Meet Jessica Trinh, R&D group manager

In this story, we share our conversation with Jessica Trinh, R&D group manager at SICK Linköping. We asked her to tell us about her path towards becoming an engineer. She shares her journey from Vietnam to Sweden, and from the childhood stories that sparked her interest in science to her choices regarding her studies.

From Vietnam to Sweden  

Jessica Trinh’s interest in science started in her childhood, as her father explained to her phenomena in scientific terms rather than superstition. “Living close to a cemetery, we children talked often about ghosts and were quite afraid of that. My father said that what most people think is a ghost is in fact just luminous particles from bone matters swaying in the airstream caused by movement. That gave me so much confidence because I could rely on that kind of explanations of how things work”, she says. “Other people were scared but I didn’t have to be because I knew the true facts. I started to want to learn more things, to see how the mechanisms behind everything work. That is the starting point.” Jessica left Vietnam when she was eleven and came to Sweden when she was sixteen. “I didn’t have a proper education before I came to Sweden. I was a refugee, living in a refugee camp for almost four years.” New country, new high school, new language, meant that she had to fight her way through in the beginning.

When choosing a path in high school, there were two options: the social science path (samhälle) or the science path (natur/teknik): “I chose the technical one, because math and physics are universal. It’s logic and you always know the right answer, nobody can challenge that”  She also knew she wanted to continue her education at a University level: “I always wanted to study on higher level. That was obvious for me that I was supposed to go to university and contribute to the society somehow. I just didn’t know how. But I knew that I needed to do that.” That confidence supported her throughout the journey: “I was confident that I would make it. I didn’t know how; I just knew that I would make it. Because I grew up with a strong woman mindset. I always believed that girls are as strong and smart as guys. That was never my limitation, the gender.”

I always believed that girls are as strong and smart as guys. That was never my limitation, the gender.

And when it came to choosing the school, she would continue her studies in, she knew exactly where she wanted to go: the school just next to hers. “It was a technical high-profile school, really famous in the town, with the best teachers and the best students. Mostly guys. Every day I would see them on the other side (of the shared lunchroom), in the same room but separated by a lower fence. I could see them, and I thought: ‘Yes, I want to go there. I want to be one of them.’”

This required the support of the school headmaster - “After half an hour I managed to convince him to write that letter for me to go to that school." He had tried to warn her about the difficulty, but "I don’t know why, I just believed I could do that.” She did get in the school of her choice, where she was “one of the five girls in my class [of thirty] ...  So, it was quite lonely. I didn’t understand everything that people were talking about … But I learned to manage the loneliness: I found new friends from other cultures. In my class there were only Swedish people, but I was searching outside. I started training, and that’s where I found my social interactions and learned Swedish. And I studied really hard."

Studying physics and electrical engineering in Linköping

After high school, Jessica studied extra for a year to enter the highly competitive master program in applied physics and electrical engineering in Linköping. As she managed to get in, she thought: “I’ll give it 6 months. If I can’t make it in the first courses I will drop out and try something else.” The beginnings were challenging, with many new topics to study, “but I met some friends, and we spent a lot of time together. It was really nice and that helped me a lot.” And finally, after half a year, she decided to continue.

The only real difficulty was programming : “I didn’t have the habit of working with computers. Whenever we had to work in the lab, set up things, program, it was difficult to follow the instructions." She did what was needed, but felt that it was not where her core interest was:  "I was more people-oriented than technical oriented.” For her thesis, she worked at Ericsson in Stockholm: “I was working on simulations of how the amplifiers for the base stations can cancel the noise. I did work with math lab, together with advanced algorithms that researchers had developed, which I included in a simulation program. Nobody had done it before. It was quite fun to do!” But before finishing her thesis, she got a position in Linköping. Though it delayed the thesis by a few years, it ultimately got finished!

Starting at SICK

Jessica then started working at SICK almost four years ago: “It was during the pandemics. I didn’t apply, they found me on LinkedIn, and it just clicked right away. I never thought I would find my dream workplace that way, but I did. It is a perfect match. I love SICK, I love the people around me. … They’re so nice, so supportive, so good people. Never seen that before.” It is a kind of atmosphere that feels intrinsically motivating: “I never thought before there could be so many good people in the same place. So, I feel very motivated to do more than I am expected to do because I want to contribute, I want things to work out, I want us to sell more products so we can get more money. It’s easy for me to get motivation.”

