Welcome to a special episode of the "Being an Engineer" podcast, marking the beginning of our new "Open to Work" series. Part of the stated purpose of the BAE podcast is to “connect with the companies, technologies, people, resources, and opportunities featured on our show.” In alignment with that purpose, my goal for this open to work series is to provide a platform for engineers who are currently seeking new opportunities, sharing their experiences and insights in an open and candid manner to connect these talented professionals with our community of listeners who may be able to offer support or job leads
Our first guest in this series is Erica Kahn, she is here to share her journey, discuss the challenges of being unexpectedly out of work, and provide valuable insights that can benefit engineers who may find themselves in a similar situation.
We are honored to have her kick off this important series. Through her candid discussion, we hope to provide not only a connection for Erica but also a source of inspiration and practical advice for our listeners.
Main Topics:
Erica's work developing hydrogel technologies for eyecare
Creativity in engineering
Coping with job loss
Leveraging her network
Career development after being laid off
About the guest: Erica Kahn, is a highly accomplished biomedical engineer with a wealth of experience in the medical device industry. Erica previously worked for Ocular Therapeutix, where she made significant contributions to the development of innovative hydrogel technologies for ocular applications.
The Being An Engineer podcastis a repository for industry knowledge and a tool through which engineers learn about and connect with relevant companies, technologies, people resources, and opportunities. We feature successful mechanical engineers and interview engineers who are passionate about their work and who made a great impact on the engineering community.
The Being An Engineer podcast is brought to you by Pipeline Design & Engineering. Pipeline partners with medical & other device engineering teams who need turnkey equipment such as cycle test machines, custom test fixtures, automation equipment, assembly jigs, inspection stations and more. You can find us on the web at www.teampipeline.us
Welcome to a special episode of the "Being an Engineer" podcast, marking the beginning of our new "Open to Work" series. Part of the stated purpose of the BAE podcast is to “connect with the companies, technologies, people, resources, and opportunities featured on our show.” In alignment with that purpose, my goal for this open to work series is to provide a platform for engineers who are currently seeking new opportunities, sharing their experiences and insights in an open and candid manner to connect these talented professionals with our community of listeners who may be able to offer support or job leads
Our first guest in this series is Erica Kahn, she is here to share her journey, discuss the challenges of being unexpectedly out of work, and provide valuable insights that can benefit engineers who may find themselves in a similar situation.
We are honored to have her kick off this important series. Through her candid discussion, we hope to provide not only a connection for Erica but also a source of inspiration and practical advice for our listeners.
Main Topics:
Erica's work developing hydrogel technologies for eyecare
Creativity in engineering
Coping with job loss
Leveraging her network
Career development after being laid off
About the guest: Erica Kahn, is a highly accomplished biomedical engineer with a wealth of experience in the medical device industry. Erica previously worked for Ocular Therapeutix, where she made significant contributions to the development of innovative hydrogel technologies for ocular applications.
The Being An Engineer podcastis a repository for industry knowledge and a tool through which engineers learn about and connect with relevant companies, technologies, people resources, and opportunities. We feature successful mechanical engineers and interview engineers who are passionate about their work and who made a great impact on the engineering community.
The Being An Engineer podcast is brought to you by Pipeline Design & Engineering. Pipeline partners with medical & other device engineering teams who need turnkey equipment such as cycle test machines, custom test fixtures, automation equipment, assembly jigs, inspection stations and more. You can find us on the web at www.teampipeline.us
Erica Kahn:
I had seen you know, people in my industry getting laid off for many years and I kind of built the Superman complex like oh, never happened to me like I'm I'm special, and let it did
Aaron Moncur:
Hello, and welcome to a special episode of The being an engineer podcast, marking the beginning of a new open to work series. Part of the stated purpose of the being an engineer podcast is to connect with the company's technologies, people, resources and opportunities featured on the show. So in alignment with that purpose, my goal for this open to work series is to provide a platform for engineers who are currently seeking new opportunities, sharing their experiences and insights in an open and candid manner to connect these talented professionals with our community of listeners who may be able to offer support or job leads. Our first guest in this series is Erica Khan, a highly accomplished biomedical engineer with a wealth of experience in the medical device industry. Erica previously worked for ocular therapeutics, where she made significant contributions to the development of innovative hydrogel technologies for ocular applications. Today, she's here to share her journey, discuss the challenges of being unexpectedly out of work and provide valuable insights that can benefit engineers who may find themselves in a similar situation. We are honored to have her kick off this important series and through her candid discussion, we hope to provide not only a connection for Erica, but also a source of inspiration and practical advice for everyone listening. So with that, Erica, thank you so much for being on the show today.
