How Experience as a Naval Technician Transfers to Tech
Experience as a naval weapons engineering technician transfers over to the tech industry. I learnt this after making the switch three years ago. Let me explain how it transfers.
This post is part of a series about better showcasing my experience as a technician in the Royal Canadian Navy. It is split into three parts:
- Continuing learning
- Troubleshooting, testing, maintenance, modification
- Technical presentations and walkthroughs
This post will discuss point three: technical presentations and walkthroughs.
Royal Canadian Navy
Naval technicians gain meaningful experience from technical presentations and walkthroughs.
Technical boards
One of the hardest parts of becoming a qualified technician is passing the "boards."
Boards were the technical presentations about the equipment technicians are responsible for maintaining. Presenting a good board had a few requirements:
- Presenting a system overview
- Drawing a functional block diagram from memory
- Showing the flow of inputs and outputs (electricity, control signals, fluids, etc.)
- Describing normal operational characteristics and monitoring
- Explaining single points of failure and common faults
- Knowing what references to follow for maintenance
The presentations were about more than just the technical knowledge. A junior tech also needed to demonstrate their ability to share this information. For the technicians who thought they would be left alone in equipment rooms maintaining systems, boards were very challenging. A member's inability to share information would affect a fighting force, so the military trains you to give briefings.
When a technician does well in the presentation, the SMEs (subject matter experts) will challenge them during the question-and-answer period. The SMEs always kept a technician in the hot seat. They want to see how they handle not knowing something. This usually led to reading the reference documentation or the ship's operating procedures.
I remember writing follow-ups about sonar and radar concepts that I couldn't explain well during the Q&A. Good written responses were not a formal requirement but were appreciated.
The final piece of a technical board was a walkthrough of a fault-finding scenario.
Walkthroughs
Walkthroughs were a common way to test a naval technician. A technician would do a walkthrough with an SME on the equipment to finish a technical presentation. The goal of the walkthrough is to show your thought process.
A walkthrough wasn't a challenge but a collaborative effort. The SME would give many chances for questions around the fault. They weren't trying to lead you astray and would often hint that you were going wrong. The technician would propose different tests to gather more information. Eventually, you would identify the components needing repair. The scenario would end with discussing how the repair would occur (like a part swap, part order, etc.)
Walkthroughs happened outside of boards, too.
Passing the MCR (machinery control room) watchkeeper certifications involved completing a good walkthrough. Here, you would show a qualified MCR watchkeeper that you know what compartments to visit, how to complete logs, how to monitor systems, and how to respond to emergencies during a duty watch.
The first package you complete as a junior weapons engineering technician requires a walkthrough of almost all the CSE compartments. A juniour technician would take one of the department PO1s (Petty Officer 1st class) on a ship tour. They would validate that you knew enough about the equipment at each space by simply conversing with you. Again, the walkthrough challenged your knowledge retention and ability to communicate.
Technical boards and walkthroughs challenge naval technicians. They acquire a lot of knowledge of various systems. Then, they are challenged on their ability to communicate it to others.
Tech Industry
The tech industry desperately needs professionals who can acquire technical knowledge and communicate technical information effectively.
System Architecture
Gaining an understanding of the high-level architecture of a system is essential. It is often one of the first tasks when joining or starting a new project.
Whether you're learning new architecture or building something from scratch, these are present:
- A system overview
- A functional block diagram
- Highlights of the inputs and outputs of components
- The expected outcomes and behaviours of the system
- The process for monitoring, logging, and handling errors
- Planning for redundancies, backups, maintenance, and updates
- Evolving documentation for reference
The list above represents what a tech professional might need to learn to be effective.
A naval technician can use the same list to deliver an excellent technical presentation on one of a naval ship's systems. Because of this, there's a good transfer of experience from one career.
Naval technicians already think about systems and their subsystems. They're ready to hit the ground running when they join the tech industry.
Technical collaboration
I've often heard that the technical stuff is the easy part. The hard part is the communication around it.
Effective collaboration requires good communication. It is necessary when:
- You're pair programming with your colleagues.
- You're trying to gather a client's requirements.
- You're trying to share obstacles to progress.
It's even required for job interviews. Job candidates can fail because of their lack of communication and collaboration during coding challenges.
Collaboration only sometimes occurs synchronously or verbally. Learning to write and share good meeting notes ensures everyone can access the same information. A tech professional can capture knowledge transfer and design decisions through documentation. Issues and the desired outcomes are helpful when added to tickets.
Naval technicians are familiar with different forms of communication up and down their chain of command. They improve their soft skills through presentations and walkthroughs to earn their qualifications. On top of that, they learn to follow writing guides for memos, briefings, performance reports, and so on.
Summary
A naval weapons engineering technician acquires effective communication skills and deep knowledge of various systems throughout their career.
They develop these skills through technical presentations on the ship's equipment and various walkthroughs.
These skills transfer to the tech industry, where learning about complicated systems is required. Furthermore, the tech industry needs effective communicators who understand the technical side and can translate it for other departments.
To read part one of this series, check out this post.
To read part two of this series, check out this post.
What do you think about the transferable experience between careers? Let me know in the comments, or connect with me on LinkedIn.