company strives to update the curriculum year after year to bring the technology of the moment into the classrooms. Topics that have recently fallen on the grid include sustainability and artificial intelligence.
Marina Pintarelli, 26, is a student in the program’s current class and is about to graduate next August. She says one of the best features of EMBRAER’s professional master’s program is the opportunity to design: “I don’t think I’m an engineer like the more traditional engineers who only think about day-to-day operations, but I like to design. In five years, I would like to design an airplane.”
The student, who has a degree in mechanical engineering, is from Santa Catarina and learned about the company during a visit while in college.
“Before I started the training, I didn’t even know aeronautical engineering was possible. Brazil is so big, and we don’t even think the country does that much. During my studies, I discovered that we actually do, and we have the third-largest aircraft manufacturer in the world, for example. I see a repeating pattern with many companies, and with Embraer, I see strong research and development,” Marina explains.
For EMBRAER’s Vice-President of People, Carlos Alberto Griner, it is of strategic importance for the company to work on training young engineers to fill a need and anticipate future needs.
“There is no supply of talent with the skills we need, but the company also uses a program like this to prepare for challenges we don’t even know about. I believe in going to the source, to the point of entry. If you know how to invest in students and prepare them for the skilled job market, you can keep that within your own company; then you have a successful project.”