Erica Kahn:
Yeah, thank you for having me.
Aaron Moncur:
Okay, I'm super excited about this episode. This is the first one that we've ever done in this open torque series. And my deep, deep hope is that, you know, we're all engineers here listening to the podcast producing the podcast. And my hope is that we'll listen to the guests, you being the first one, and maybe think to ourselves, oh, I just heard about an opening for a role that has, you know, Erica has exact qualifications or someone at my company or someone else that I heard about, and it will lead to a connection that leads to a job. And at the same time, we're going to get to hear from your experiences and your insights, which are going to be, you know, on their own right, helpful for other engineers who are listening to this episode. So with that, I will start with a question that I always start with, and that is what made you decide to become an engineer?
Unknown:
Wpw, that's a good question. Actually answer that on my college ethic application you right? Where my first answer is that as a six year old, I built this Lego City where I had these gondolas connecting my bed to my desk, and my little Lego, people could get around and use state of the art technology that I was a little kid invented. I've always been pretty creative, and I've liked to build things. And I didn't really know any engineers growing up, but I always was thought I'd be something in the medical community, like my dad was a doctor, and he really was a big influence growing up. And yeah, so combining that interest of building things and medical science that sort of led me to biomedical engineering.
Aaron Moncur:
Love it, man, these are classic answers. It's Legos and influence from a family member. Those are like the two most common answers that we get. So classic upbringing in your engineering background. So let's talk a little bit about ocular therapeutics where you weren't for what was it seven or eight years? Something like that? Yeah,
Erica Kahn:
it'll be eight years and August. Well, it's finally.
Aaron Moncur:
Right. Okay, such as it is, would have been eight years. So can you tell us of course, without like sharing anything confidential. But can you tell us about any of the projects that you worked on there?
Unknown:
Yeah, for sure. So I was mostly in the research and development group. So we worked on really early stage technologies, using our hydrogel platform to deliver different kinds of therapeutics to the eye. So, so my team is really focused on treating macular degeneration, using a small molecule, a tyrosine kinase inhibitor. This is all public knowledge. So it's okay to say, and I kind of was really lucky that I got to see a project go from benchtop to scale up to clinical manufacturing, all the way through the clinical pipeline. So that was really a great experience. And it's, it's rare, I think, In all of r&d, maybe 5% of projects, make it to the big leagues, make it till the clinical studies. So getting to be really intimately involved in that project was a gift in a way.
Aaron Moncur:
Very cool. Can you tell us what, what is macular degeneration? Like? I mean, I'm familiar with the term, but honestly, I don't really know what it is. It's a degradation of eyesight, I guess. But like behind that, you know, what's happening in the body?
Erica Kahn:
I think you got the gist of it with the breakdown. Yeah. So basically, there's leaky blood vessels in the back of the eye, this is her wet Bandy. Because there's dry and wet, we were after the webcast, and the leaky blood vessels, kind of insulting this pool of blood that makes the central vision obscured in patients. And they tend to lose that, you know, middle central vision, focus, which is really problematic, since you know, it's, it's a little more easy to detect with glaucoma is the opposite. It's, it works on the outside in where the higher internal ocular pressure kind of causes that vision loss on the outside. But yeah, that generation is on the inside out.
Aaron Moncur:
So leaky blood vessels leads to blood pooling in the center of the eye that blocks the vision and the center of the eye. And what what what are the treatments for that? How do you resolve it?
Erica Kahn:
Yeah, so that's currently treatments that are every month or a little bit, you basically get these needle injections, intravitreal injections to the back of the eye. And they give these no treatments like eylea, and others that are basically anti VEGF therapies. So VEGF is vascular endothelial growth factor. And the anti VEGF blocks that from happening, so vascular vessels, you're trying to block new vessels from forming. And that treatment works pretty well in a lot of patients. But it's a constant burden for patients to come in every month or every six weeks. And these are easily elderly patients that have trouble getting to the doctor. So oculars vision was pun intended with the vision. What to to reduce that patient burden and to, you know, have one injection that gives you six months, nine months of treatment, where you don't have to keep retraining over and over.
