Name: Lungile Hlatshwayo
Role/Occupation: Advanced Lead Reliability Engineer
Country: South Africa
I recently interviewed Lungile Hlatshwayo, the Lead Engineer for Reliability. Hlatshwayo was the first African in her field to make it into the prestigious Edison Program, she remembers when she first found out, “ I was on a bus home when I found out and I just cried partially because I knew this would then open doors for other Africans. The second reason was that it was a step closer to being a beast of an engineer which is one of my life goals”.
And she is definitely a ‘beast’ of an engineer. Hlatshwayo works with locomotives and in her role as Lead Engineer she is responsible for the Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) reliability case solutions management in the region. She projects, manages and drives solutions case management for all fleets across SSA region which includes South Africa, Mozambique, Angola and Namibia. Her task as a reliability engineer is to ensure all customer pain points regarding the product are addressed. This would include investigating the complete design, performance related issues and any component failures.
Hlatshwayo was first introduced to engineering in high school when she attended an open day in Monash Australia and was instantly fascinated by the vast world of engineering. After much research she decided to study mechanical engineering. She completed her undergraduate degree, a BSc in mechanical engineering from the University of Cape Town after which she started working as an intern in the Early Career Development Program. She was later accepted into a global engineering program called the Thomas Edison Engineering Development Program which resulted in her spending 18 months abroad working in different teams exposed to design, root cause analysis, project management, systems engineering, optimization and various analysis. She feels that being part of the program made her a better engineer, “Learning and engaging with experts, which were truly the best in their fields is one of the greatest things that could have ever happened to me”.
She also completed a postgraduate diploma in Project Management as part of the program. This year she started studying towards a Masters in Engineering at the University of the Witwatersrand and also spent five months in GE Power understanding and learning about the industry, all while reporting to her role as the lead engineer for Reliability. When asked what she loves about her profession, she admits “I’m a problem solver and innately I’m always looking for the best option. My job allows me to excel in my most natural state.”
She has strong feelings about being a woman in the STEM space and feels that as a woman you have to always work much harder than your male counterparts to prove yourself, “It’s a social issue as well, people naturally respect men, it’s something we need to change in how we raise the next generation”. Hlatshwayo has a very positive outlook with regards to STEM in Africa, “I think Africa has a lot to offer in terms of STEM; there are innovators, creators of knowledge, people pursuing their PhD’s, unconventional engineers and generally more women pursuing careers that were previously out of reach in the country. I believe the more we encourage young leaders to take up STEM the greater the prospects of growth, the more we create exposure opportunities into the work we do, the more the growth”.
Read more about this beautiful beast of an engineer conquering the field of engineering and locomotives in the interview below as Hlatshwayo shares some of her opinions and insights.
Lungile Hlatshwayo was interviewed by Dhruti Dheda, the founder of the African Steminist on behalf of Geeky Girl Reality. The full interview can be found here.
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