I never thought I would find my dream workplace that way, but I did. It is a perfect match.

Jessica now works as a group manager the first woman R&D group manager in SICK Linköping: “I am proud of that. I think I am leading the biggest group here. I have ten people in the group under me, but also many people around. External consultants and others. The total team is sixteen to seventeen people. It is quite a big group.It’s my first year as a team manager but I didn’t get rid of my project manager role, so I still have my projects in collaboration with SICK. So, I have been doing project management and team management.”  

With this kind of roles and extra projects within SICK, Jessica has a lot of balls in the air. So, the current most challenging part? “[It] is always the prioritization. We have a lot of ideas. We want to do so many things, but we don’t have enough time, energy, or people to realize everything.” All is not bad though! “It is also a good sign that we have so many ideas. But you have to go on with some of the ideas and be confident that that is the right thing to do.”

Choosing an engineering career as a woman 

Reflecting on her choice of an engineering career, what Jessica likes most is “knowing that you can solve problems. Solving problems together with other people and knowing that whatever might come you can do amazing things together with your colleagues. …When people come together and work together, they can achieve such great results. So many possibilities.” 

When people come together and work together, they can achieve such great results.

And to girls who might consider a career in STEM but still be hesitant, she would say that “being a woman engineer is very good! As women we can contribute to the engineering domain other things than what exists. We have women qualities that are very beneficial to have, complementary to a very male dominated branch. We would bring more strengths to these technical organizations. “ Even if it might feel difficult in the beginning of studies, it is an effort worth putting in.  “I would say that it’s worth it to work hard in the beginning. It’s not really very, very hard. Anyone can do this. We are taught that only guys can do technical things, but we can too. Once we know that it is possible, then we try, and we can do it. … You have to invest your energy in the beginning. And once you got through the education, the years at university, it gets easier.”

She shares the many perks of this professional path, from work conditions to the possibility to continuously grow as a person: “It gives you back a lot as a person. You get back the joy in feeling that you are contributing to something good in society, that you are solving problems. You have a very good salary. Every organization tries to get more women engineers, so it is not hard to find a job and it is very well paid. And fun work. You always learn more things. You are developing along with the tasks you are doing, and you get better and better, and you feel better. ... Maybe there are other jobs that are easy to start with but in the long run, not as fulfilling. That was what I was thinking when I chose this. It’s new challenges every day and I learn a lot of new things every day, and for me it’s a must to grow as a person.“

You are developing along with the tasks you are doing, and you get better and better, and you feel better.

Working as a woman: challenging oneself and knowing that you are enough

These are advice that could be even generalized to everyone: “I think you just need to believe in what you can do. You can do so much more if you just open your mind for that. I think we people are limiting ourselves quite a lot depending on the environment and the society and what we heard as children. … We have to challenge ourselves to find the immense capacity that we have. But if we don’t step out of our box, we never find out how strong we are.” 

We have to challenge ourselves to find the immense capacity that we have.

At the same time, it is not about pushing oneself over the limits. In particular as a woman on the workplace, there can be a tendency to try too hard. So, to other professional women, she would say: “'Don’t try too hard.' If you try, try with joy when you do more things. Don’t do things because of the pressure, do things because you like to do that. Pull the work to you, don't pushed on by it. If you are interested in something, go deep in that because you want to instead of getting things on you. ... Don’t measure your values by what other people think of you and your performance. Be happy with what you can contribute, and know that it is enough. I think we women try to compensate by working harder and saying yes to everything. We should feel that we are enough, good enough. And if I want to work harder it is because I want to explore something new, or it is because I really want to, for myself. It is not to get more compliments, or to get validated by other people around.”

If I want to work harder it is because I want to explore something new, or it is because I really want to, for myself. It is not to get compliments or to get validated by other people around.

It is important to be mindful of an over-criticizing inner voice: “The way we feel affects the way we think and the way we act. It is a circle. So as women we need to be very careful about what we think of ourselves. We are criticizing quite a lot. I don’t know, but I think the men are more easy-going with their contribution, their performance, but we tend to be stricter - we are hard on ourselves.”

And, on a final note, “and then I think that these very technical organizations would benefit a lot of having more women in the leadership levels to inspire more women engineers or women in the organization. I think it would be healthier and we would be more efficient. It would create a better workplace with more balance.“

I think that these very technical organizations would benefit a lot of having more women in the leadership levels to inspire more women engineers or women in the organization.