Aaron Moncur:
Cool, very cool. I am not familiar with ophthalmology, really, at all. So I imagined that there are some factors to consider when developing devices for ophthalmology that, you know, are different from developing a laparoscopic instrument for hernia repair, or something like that in different parts of the other parts of the body. What are some critical factors that you and your team needed to keep in mind as you developed this, this new device?
Erica Kahn:
Yeah, that's a good question. It's adopted engineering kind of perspective, like, what are the constraints on this equation? What are the things? Right? So one of them is that the I can't really clear foreign particulate very well. So any little bits of particle were endotoxins, which are breakdown products of bacteria. Those really cause a big inflammatory response in the eye. So that's one of the biggest things that we have to keep an eye out for another one.
Aaron Moncur:
Okay, since we're on vision punster I have to show one, that's pretty good. I do jujitsu and there's a guy who trains at our gym and he's blind. He has been blind, since birth, as I understand it, completely blind, not just like, partially. And so the coach will often show us a technique to drill on inhibit, like, does everyone got that? And, and this blind guy will always say something like, Oh, can you show me that again? Or yeah, I need to see it again. And it's like, at first we weren't, we weren't sure if we should laugh or if he was being serious, but yeah, he's just making jokes.
Erica Kahn:
I mean, that's, that's the best if you could make light of the situation. You know, totally. When you can't cry. I like to laugh.
Aaron Moncur:
There you go. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Okay, so you and I, when we talked about potentially doing this interview, we talked about a few of our like strengths as engineers and whether they be highly technical or more kind of like on the organization, or communication side of things, and I know for me, like the technical side of things. I'm probably just barely good enough. But I'm much stronger when it comes to communication and organization, community building culture, those are really the things that I'm best at. So what about you where what do you see your, your your your biggest strengths as As an engineer?
Erica Kahn:
Yeah, that's a good question. I mean, I think you're selling yourself a little short, I think the soft skills are often undervalued, especially in the engineering community. So I think that's a really important. I think my greatest strength would be creativity. I guess. The other I worked with this, the Chief Scientific Officer at Oculus therapeutics peecher taught me to draw inspiration from other fields, like there was this project where we were trying to figure out how to stretch and elongate these strands of hydrogel. And he sent me all these videos from candy can make candy cane making, like the show that have a heat and stretch. And it's really all the same, you know, quarters of operations just apply to different fields. And I think that that kind of mindset of that perspective, is really helpful when you're trying to design a product or solve a new kind of problem.
Aaron Moncur:
That's a powerful tool, right? Being able to take an application from one genre, and then apply it to another one, probably one that's far underutilized. So being able to skillfully do that I can see as being highly valuable, valuable, also, it totally jives, that you have strong skills in creativity. Because in r&d, it's really about being creative, right? It's you're starting with a blank piece of paper, you don't have a map to the finish line, and you need to be creative and just figure things out. So I think that engineers who are very creative often do well, in r&d, which sounds like was the case for you as well.
Erica Kahn:
Yeah. And I think that's true. Yeah, no, it's not everyone has that mindset and are gonna be like, it's it is scary. Sometimes, like you said that the blank sheet of paper, it's, this has never been done before. Where do you start? And I just love that. I feel like it's really motivating where it's just seeing what you can come up with. And it's all on you to solve this problem. And you can't just copy a procedure that's out there and literature, you could you couldn't be inspired by things that happen that are similar. But I think I just love that is almost like a you're competing with yourself. I guess I'm kind of very competitive to that. That feeling. I'm like driving to succeed on this new challenge. Guys,
Aaron Moncur:
do you find that you're more competitive with others or with yourself?
Erica Kahn:
I think when it comes to my career, it's myself. I hope, maybe on the softball field, it's with others. Oh,
Aaron Moncur:
interesting. Okay, we're getting a new flavor of Erica here on the softball field. Awesome. Love it. Going back to ocular therapeutics, you worked on hydrogel technologies for eyecare. Again, if you can, is there nonconfidential things you can share? Is there like maybe a project or an aspect of a project that you can share? And like what its impact on patient outcomes was? And also what that what the heck is a hydrogel?
