Siemens Malaysia Sdn Bhd

Maroline Favius Marcus

Service Engineer (System Administrator)

Maroline works as Service Engineer at Siemens Malaysia Sdn. Bhd.

How did you decide your career path?

The belief that I will be in the health and sciences field took a complete turn when the system placed me in Engineering. Ironically, it was through this unexpected placement where I found my passion, which is best explained by the saying, “service above self”. As a student leader during my university days, I have led a project to light up a grid-disconnected village and was the only one with an engineering background. This experience has made me realised, I wanted to incorporate passion and profession. Thus, I made a choice to go down this career path.

How did you get the job?

Initially, I applied for the Engineering Graduate Program. It was a stringent selection process involving a written assessment, group activity and panel interview. Out of hundreds of applicants for this program, I was fortunate to be shortlisted in the final six by my preferred department. Despite not making it further, I was recommended for the System Administrator role. My application was processed, and I had to undergo another interview with two hiring managers, a Malaysian and a German. Hence, my current position in the global operations team.

What are your day to day tasks in this role?

As a service engineer in the field who specialises in system administration of the Siemens’ Distributed Control System for power generation, I am required to travel to customer sites for most of my tasks. During these travels, I am tasked to ensure that the overall power generation control system functions as it should. As of now, my assigned tasks emphasize on the update and upgrade of this system to the latest release. Among the projects that I am currently working on is an upgrade of a power plant in Pakistan and Indonesia.

In your line of work, what are the most important soft skills and hard skills to acquire?

As a service engineer, we are required to handle customers on a firsthand basis, on and off-site. In addition, our work requires certain pre-/post-requisite tasks from other teams; hardware engineering, technicians and product experts. Due to the volatility and complexity of technical tasks as well as the frequency of travel to other countries, it is important for one to be open-minded, agile and ready for changes. The ability to communicate effectively is a crucial foundation of all soft skills. In this line, hard skills are learned on-the-go because the application process in any given industry differs from our classroom learning.

How did you adjust your lifestyle from being a student to a working adult?

It hasn’t been a year since I graduated, and the transition was a paradigm shift in my comfort zone. Understanding then, that I will be entering a new phase, I made it a point to prepare mentally. It was a crucial space to prepare for because when one accepts and confronts the reality of having to show up rain or shine, deliver quality output and own up to responsibilities, it makes everything else achievable. I also positioned myself to be susceptive of learning. Being new, we occasionally tend to be impatient and overlook the role of being a follower.