Meet our Industry Person of the Week, Florencia Grosso, Business Director for Americas at Ekumen.
Q: How did you get started working in your field?
Florencia: As an Electronics Engineer, my passion is to solve problems and change people’s lives through it. I started my career oriented to Biomedical Engineering, applying what I learnt at University to the medical field. My Master’s thesis was a device which could move a virtual mouse cursor through electrooculogram signals, powered by the use of neural networks. Later on, life presented me with an opportunity to join Ekumen, a company that provides engineering services for robotics and XR from Latin America to the world. The idea of being able to work on cutting-edge technologies that have an impact on our current and future life from my home country seemed fascinating to me. I wanted to drive change, but I wanted to do it from my community. I started as a very Junior Engineer at this company which helped other companies develop their software stack, and I had little expertise on that (I was a hardware engineer). I was afraid of the challenge, and most times felt like I wouldn’t make it, but I still faced it with all the tools I had. And the ones that my colleagues helped me acquire on the way. I’ve been in robotics for 8 years now. I went from Junior Engineer to Semi-Senior, contributing as a developer to robotics projects and then also as a Project Lead. The biggest project I had so far and that I recently wrapped up was a robotics platform called InOrbit. I’ve performed different roles there, but the ones I enjoyed the most were being the ROS and robotics expert working on new features and also a customer success engineer helping with their onboarding to the platform and fixing any issues they reported. As I grew I realized that I liked leading teams and being a multiplier, I liked to share my experience and help others develop their own. This took me to a stronger leadership role. Nowadays, I’m the Business Director for Americas at Ekumen, leading a team of talented people ready to help robotics companies get their robot stack up and running.
Q: What do you love the most about your job? What are you most proud of?
Florencia: I could say I’m a leader who enjoys guiding others by example, always acquainted with what’s in the forefront of my field, and focused on helping a team grow. I love being able to multiply my knowledge, expertise and energy by helping others succeed. With time I learnt that you can give much more if you equip your team with the tools they need to tackle problems by themselves rather than sharing the solutions. I enjoy the small wins in everyday life: a bug solved, a feature completed, a client happy, a teammate achieving their goal. One of the things that makes my job special is the people that I work with. I feel inspired by talented engineers who take complex issues and split them into smaller chunks, solving them one at a time. I find that one of the most exciting parts of being an engineer is to let your creativity flow and see a problem from different angles, getting that spark in your eyes when you come up with ideas to tackle it. I’m proud of the leader I became, and my eagerness to keep growing. When I look back, I’m also proud of how I jumped into new challenges and fought the fear I had to become a better version of myself, looking for feedback and also backing up on my team to push myself further. I enjoy what I do, and continuously look for ways to do it better.
Q: What advice would you give to someone considering this line of work or new to the field?
Florencia: I would just say: don’t take no for an answer (especially your own “I can’t do it”) and go for it. The robotics field is so wide that if you are willing to get into it you will surely find that spot where you realize you can make a difference. It may take you more or less time, but trust me, you’ll get there. Combine the talent you may have with commitment: train, learn, ask for feedback and find your ways to improve. At least I learnt not to take things for granted and to keep looking for opportunities to grow. Now as a senior leader I value each time I see someone who is always open to new ideas, who sits down and learns about new topics they need to know about to tackle a problem, and understands that they need to start with a strong base they can continue to build on top. It’s not a sprint, it’s a marathon (and one that you should enjoy!). Just keep in mind that you don’t have to always do everything on your own. Look for support, mentors, scholarships and other opportunities that can boost your career. Knock on doors, you’ll be surprised about the great people who will get back to you and offer a hand.
Q: Can you talk about a project you recently worked on?
Florencia: As an engineer at a company that provides software services, I was assigned to a specific client robotics project until recently. I started with them as a very Junior Engineer, and grew in my career with them as well. The client is called InOrbit (this is something we don’t usually disclose but it’s OK with them), and they offer a scalable, cloud based robot management platform that enables robotics companies and their customers to develop, deploy and operate smart robots at global scale. I’ve contributed to this project as a software engineer, interfacing with different types of robots to get the key information that should help robot operators understand their fleet status, and quickly spot unhealthy robots that need intervention. Similarly, part of my job was to enable executing actions on the robots in response to a given issue. This sounds pretty simple described in a paragraph but it requires careful understanding of what you are doing, getting familiar with the different types of robots that are around and the way they communicate (do they use ROS? ROS 2? a custom API?) and making sure that your solution will adapt as much as possible to the variety of applications these robots run. Through the years I’ve seen robotics development evolve, and with that some problems have been sorted out while new ones appeared (how do I manage an heterogeneous fleet effectively? how do I coordinate them to execute a given task?). What I liked the most about this project was that I got the chance to play the detective and solve problems that came up. Because whether it’s a new feature or a bug, you need to sit down with the task you have at hand, split it into different pieces and solve the puzzle in a robust way.
Q: Anything else you would like to add?
Florencia: I’m one of the many engineers working in robotics far away from the tech capitals, and as such, I believe that I need to help make what we do more visible. It’s amazing to see such talented and experienced professionals in Latin America who are in constant push to build new technology and be part of the industry. This is inspiring for current and future generations who may not be aware that they do have an opportunity to work as an engineer from wherever they are. So, if you are reading this from somewhere in the world far away from the tech capitals, please know that there might be a chance for you to still make a difference. And if you are already in the epicenter of technology, you can become a bridge for these communities to connect. Diversity in any industry is critical because it allows us to drive better solutions (different ideas, ways of seeing and solving a problem, variety of problems to be solved). Lastly, if you are specifically in Argentina, my colleague Belen Torres and I have applied to start the first chapter of Women In Robotics in our country. So please reach out to us in case you’d like to be part of it, we’d love to have you!
Connect with Florencia on LinkedIn.
THANK YOU, FLORENCIA! WE LOOK FORWARD TO KEEPING UP WITH YOU THROUGH THE #PUMPTALK COMMUNITY!
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