Leading People, Fixing Motorbikes and Shaping JLR Shannon

What is your role and when did you join JLR? Tell us what your day looks like.

I am the General manager in Shannon so overseeing all of the teams across the enterprise here and ensuring that we have everything they need to do their jobs – I’ve come from a hardware and software background supporting customers worldwide in a previous life across different industries so very aware of the delivery pressures and planning / support to ensure we deliver on time. I joined JLR in 2017 when we started JLR Shannon as a focussed software development centre having worked on an infotainment project for JLR with Intel since 2011. Day to day is everything from engineering meetings such as future software planning for Software Defined Vehicles to things like IT challenges, sustainability initiatives & headcount / budget planning. 

How does JLR support a good work-life balance?

Particularly in Ireland we’re very fortunate to have a lot of progressive HR policies in place such as Paternity Leave, Holiday purchase scheme and flexible working but across the site we have great networks and events taking place for cultural activities, wellness initiatives and guest speakers coming in for various topics. The Sports & Social team do a fantastic job locally promoting lots of club activities (Golf, Hiking, Surfing etc.) so it’s not just about work hours Mon-Fri. It’s still obviously pressured on program delivery but that is similar in any industry and seeing those various groups get together is brilliant to see.

What do you do outside of work?

I have lots of things I’d like to do but a couple of things I really enjoy is getting out on my motorbike (Triumph Tiger Sport (1050)) we have a JLR Shannon motorcycle club as it really helps to clear your head and enjoy the focus time on the bike. I also like hiking and am fortunate that close to me we have some fantastic areas to explore along the coast and I’m hoping to do another trip to the Camino in Spain at some point in the future too. Aside from that that I really enjoy fixing and repairing things including a couple of vintage motorbikes and things around the house as needed.

What is your team like and how do you support each other?

I’m very fortunate to have an incredible leadership team in place that work very hard to keep things running smoothly we have a list of workstreams that we track and have owners for each of those to progress – this allows us to feed in challenges and feedback in specific areas to see how we can address them. It’s very collaborative and lots of ideas generated which is great to see so we keep continuing to improve the site overall.

What's the best thing about working at JLR Shannon?

The Shannon office is a great place to be we have an incredible bunch of people working here and there is always someone to talk to and hear what they’re working on or just talk about general stuff outside work (the weather is a constant topic per all Irish stereotypes) It’s great to see the teams delivering to programs and seeing that sense of achievement for something that is going to customers and they have a real pride in their work – getting quality cars on the road is what matters at the end of the day. 

A piece of advice for someone looking at a role at JLR?

Generally I’d say that enthusiasm and curiosity really stand out for me when I’m talking to people be that students looking for a graduate role or seniors applying to work here. As we develop more and more software in-house we are looking for continuous improvements and out of the box thinking to get product delivered faster. It can’t be about how it’s always been done what is the novel approach and how does it benefit us delivering to programs better.