Matteo joined the GKN Aerospace Global Graduate Programme. He had placements in technology development, Aerostructures design engineering and landing gear manufacturing, where he gained hands-on and cross-department experience. International training weeks and strong support from mentors and peers helped him build skills, confidence, and a global network.
I graduated with a background in mechanical engineering, and I knew I wanted to start my career in the aerospace industry. The global graduate programme sounded very interesting to me, and after my first interview it became clear that it was exactly what I was looking for.
My second interview was only a week after the first, and by the end of that week I had an offer. There were 11 of us graduates starting together at the same time - I was joining as a design engineer, but there were others from stress and management too.
That first week was all about getting to know each other and our managers, seeing where we’d be working and meeting the team. Then the second week was our induction and introduction to the global graduate programme in London. There were about 33 graduates in total from around the globe. We got to know each other and received lots of training on personal skills, personal development and cultural awareness.
After that we had a week in Bristol, where we visited the Global Technology Centre and the Filton facility. We got to see some of the wing production over there, which was very interesting, as well as a lot of the new technologies they’re developing. So by the end we all felt like we’d got up to speed about what the company is about, we’d met the graduates, had some training, so we went back to the Netherlands and started getting to work.
My first rotation was in technology development. One of the projects I worked on is metal bonding, which is basically gluing two layers of metal together to form a stronger structure. The current process for metal bonding involves big high-pressure ovens called autoclaves, but those use a lot of energy so we’re looking at new ways to replicate that without the autoclave, in a more sustainable process. Some of the work we did on that involved heating blankets so I got to draw up some moulds for them, and I also helped run some tests at the Hoogeveen Global Technology Centre to heat and cool the materials to see how they behaved. So that was nice to get some hands-on experience.
My next placement was in Landing Gear, where my role was more manufacturing and engineering focused. I was working on several programmes at once in military, finding ways to rework parts to meet our extremely high standards of quality and precision. I learnt a lot about how the manufacturing process works, and it was especially helpful to be in an environment where you’re collaborating with lots of different departments. You’re looking at the drawings on your computer, you’re walking on the shop floor, you’re talking to production people, measurement people, engineers, and the people who programmed the machines.
During another of my placements I got to work on Gulfstream Empennage design engineering. A project where I got to work together with our colleagues at the GKN Aerospace site in Romania on optimising the design of a business jet empennage. During this project I was able to gain a huge amount of experience on the design engineering function. I've got to see- and make adjustments to- most of the components in the complete empennage structure (the vertical- and horizontal stabiliser). Seeing all these parts up close and gaining an understanding of how they were designed was perhaps the most valuable thing I have done yet. As a result, we as a team made it possible to provide the empennage with enhanced protection against environmental factors in use.
During our first week in London there were some graduates from previous years' cohorts, so they were more experienced and they were able to tell us a bit more about what to expect over the next few years. Then every six months we’d go on a development week, where we’d train on soft skills. We did one in the UK, one in Sweden, one in the USA and one in the Netherlands – so it did feel like we were building a connection with this global network of graduates.
Over time we saw a growing group of graduates and alumni who went through the same experiences together. We’d have training on leadership, on coaching, management or communicating with impact – while also visiting the local sites. We visited the site at Trollhättan in Sweden, the Papendrecht site in the Netherlands, and in the USA we had our training week in Hartford, Connecticut and we went to the Newington site over there.
You can make it whatever you like if you have the right sort of ambition. I could always go up to my managers and say: “I’d like to do something more, something extra, something different and challenging”. And I think that in the experiences I’ve had on the global graduate programme, I’ve been able to thrive and make an impact.
Everyone was really trying their hardest to support me in what I was doing. There was always someone I could ask for help, people with a lot of knowledge and experience. Those people are now in my network, and that’s because of the global graduate programme. People like my engineering managers back in the Netherlands.
On top of that you have a personal development plan, set up goals for the year and track them with regular conversations with your PDP manager. I have a mentor who is also working in Papendrecht who had a similar trajectory that I had, starting as a graduate a long time ago. Plus, I formed a buddy relationship with another graduate soon after starting who was useful because he could share his own experience and coach me a little bit. It’s been really valuable to build up a network, so you always know who to ask if you’ve got any questions.
