Siemens

Though he didn’t know it at the time, Ghana-born Felix Annan discovered his calling in the early 90s after his father bought a personal computer. “Even though my father had a lot of work to do with it, he opened it up for me to play with,” Annan recalls.
“I then grew interested in video games, wondering how they were made, and that kind of thing...”

A fascination first triggered by that childhood PC returned in full force when Annan chose his course of study at Drexel University—a master’s in software engineering. An internship at Siemens Medical Solutions will complement his degree.

Q: Can you talk about your various duties at Siemens?

A: I aid in the analysis, design, development, and support of a web site for managing geographically dispersed teams and reducing overheads on the reporting of the completion status of teams with respect to each software release.

Q: Do you tackle these responsibilities solo?

A: No, we have teams working and every month we decide on the tasks (called stories) to take on and discuss them so that we each know what tasks we as a team have to complete in that time.

Q: There must be plenty of challenges to the job. Do any come to mind?

A: I’ve been putting together software that would allow our dispersed teams to communicate better. One part of the software dealt with how to predict when slices of the work would be completed. I’d been working on that bit for a couple of days when my manager came in and told me to revise it for a meeting. This was about 10 am and he asked to have it done by 2 pm.

Q: That actually says a lot about your superiors and the trust they have in their employees.

A: Absolutely. It’s pretty common, to see that display of confidence from those above me.

Q: What can you say about the social element of your company?

A: Teams organize individual events like lunch or happy hour and the company has plenty of social activities, such as cookouts. Work gets done, of course. When we work, we work. And when we play, we play.

Q: Would you say that Siemens is a diverse company?

A: My own team is very diverse. I’m from Ghana. We have Americans, Indians, and there is one Indonesian. There are Germans and Chinese and many others across the company. There is diversity of skills and diversity of job functions on a team. We practice pair programming, which is having two people assigned to a task to even out the skills. If someone isn’t good at one thing, the other will be, and by the end of the project, one is better at something.

Q: So, what advice do you have for the next intern?

A: Interns might want to rush because they want to impress. But doing that could leave kinks in the software. I’d say—especially with what I do—that you don’t need to be in a rush to complete assignments. Your teammates want you to complete things as fast as possible, but you also want to do it well.

Siemens Medical Solutions’ (Med) portfolio is large and covers all fields in the healthcare sector, from imaging systems for
diagnosis and treatment, to audiology, to modern information technology, service and maintenance offerings, as well as consulting services in the area of process optimization. www.usa.siemens.com