March is National Engineering Month in Canada – an opportunity to showcase the exciting opportunities that a career in engineering has to offer. We are proud to employ some of the best and brightest in the industry in Calgary, Halifax, and Ottawa and will be highlighting them throughout the month. 

Meet Troy, a member of our DevOps team in Ottawa working on the Land Command Support System for the Canadian Army.

1. Tell us what led to your current role in engineering? 

I joined General Dynamics Mission Systems–Canada straight out of grad school, landing a job as a Junior System Integration Engineer on the then-new Evolve-To-Open program, later transitioning to a role as a System Engineer. During these first two years, I had unprecedented opportunities to integrate new technologies into the engineering process and our mission products. 

About a year ago, an opportunity to take on more of an architectural role opened up in the Land Command Support System Engineering & Integration Support Contract DevOps group. And with the support of very strong team - we have been able to drive transformational change in the adoption of Agile engineering processes for how our products are built, tested, and deployed.

2. What is the most challenging aspect of your role?

The biggest challenge is to build organic long-lasting solutions. To do so is an endeavour into our user communities’ space; with the obligation to learn new software systems, human processes, and technical architectures whilst constantly reviewing emergent technologies that can present new ways to tackle old problems.

I often use the term “DevOps the DevOps” meaning to deliver solutions that provide the benefits of an Agile DevOps approach, but also empower the user community to be self-sustaining and masters of their own destiny.

3. Why do you think engineering is important to our company and our customers?

The value of engineering is in the translation of our customers’ needs to their solutions. We have a unique opportunity at General Dynamics where our customers are our experts, and as such, we do not engineer towards generalized solutions, but to the specific challenges in our customer’s mission.

Our engineering teams enable us to provide these transformative changes through the design, integration, and application technology. With the adoption of Agile engineering, we have only strengthened our position in developing and delivering reliable mission solutions to our user communities.

4. What’s the one piece of advice you would offer an aspiring engineer?

Take every moment to learn.