Erica Kahn:
That's a good question. Yeah, so a hydrogel is mostly made of water, there's a little bit of polymer in there. And Polymer is just another word for plastic I get a lot of engineers know what polymers are. So your audience probably knows that. But basically, the the benefit of a hydrogel and the body is that it's because it's like 90% or more water. That's the same makeup of ourselves in our tissues. So when the body sees that, you know, spongy texture, it, it's less, you know, there's less of a foreign body response, basically,
Aaron Moncur:
which you mentioned, is really critical in ophthalmology,
Erica Kahn:
right? Right. That's something that we will often use with our competitive intelligence at ocular like to try to say our competitors were using different kinds of polymers that weren't hydrogel holes, and what were the pros and cons of that. Nice. Yeah, the other question was a, like an innovative way to help a project that helps patients in some way. And so I think that one of the ones that came to mind is, we had this problem and then this was the slowest. This was our clinical trial, we had this formulation that was three implants instead of you kind of prefer one injection, especially when it's a needle open to the eye. So it wasn't we're kind of doing like a dose escalation to see what the minimal dose you needed to get the effect once and it seemed as we went higher and higher, we kept getting better efficacy signals, where the blood pulling the back of the eye was decrease, like you can kind of measure it using imaging technology to see that thickness and formulation challenge was okay, great. Three of them were trying to figure out how to get into one implant. So that was always it's always do the impossible. Make the biggest product that seems really challenging to make and kind of leverage. Again, I'm gonna go to my this guy picture at the CSO, he really inspired me in a lot of ways. He taught me about this modeling you could do, it's called the Higuchi kinetics basically, plus this guy, Nick Pappas also added to that, but you can predict how a drug will release from a hydrogel or any implant really, based on the solubility of the drug, the surface area of the implant and the concentration of the drug, as well as a few other things. But using this model, we can kind of, you know, do a doe almost without even making any hydrogel. So just kind of a cool, I was used to like easily using my hands and making a bunch of gels and Union Beach, early studies and seeing where that kind of, but this leveraging this model really helps, because it's hard to run in vivo studies and get that really important, you know, pharmacokinetic data. But this was a way to kind of bypass that. And we didn't really have time to do another animal study, we had to make a decision really fast, because the next clinical trial was about to start. And we actually made the right call. And I think we ended up picking a really good formulation, use some of the data that my team generated along with this model to sort of find the best possible products. And that's the one that's doing forward into the next month of trial now. Very
Aaron Moncur:
cool. That's a perfect topic, to segue into the next question, which is what what's one thing that you've done to accelerate the speed of engineering? And it sounds like that was an experience where you did kind of accelerate the speed? So maybe if you could talk about like, at a high level, what what was the I don't know that the workflow or the process behind that that particular application? And how could other engineering teams apply that to accelerate the speed of their projects? Or if that just doesn't work? That connection isn't quite right, for whatever reason, maybe there's another experience you have where you could talk to about accelerating the speed of engineering?
Erica Kahn:
Yeah, and I think that was a good example, like you said, because you're running these animal studies usually takes us a year, because it's a long, you know, sustained delivery therapies, they inherently take a long time to study in vivo. So I think the way to accelerate, it's not everyone will take model data, and have it have the same weight as a preclinical study, and being able to have enough, you know, scientific acumen behind you to get people to really believe you that it's, you know, that that was actually one of the biggest challenges, I think, is getting everyone in the room, to trust the science and to make the leap. So I think that's one of the things you need for that for, really, to accelerate any kind of project is, you know, an open mindset in your team. Because I think that's often the problem, at least, that I've seen in in the room. Some people have this great idea, but others are very adamantly sure has to be done this way. So I guess maybe building a team that is open minded, I think it's another way so that when this kind of technology comes like this cool modeling that you can do with a lot of different fields of engineering, and having it, you know, be used and integrated.
