Business Development
sales@steinel.ch
+41 55 418 21 11
Ronald Reichmuth, Hardware and Firmware Developer at STEINEL Solutions AG - His career and everyday work.
Ronald, thank you very much for answering some questions. We want to get started with the interview right away.
When did you complete your studies?
«I completed my electrical engineering studies in Rapperswil in 2007.»
Why did you decide to study / train for this degree at that time?
«Electronics and computer technology interested me very early on. During my apprenticeship as an electronics technician at Siemens, I was able to get an insight in various departments and support electronics engineers at work. I knew then that I wanted to do that later on. A degree opens the door to being able to work on really exciting projects.»
What is exciting for you about this field?
«Our world is becoming more and more connected, it's extremely exciting to understand the technologies and to see their applications in everyday life.»
Figure 1 Ronald Reichmuth at his workplace in Einsiedeln
What makes working in development at STEINEL Solutions exciting for you?
«In OEM Engineering at STEINEL Solutions, we get to work on exciting customer projects time and again and see how an idea is turned into a product. Today, we're developing a sprayer for applying cosmetic creams in an interdisciplinary team, next year we'll be optimising the heating control of a coffee machine, or integrating a motion sensor into a WC actuator plate (editor's note: see reference TECE GmbH).»
Figure 2 recessed light
What does your day-to-day work at STEINEL Solutions look like?
«Start notebook, fetch coffee, Scrum....»
How many products that you have worked on so far in your career are on the market today?
«After graduating, I worked in a spin-off where, among other things, I co-developed high-speed cameras that were later used as goal-line cameras at the World Cup. At Siemens, I worked for years on an entire platform from which many product variants emerged, and at STEINEL, a number of lights and sensors are already in use with customers. In total, there must be more than 20 products.»
Figure 3 SENSOTEC NET product family
What is the greatest product you have worked on to date? And why?
«The best product is certainly the SENSOTEC NET product family, which I have worked on. Everything was there: housing, hardware and software development. The sensors are networked with Bluetooth Mesh, a relatively new standard that also has applications in the IoT field.»
How has your work and technology changed in recent years?
«I used to develop more hardware, but now the know-how is more and more in the software or in the interaction of hardware and software.»
Have the working methods changed since you graduated? Advantages / disadvantages of today's technology, e.g. Scrum?
«Development work is becoming more and more complex, for example regulatory guidelines or requirements that are constantly changing. The teams are mostly interdisciplinary and distributed across various locations. The communication channels are shorter and development is becoming more and more agile - on balance a bit more stressful.»
Also worth reading: The article on Bluetooth Mesh by Ronald Reichmuth & Timon Meier
«In OEM Engineering at STEINEL Solutions, we work on exciting customer projects. Every day we see how an idea is turned into a product. Since our customers are active in a wide variety of industries and the products have the most diverse applications, no two days are the same.»