3rd Co-op At Gentex
Zachary
Experience Information
Employer: Gentex Corp.
Job Title: Software Process Engineer
Major: Computer Engineering
Received Credit: Yes
Paid: Yes
Abroad: No
Description of the Organization
Gentex is an electronics manufacturing company of over five thousand employees whose main product is automotive mirrors. These mirrors are equipped with a broad array of features. For example, these features include auto-dimming to compensate for headlights, displays for rear-view cameras, and high-beam headlight adjustments. Gentex supplies these mirrors to many of the prominent automotive manufacturers worldwide.
Description of the Tasks/Projects Completed
I worked on a wide collection of projects that, while varied in their details, all served to improve the performance of our production processes. For example, one of my projects was to work on automating product quality testing. Another project helped to alert technicians and other support staff if any maintenance was required on production lines or equipment. Finally, my last big project focused on creating efficiencies and other improvements to software used across various departments.
Skills/Knowledge Gained Through The Experience
Throughout my co-op, I gained experience in designing, implementing, and using various software patterns. For example, I learned how to design a web service on our company network, which I could then use to monitor production progression remotely. I also learned about maintaining well-designed reusable code and the work necessary to provide stable software packages (of that code) to various other departments in the company. Finally, I also gained a lot of experience in designing human-machine interfaces (HMIs) in order to allow an operator to use our production machines most effectively.
Favorite Part of the Experience
My favorite part of this experience was the wide number of different groups/departments I was able to work with on various software projects. This exposure allowed me to see aspects of the company from several different design perspectives and has helped to inform my own software design process.
How the Experience Influenced Future Career Goals
This experience has helped me to see that I would enjoy leading a software project from the design-side more than the implementation side. I appreciated the work that went into setting up all of the inheritance and interface structures in our code library, which is a very design-oriented task.