Aaron Moncur:
I love what you're saying there. I think it's super interesting. Presumably, maybe I'm wrong here. But presumably, the people, quote unquote, in the room, the stakeholders on your project, were technical people, you know, maybe some of them were marketing. Some of them were business, but there were a lot of technical people there, including leadership, I'm sure who had to make the final call is, as far as Yeah, we'll use this model data as opposed to just going out and getting all empirical clinical study data. Why do you think there was initially anyway, some reluctance to using for people to trust that model data, like you mentioned? And then how, what happened so that the team eventually was comfortable trusting that data? Yeah, that's
Erica Kahn:
a good question. I think some people there, maybe because of their training, they're taught to think a certain way about a certain field. It's, it's hard to sometimes change minds and to convince, you know, that's the nature of this job. While the time is I haven't said to you that you have this idea. How do we come together and whose idea is the right one. But I think, because like these concepts were cited in the literature, you know that that was one thing that helped. And also, we kind of ended up picking both in when I look back on it like we we did use, we hedged our bets and used the, you know, what the model told us and then soared with that. And we did do a preclinical study on the side. But that study wasn't going to be done in time before the clinical trials started. So that was like, it was going to be there to try to confirm that we did. We chose the right thing that it if it wasn't the right choice, we already started the trials. I guess. In the end, it really was.
Aaron Moncur:
Nice. But you use the model data to get a head start on the final outcome. Yeah, yeah. Cool. Very cool. All right. So let me take a very short break here and share with the listeners that the being an engineer podcast is brought to you by pipeline design and engineering, where we don't do pipelines. But we do help companies develop advanced manufacturing processes, automated machines, and custom fixtures complemented with product design, and r&d services. Learn more at Team pipeline.us. The podcast is also sponsored by the wave, an online platform of free tools, education and community for engineers learn more at the wave dot engineer. Today, we're speaking with Erica Khan. So Erica, let's let's talk about being out of work and looking for your next opportunity. I have been there myself, it is a scary and vulnerable time. I remember when I got laid off, I walked, I went home. And I remember leaning against the doorframe in into our bedroom and just kind of standing there and telling my wife I got laid off. And I'm not sure like what I'm going to do to pay the mortgage. And you know, all these questions, and I have this very visceral memory of that. And I felt ill sick to my stomach for a couple of days. And then after a couple of days, I you know, I guess I started getting used to the new reality. And I didn't at least feel sick to my stomach. But it was, it was an awful experience for me, and I didn't enjoy it at all. So can you walk us through if you're open to being a little vulnerable with us, walk us through your initial reactions and kind of how you've been coping with this transition? Yeah,
Erica Kahn:
yeah, I guess. But leading up to the actual layout that there were some signals, I guess there usually are, yeah, like we had a change in senior leadership, we had, you know, a new team that was going to focus the company on getting us to the finish line. That often means getting rid of r&d, because we kind of did our job in a way. Yeah, if you're looking back, it kind of makes sense. In some ways, but yeah, my my first reaction was similar to yours, where I was just, you know, heartbroken, just upset and like, I felt betrayed, like, I spent all these years working on this product, especially because my team was so focused on the main pipeline project, that's the one that they're gonna focus on doing. And it did help we, we got laid off at like, 9am. And then at 11am, the whole r&d team went to yard house and got some drinks, which is nice. That's part of Yeah, it's part of the grieving process, you know, there's an alcohol.
Aaron Moncur:
Of course, yeah, gotta be.
Erica Kahn:
But after that, yeah, there's the shock started to fade, but after a couple of days, and I realized they had this severance. And I had, you know, and I'm lucky in that not everyone gets a pretty generous severance. But after being an ocular for eight years, you know, I basically have like four months to find a new job. And then I kind of thought more about how I, I really had learned most of what I could have learned at ocular and it's probably the best for my career to, you know, go find a new challenge. And I think that's really the the takeaway for me, I'm really going to miss the people. I mean, especially in the r&d team, it was this really great mix of scientists who were really, really smart, but also just really fun and good people. You know, they they all just really, everyone was willing to drop everything and help others. It was always like a fun environment in the lab. So that is not the most, but yeah, yeah, so I think I kind of went through Yeah, and I go, I go back and forth between shock and gratitude. And then, you know, fear that like, what if I don't get a new job? All those emotions kind of cycle around every couple hours? What just happened? Like, two weeks ago, basically. Yeah. Well,
Aaron Moncur:
that's, I think, a very, very normal and natural set of reactions and the gratitude that you feel I think that's such a healthy way to think about it, not just the gratitude, but the fact that, you know, I probably learned at 90% of what I was going to learn there and so maybe this is a good thing, right? One door closes before another can open. So I love the the mindset that you've adopted, they're very healthy.
Erica Kahn:
At least that's what I tell people it may be saying, like gratitude is like coming to the top is my best emotion right now. That's maybe internally follow that.
