Development and Engineering

Radek Smolka,
Manager, System Design Engineering

I’ve been working at Thermo Fisher for more than 15 years. Currently, I’m a System Design Engineering Manager. What does it mean? I’m responsible for a team of people, I’m in charge of technical project management, and I work as a system engineer. I’m looking after the development of one of our most advanced devices – the Helios Plasma FIB. My colleagues and I get assignments from individual marketing departments, from Service and Manufacturing, we add some of our ideas and then we present them for the specifications of future models. Together with the project manager, I set out the plan, assign particular tasks, and see that they’re performed within the required deadline. What I like about my job is being able to work with really state-of-the-art products. I won’t say that every day is different, but the truth is that one day I’ll be solving firmware, another vacuums, and the day after developing a new procedure for acquiring lamellae for TEMs. In this work it’s important to be yourself, to think, and to be daring. They don’t teach you at school most of what we do here. Although education is really important, here it’s the ability to combine individual disciplines that matters.

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Jan Jíša,
Physicist

I’m a physicist specializing in particle optics, and I work with transmission electron microscopes (TEMs). This involves the necessity of understanding these devices in physical and technical terms. The work is quite varied – collecting data from microscopes, creating corresponding theoretical models and simulations, proposing experiments to verify their properties, writing up procedures for their correct adjustment, or cooperating with the automation team and transferring the knowledge into software. I especially like three things: first, a great deal of physics is involved in TEMs and must all somehow work together in one machine, which is a real challenge. Electricity and magnetism, mechanics and optics, material physics, and a lot more besides. Second, we’ve assembled a bunch of great people cooperating here all together – clever, willing, and fun to be with. Third, I feel that what I do matters. We develop devices here which push the boundaries of human knowledge, and this is time well spent.

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Eva Šťastná,
Applications Manager

I started working in Thermo Fisher as an applications engineer, which meant that my job was to know the customer requirements, meet their expectations and needs, and search out the limits of our microscopes. Thanks to that position, I spent a lot of time working directly with the microscope, which has fascinated me ever since. Later, I was promoted and became an applications manager, and my role expanded to include managing part of the applications team. I acquired a better overview of the portfolio of our microscopes, and more generally about the direction in which electron microscopy is heading. We have a great team at Thermo Fisher and everyone is supportive and friendly. I appreciate this as much as the interesting work – it’s the people who make our working environment unique.

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