Behind the picture: Krishna reaching the summit of Mont blanc 4810m
In honour of International Women in Engineering Day 2023, we’re proud to showcase the talented women who help make up the Volta Trucks engineering team.
In this blog post, we meet Krishna Mistry, one of our engineers as she shares her experiences and offers valuable advice to those who are considering a career in engineering.
What inspired you to pursue a career in engineering, and how did you get started in this industry?
As a little girl, I was fascinated by cars and curious about the way things worked. I was drawn more towards helping my dad work on his car than helping my mum cook dinner.
Later on, in high school, I learned what Engineering was and decided to pursue a degree in Mechanical Engineering with Automotive Design which then led me to my first career opportunity as a graduate Powertrain Engineer at Bentley Motors.
What do you enjoy most about your role at Volta Trucks?
My role connects body engineering to the programme and business operations. I enjoy working with talented people across the business and the autonomy and responsibility that comes with my role.
What do you think sets our company apart from others in our industry?
Volta Trucks is a forward-thinking company that lives by its values. One of which is “people at the heart of everything we do”, and we are also not afraid to be uncomfortable and disruptive.
Also, unheard of in this industry, we are adopting beta and pilot trials with our prototype vehicles.
What advice would you give to someone just starting out in engineering?
I remember how intimidating it felt just starting out in my career, there were so many experienced engineers around me and none of them looked like me.
If I could go back in time and give my younger self advice, I would tell her to:
– Aim high, and own your strengths.
– Never assume, always ask for data to draw your own conclusions.
– Admit when you don’t know something, and keep learning.
How do you collaborate with other members of the team in a remote and global environment?
We work with teams all over the UK and Europe and one of our flexible working mantras is “to be where we need to be” to do our work most effectively.
I’m often in our Reading office for our key programme meetings, but occasionally I also work from our build facility in Steyr, Austria, to make sure I’m close to the teams building the vehicle.
We also utilise our communication channels like Slack and Teams to keep talking, collaborating and pushing forward when working remotely.
Finally, what is your favourite thing to do outside of work?
My partner and I enjoy walks by the river, in rain or shine! We are also a couple of foodies and I do like to cook new recipes – my two all-time favourites are Thai drunken noodles and Korean Boa buns.
I go through seasons of different hobbies and they range from running, cycling and swimming. When I’m 90 years old I want to still be doing all of these things – I was inspired by an 86 year old parkrunner!
For some downtime, I practice yoga, read non-fiction, listen to podcasts and I’m also learning to play piano.
Aside from this, a cross-over to work life, I am actively involved in the STEM network and also provide mentoring to female engineering students as an Alumnus of Brunel University. It’s personally been very rewarding to be a small part of their journey into a career in Engineering.
If you would like to find out more about Volta Trucks and our mission to make cities safer and more sustainable, you can see where we are on our journey by clicking here. If you are interested in joining the team, please take a look at current openings we have available here.