Joining a small team as an early-career engineer

Written by: Danielle

I joined VTI as a software engineer shortly after finishing my master’s coursework in computational linguistics early this year. Working with VTI was an exciting opportunity to contribute to safety-critical language technology in aviation, a domain with so many interesting linguistic and technical challenges. Looking back over the past six months, one of the things I’ve appreciated most is what it means to work on a small team.

Being part of a close-knit engineering group has given me the opportunity to wear many different hats and contribute far beyond a single niche. From brainstorming experiments and evaluating speech recognition models to building visualization tools and wrangling machine learning infrastructure, every project has been an opportunity to learn something new. That variety has helped me develop both confidence and technical breadth far more quickly than I expected. On a small team, everyone has the opportunity to contribute and explore.

Just as importantly, VTI’s values have shaped the way I’ve grown as an engineer. Slow is Smooth reminds us that taking the time to understand a problem leads to better long-term solutions and creates space to ask questions, improve, and learn from mistakes. Experimentation Fuels Growth encourages curiosity and gives us the freedom to test ideas, learn from the results, and keep iterating. Finally, Embrace Pack Mentality is the value I deal with most directly every day. Learning so many new skills wouldn't have been possible without amazing teammates who are so generous with their knowledge and their time.

These values aren’t just slogans, they really capture what it means to be a VTI engineer. Working on a small team means there's always someone willing to share their knowledge, or help work through a difficult problem. The enthusiasm for curiosity, exploration and teamwork is what makes VTI such a rewarding place to grow.