Meet Aamir Rehman, MTM Class of 2024
What is your academic and work background?
I was a mechanical engineering major at UC Santa Barbara. My capstone project was making a vacuum chamber that tested infrared sensors. It was an aerospace project and I did a couple aerospace internships during my time at UCSB as well. Then I went on to do the Master of Technology Management program. While I was there, I also was working part-time at a renewable energy startup. Then I moved to San Francisco and I got a job as a technical project manager at a satellite company, and I really enjoyed that.
Why did you join the MTM program?
I think I wasn't exactly sure what I wanted to do at the end of undergraduate. I hadn't really felt: "This is really what I want to do." I knew doing the MTM program I'd get exposure to basically every aspect of how a business works. So I really enjoyed that, and it helped me narrow down the possibilities. I got to take finance, strategy, and communication and figure out where I see myself fitting in, and then play to my strengths. I found my strengths always to be technical communication, working across teams, and then I was able to find a role in that.
I was ready to work, but I was wanting to get a little bit more exposure to a lot of different things before I started working. I thought the MTM program was cool because it's a one-year program, and you get exposure to a broad range of subjects. I loved UCSB, and I was very happy to stay at UCSB for another year. I was choosing between a job and the MTM program and I chose to do the MTM program for one year. I actually turned that job into a part-time internship, so I got the best of both worlds.
What was your MTM field project and how did you benefit from the experience?
I did a project with Teledyne FLIR in Santa Barbara. They are the largest manufacturer of infrared cameras in the world. It was very useful, it definitely helped me get my job. Because I was doing project management at this very large aerospace manufacturing company, I learned a lot about manufacturing processes, project management, and development cycle processes for aerospace products, and that I used directly in my interviews to get my job in San Francisco. Taking a large role in the field project was very useful for my career development and I would recommend it.
How do you use what you learned in MTM in your current position?
When I joined as a project manager, I used a lot of skills that I learned in the program. Negotiation was one. I do a lot of talking to vendors, customers, and engineering teams. My job spans the whole company. I talk to executives, so every day I'm using what I learned in negotiation. As for finance, I do a lot of budgeting, keeping track of the schedule for the project, the budget, the development. I'm using a lot of negotiation, project management, finance, and that really supplemented my mechanical engineering background.
How does MTM prepare you to be a project manager?
When I joined, they put me on a team that was more matched to my skill set. I was doing project management for the mechanical, thermal, and propulsion team for our satellites. My background was mechanical engineering, and when I worked at a startup during my time during MTM, I was working on a lot of fluid electromechanical control stuff. Naturally, most of my responsibility when I was at Astranis in San Francisco was project management for the propulsion system on our satellite. In my role, it was oriented toward my skill set, but then also being in the MTM program, you work with a lot of different teams, and I had that skill set of being able to interface with people where sometimes I didn't really completely understand what I was working with. I was able to talk to engineers and then go back and forth and figure out the problem. I found the MTM degree to be really valuable in terms of being able to communicate with a lot of different types of people. Even if you don't understand something, you learn how to digest it, simplify it, and then talk to other teams about it.
What does your typical work day look like?
I live in San Francisco and it is great because I get to bike to work every day. So I bike to work, then I probably have a meeting with our team early on in the day, an hour to check in with all the different teams' progress, then various meetings with the different functional teams that I'm working with. Either it's meeting with the propulsion team, meeting with the mechanical team, or meeting with the thermal team. I’m probably also going to the machine shop. We're one of the few companies in San Francisco that manufactures parts, so I work with the machine shop to see how the parts are getting built or being built. From a project manager perspective, it's a lot of meetings, cross-functional communication, working with supply chain, working with manufacturing, and working with engineering teams. Having been in more technical roles before, those are pretty different – you get your task and then you work on it for the whole day, and then you check in with your manager, and you keep working on that task. But in project management, it's a lot of meeting with different teams, trying to get the project done, going to the shop floor, to the engineering floor, and working with vendors. So it’s pretty different day-to-day.
What do you like most about your job?
I always felt like that was my skill – interpersonal communication. As an example, one of our customers was an Asian telecommunications company, so it was really cool to have this experience of meeting with people from another country, explaining how our product worked, showing how we were meeting all their technical requirements, and working across the engineering team and their executive team. As a project manager, I really love meeting people from across all different teams. I've gotten to meet people from different countries, and I've gotten to work across the executive team all the way down to the engineering team, and getting to see the whole business as it runs. I've really enjoyed that aspect of project management.
What advice do you have for success in the MTM program?
For success during MTM, I really enjoyed the program because I found a good group of people, and it's very project-based, so it was nice to have my group of people to do projects with. It is very collaborative. The nice part about MTM is you get exposed to a lot of people from different backgrounds during the program. It's nice to network within the program and see what you all have done, learn about people's experiences, which helps inform you about where you want to go yourself.
In terms of general advice, I feel like it really helps to have a story. So I had this story where I did mechanical engineering. I really liked the project management aspect, leading my capstone project. So I chose to do the MTM program because I really liked the project management aspect of leading an engineering team and working across teams. I had done aerospace and I worked at startups, which was also part of my story. When you find a job that matches that story, it's hard for them to say no to you. So really thinking about what you enjoy, what are your strengths and crafting your story about this is what I want to do. It becomes very compelling.
When you're doing your undergrad degree, it's hard to figure out what you want to do. It's hard to have time to even do stuff outside of your normal engineering classes. During the year of MTM you are getting exposure to a lot of different stuff, figuring out what you want to do, narrowing down your story and where you want to go from there.
What did you enjoy about going to graduate school in Santa Barbara?
I love Santa Barbara. That's why I stayed for five years. I was on the track team, it is a beautiful place to run. It’s a beautiful place to go to the beach every day. I loved living in Isla Vista. I miss it. I still visit once in a while. The weather is much better than San Francisco weather for sure. I miss everything about it. Enjoy it while it lasts!