Aaron Moncur:
And that would also be totally normal and natural. I just I think it's really cool that you are willing to talk about this openly because it's it's, you know, there's I think maybe a little bit stigma is not quite the right word. I should have said astigmatism that would have been a good ophthalmology. Dzhokhar bam. Yeah.
Erica Kahn:
I shouldn't be too.
Aaron Moncur:
But we so many of us go through this, right? It's not like, you know, being laid off is one in a million. It's probably more like one in honor. No, I wanted to probably 50% of the people out there have been laid off at some point in time, or maybe more than that. So it's a very, very common thing. Not a pleasant thing, but common nonetheless. And we don't really talk about it very much. So I'm, I'm excited to do this series, and very grateful that you're willing to be the first one and open yourself up a little bit.
Erica Kahn:
Yeah, no, I think it's a good thing. Like you're saying to try to reverse some of that, like, negative emotion like, that people aren't supposed to talk about they got laid off. And yeah, you know, it's good that there is some shame in it, too. That's one of the emotions I didn't bring up like, Oh, yeah. I was like, did I deserve to be laid off? What's not doing enough? Like, that's always one of the thoughts too. And, and I think it's, you know, it's really rarely about the person, it's usually just the company's at a different stage and its growth and development. And, you know, it's absolutely, it's not about you, or like in the breakup. It's not you, it's me, you know, that's what ocular said to me.
Aaron Moncur:
Well, what were some of and I mean, it only happened two weeks ago. So you're probably your I would think for sure still in the phase of going through this, but what what are some of the steps that you have taken to position yourself for for new job opportunities?
Erica Kahn:
Yeah, I've been LinkedIn is kind of a very useful tool. I don't know how people found a job like 20 years ago, because right? Yeah, I guess they mailed resumes to companies. That's kind of a wild luck. But yeah, so I did the bat signal on LinkedIn, I said that the open to work and they have a nice little suggested template you could use for how you want to make connections and ask for advice. And if you have jobs, I forget the word that they use. But but that was really helpful, actually, because a lot of people, even without me having to ask, were just like, hey, I have a job for you. I had this my company's hiring. Like, I want to try to help you let me know if you're interested. And people that I, you know, I used to work with ocular people I used to work with I had this Co Op agenda plan, Sanofi A while back, it's just people that I went to school with a lot of people are just, you know, really showing up for me in that way. And that's like, another time I'm feeling a lot of gratitude. Yeah, because it's humbling to get laid off. But then you get this like, outpouring of people trying to help you, which is feels really great.
Aaron Moncur:
That's so uplifting to hear. I love it, that you put it out there. Your community wrap their arms around you this wonderful supportive response. Being a little bit retrospective, that word retrospective.
Erica Kahn:
Sounds right. I'm not an English major. So
Aaron Moncur:
I'm not sure. But I think I think it's getting the thought across that I want to get anyway, thinking back a little bit. What what do you think that? Okay, I'll preface this by saying that, I don't know you very well. But we spoken a few times. And I think that you just seem like a delightful human being right, someone who was easy to talk to? Nice, right? Someone that I would enjoy working with? What what do you think that you have done in the past to elicit this wonderful reaction of support from your community? Because people could have chosen to be like, Oh, Erica is looking for a job? Well, I remember last year where that thing happened, and you're on your own Erica, but that was, that was not your experience. What do you think that you have garnered this support?
Erica Kahn:
Well, first off, but thank you for the compliment. That's very sweet of you. I guess. Yeah, I think a lot of people don't take those lessons from kindergarten through the with the rest of their life, you know, like, do unto others as a third, treat others the way you want to be treated, sharing and caring all those things. And I, I know that sounds kind of silly, but in a way, that's what I think I always go back to, which is, you know, these are humans that you're working with. They're not just like, I know, I could send this email and, you know, point out how you didn't listen to me the last meeting, and that's why we're going in a circle and it's like this really frustrating thing that you did to me, or I could say, Hey, I thought about this and these are some other ideas I have. What do you think, you know, just pretend it didn't happen? I don't know. It's it's hard. do that sometimes. But I think in front of ocular also was easy, cuz for the most part, everyone was really nice and really helpful. You know, I guess just kind of try to separate out, you know, those moments where people say things that are, yeah, a little more aggressive than the setting that needed it to be. And knowing that there's something else going on in their lives, it's making them stressed out, knowing it's, it's not me that's causing battle, I'm gonna try to let them, you know, work through that and not pile on to their stress. So I tried to have that mindset in those 10 roles, which,
Aaron Moncur:
again, what a healthy mindset to have. And I love that you brought up I think you called it skills from kindergarten or something to that effect. There's a CEO, named rich Sheridan who runs a company called Menlo innovations. He was a guest on the show a long time ago. And I've always been a fan of him. He calls them kindergarten skills. And I mean, basically exactly what you said. But he's, like, coined this term in his company kindergarten skills, and let's have good kindergarten skills. And he wrote a book not just about kindergarten skills, but that was part of the book of the culture that he's developed there. And they're so important, right? Like, they seem so I don't know, benign, but they're, they make a huge difference and, and how much people like you, and how much people like you makes a huge difference in the overall success that you achieve as a person. So soft skills, right. They're huge.
Erica Kahn:
Yeah, I think that's the field that you have to for sure. Because, again, in our limited interactions, like until you also really just genuinely care about other people. And that's, I think that's part of those kindergarten skills. You know.
Aaron Moncur:
Thankyou. Thank you. Yeah. Mostly engineers. If you're a doctor or lawyer, I don't care much about you. But engineers. Yeah, that's where my heart is.
Erica Kahn:
For that lawyer joke about the bus and how it drove off a cliff. I can't remember the GIF.
Aaron Moncur:
Okay. How has your perspective on on career and job security changed since being laid off? If at all? Yeah,
Erica Kahn:
I think I had seen, you know, people in my industry getting laid off for many years, and I kind of built the Superman complex, like, oh, never happened to me, like I'm, I'm special. That's, I'm invincible. And let it did. So. Now I'm kind of am thinking, choosing to be in r&d space is a risk. Because, you know, at the end of the day, it's an expense. You know, you're not making money from r&d, which is something that my mentor taught me at ocular when they started the Mentor Program. And yeah, shout out to Josh Reinhardt, great mentor, and, but also traveled got me ready for the idea that it might be laid off, because it really hadn't crossed my mind until our mentoring session started, like, three months ago or four months ago. So yeah, no, I think I still think it's worth it has fun, my best said ocular. I truly loved what I did, getting to the mix of chemistry and engineering problems. And the way it was this, I got to 3d print things in the lab and help big fixtures or help support the making the first generation injection device. Like all these things I wasn't really qualified to do, I just pursued them because I was interested. And I think it's hard to find that at like a later stage, you know, biotech sort of setting. So I think I think that the trade off is worth it. But I'm more aware that the layoff is something I should be thinking about and my job search, like, maybe look at how financially healthy the companies are that I'm applying. I might not have looked at that prior to this experience, or Yeah, you know, trying to figure out what the telltale signs of layoffs are, and seeing if I could predict them. future employers. Yep.
Aaron Moncur:
That's great. That's great. Well, looking to the future, what what kind of roles or opportunities or are you looking for and how do you think your skill set can benefit benefit the potential employers out there?
Erica Kahn:
Yeah. So So sort of, like I said, I guess I'm still focused on early stage, biotech company, you know, drug development, I really am interested in formulation, working with polymers to do sustained delivery of drugs, but really a new drug product that I think would be interesting. I'm also interested in the medical device side of things. So I've been considering making a shift and, you know, becoming be using the biomedical engineering degree and just doing the full on engineer. But yeah, so they're really anything and I think that the roles would be like formulation scientists or principal engineer, things like that. Got
Aaron Moncur:
it. Okay. Have any I know you've shared a little already, but any other advice that you might give to engineers Where are currently facing layoffs or were uncertain job markets? Yeah, I
Erica Kahn:
think, believe in yourself. I think at this moment, you're told not to do that. And it's, it can be like shaken to your core a little bit like, oh, wow, we weren't set my whole career leading up to this. I was doing so great. I had this whole, like, plan for my future. And that was gone. And also, I got some good advice, which is just to really, you know, take a second and really think, is this the path I want to stay on, if you could use this as an opportunity to make a pretty big change in your career. And then because I'm only two weeks out from a layoff, I haven't totally meditated on this idea as much. I think at some point, that's good advice. Because it's rare to get that moment in your life where you have a moment to kind of think, and not Yeah, in a rat on that treadmill of career in corporate world. And, you know, it's hard to have that second to really take a breath and figure out what you want. No, never
Aaron Moncur:
let a good crisis go to waste, right.
Erica Kahn:
Sounds like a good politician with that. I feel like it just made me think of how during every World War, the economy did really well. Because we got to sell. Like, I think that was one of the themes of some book era. And it was, yeah, kind of a scary thought.
Aaron Moncur:
Yeah. Oh, I was gonna share it. You talked about almost being forced to like, stop and contemplate a little bit, what do I really want to do next. And it made me think about when I got laid off, and looking back, you know, that was 15 years ago. And it was genuinely one of the best things that has ever ever happened to me. I think it's, it's really easy to let the lizard brain take control and just, you know, experience fear and anxiety. And we're all going to experience that to some degree. But to realize that, almost always 99.9% of the time, things are not going to be as bad as your lizard brain tells you. They're going to be
Erica Kahn:
I love that damn lizard brain.
Aaron Moncur:
They're probably not going to get anywhere near as bad as what you know, those cycling, spiraling dark thoughts you have in the dead of night when you can't go back to sleep. So I guess that's my take on it is that it's probably not going to be nearly as bad as not you use specifically but the general you think it's going to be? And for a lot of folks, myself included, it actually turns out to be a really wonderful and positive thing in the long run.
Erica Kahn:
Wow. Yeah, that's I've heard a lot of people say that, and it really does seem kind of counterintuitive, you know. Yeah. But I think you're right about the lizard brain. You know, I read somewhere that we, if there's a negative potential outcome, that's the one we expect. You know, that's for some reason, I guess that helps you survive, you know, back when we were cavemen and had to figure out how to eat and run away from the T rexes, right. But, but I think that's like, knowing that that's what the first place our brain goes to and saying, Hold on, no, no, there's a chance this could be a good thing. And then letting yourself letting yourself go down that path. I think like you're saying, it's a really good goal.
Aaron Moncur:
We've evolved beyond this saber toothed tigers are no longer a thing, and we're probably not going to die.
Erica Kahn:
Unless we bring them back. I know, there's a lab that's working to get back. It's like, you know, the woolly mammoth. I mean, maybe?
Aaron Moncur:
Well, maybe that's one of your next opportunities, right? formulations? Who knows? Yeah,
Erica Kahn:
I mean, genetics. And then, you know, spurred on all this cool gene editing tool, right. I could be up to that I do in
Aaron Moncur:
real life. Jurassic Park. Here we go. All right. Don't just don't turn into the evil scientists that did bad things. We don't want to do that. I promise. All right. Well, Erica, thank you so much for being on the being an engineer podcast. And how can people get in touch with you? Yeah.
Erica Kahn:
So if you do like to reach out, my email address is my first initial last name. So EKAHN92@gmail.com.
Aaron Moncur:
Wonderful. Terrific. And can people find you on LinkedIn as well?
Erica Kahn:
They can. Yeah. I think I was one of the first Erica Kahn on LinkedIn. That was just my first and last name should bring you to that page. Awesome.
Aaron Moncur:
And we'll include a link to that in the show notes. Well, thank you again, Erica, for being on the show. I hope this becomes very useful for you and for everyone who got to hear a little bit about your background and experiences and some of the insights that that you've been able to share. So thanks again for being on the show.
Erica Kahn:
Yeah, Thanks, Aaron, I want to just thank you too. I mean, who knew this chance encounter with a vendor at some conference would lead to this cool, like relationship? I like getting to know you better. It's been really awesome. And I think you have a really cool knack for connecting people. And it's great to, it's great to meet you.
Aaron Moncur:
Well, thank you. I'm gonna have to get that as a soundbite might put it all over the place.
Erica Kahn:
Send it to my mom, she'll be so proud. Oh, I always do that too whatever I'd get what some good news. My mom hears that first, right? Yeah, exactly.
Aaron Moncur:
Okay. All right. Thank you so much, Erica.
Erica Kahn:
Thank you. Thanks Aaron.
Aaron Moncur:
I'm Aaron Moncur, founder of pipeline design, and engineering. If you liked what you heard today, please share the episode. To learn how your team can leverage our team's expertise developing advanced manufacturing processes, automated machines and custom fixtures complemented with product design and r&d services. Visit us at Team pipeline.us. To join a vibrant community of engineers online visit the wave dot engineer. Thank you for listening
