Being an Engineer
Being an Engineer
S1E05 From Genetics to Mechanical Engineering | Rafael Testai
Rafael Testai graduated with an honors degree in Molecular Biology, Genetics. After graduation, he sold three companies, and ultimately realized that his true calling was mechanical engineering. In this episode, Rafael shares advice on how he successfully switched careers and now has two years of experience as a mechanical designer. You can find Rafael on LinkedIn at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/testai/ .
Pipeline Design & Engineering partners with medical device engineering teams who need turnkey equipment such as cycle test machines, custom test fixtures, or automation equipment but don’t have the bandwidth or resources internally to develop that equipment. You can find us on the web at www.testfixturedesign.com and www.designtheproduct.com
About Being An Engineer
The Being An Engineer podcast is 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
Ralph, welcome to the being an engineer podcast, we're really excited to talk to you and learn a little bit about your background and how you got to where you are. Maybe To get started, you've got a really interesting background because you didn't really start out as an engineer, you kind of went to a different, different place and then decided that wasn't really for you. Can you tell us a little bit about what that journey looked like?
Rafael Testai:Yeah, sure thing. So my name is Rafael de STI. That's where everyone can find me on LinkedIn and social media. And I started with a degree in molecular biology and genetics. He was a pre medical degree. And I got my my honor degree from Arizona State University Barrett. So I did a lot of research laboratory research with DNA and biology. And once I graduated, I decided that wasn't the route I wanted to take. I started a software company, a mobile application, I sold that company that was my third company. And then I decided that I wanted to be an engineer for the rest of my life. Like That was my true calling in life. And I went through a whole bunch of rigorous exams to went through like strengthsfinder. That was one of the tests that I took. And I really dove deep to find out what it is that drives me. One of the reasons why I chose mechanical engineering, as this career switch, and my passion in life is because you can basically make any tangible products, you're a very resourceful person, once you have that skill set. And I found that in entrepreneurship, a lot of times entrepreneurs become customers, if you watch Shark Tank, a lot of the people that when or when the sharks, interview the entrepreneurs, they ask him, what are you going to do with the money? And they say, a lot of it goes to investment in r&d, into engineering. And I thought to myself, What if I have a lot of ideas, and I don't have a lot of money, perhaps to pursue a lot of the ideas, I would want to have the skill set, so I could at least build a prototype myself. And then I could recruit and get investors. So that's what got me started in mechanical engineering. What led me to where I'm at.
Aaron Moncur:And you mentioned that with your the mobile app company that you sold, that was your, your third business. So you are a serial entrepreneurs that accurate?
Rafael Testai:Yep. And the definition of that I'm serial. Yep.
Aaron Moncur:So your career as a mechanical engineer might not be the same as a lot of mechanical engineers who end up working for, you know, this company or that company, but they kind of bounce around companies. What What do you envision long term for your career as a mechanical engineer?
Rafael Testai:Long term, I would definitely like to work on similar products, and anything that could be medical to save people's lives or improve their quality of life. What's more important than having health if you don't have health, you can't really enjoy anything else. Yeah.
Aaron Moncur:So what are what are a few habits that you've developed over time that have proven to be really useful to you either as an engineer or just as a productive person in general,
Rafael Testai:one thing that I like to do is plan the next day before I go to sleep. That's one of my night routines. Look at my calendar, I allocate different tasks, different things I want to do throughout the day, the next day, even if it's going to the store, cooking, doing something work related, I just put it in the calendar. Because there's something about everyone heard this before a million times, there's something about writing it down, that once you write it down, somehow, it comes to fruition. So like running it down, and then doing it the next day.
Aaron Moncur:I've heard I've heard this before, and I do something really similar myself. A lot of people I've talked to do this at the beginning of the day. Have you ever tried doing it at the beginning of the day? And if so, why do you do it at nighttime versus the beginning of the day?
Rafael Testai:That's a good idea to but there's actually a reason for doing it the day before, because if you write down what you want to do the next day before you go to sleep, sometimes you come up with a solution while you're sleeping. The answers will just come to you. And then you wake up the next day already knowing the answer to whatever you're gonna do on CAD, because you were thinking about it as you were sleeping.
Aaron Moncur:Nice. I love that you give your subconscious mind to or you give your subconscious mind an opportunity to solve some problems while you're sleeping. Right.
Rafael Testai:Yep, always on the clock.
Aaron Moncur:I've actually read about this. And there's I mean, there's like science behind that, that if if you think about a problem enough during the day, maybe it's not enough just to spend you Go through four minutes right before bed. But if you're thinking about a problem enough, during the day, when you go to sleep, your subconscious turns on and will start trying to solve that problem for you. So that's like a really efficient way to solve problems. It seems like,
Rafael Testai:yeah, a lot of ideas tend to come to us when we're in a relaxed state of mind and maybe taking a shower or driving, and they just come to us. So that's one of the reasons why I do it at night before I go to sleep.
Aaron Moncur:Do you have any Can you think of any examples where something like that happened, if you can't think of anything off the on the spot, that's fine. But it'd be interesting to hear if you had some kind of story or anecdote.
Rafael Testai:Um, one thing that I'm working on right now as a fun side project would be perhaps to redesign a mask, since we all know we're recording this while the whole Coronavirus is going on. So I thought about myself, like why not redesign a mask. So I've been looking at different repositories or like places where you can find CAD files like grab CAD Comm. And I thought to myself, Well, the first thing I would do is probably download a CAD file of a scanned head of a person. And then I can put whatever it is that I need in front of that had an extruded towards the face, and then cut the extra material to make that a good fit with the face. Like we're free to if it's around the cheeks area. So I was thinking about what features to utilize to get like a very precise fitting for the mask. And it just came to me what like while I was sleeping, basically I woke up and I had the answer.
Aaron Moncur:Nice. That's a great example. What what resource would you use for the the anatomy of a human head in CAD?
Rafael Testai:Like what website?
Aaron Moncur:Yeah. Is there a website or a resource that you use to download a CAD model? Or is that something that you'd model yourself?
Rafael Testai:On? No way, it would be something that is 3d scanned, hopefully, because that's as accurate as possible. And grab CAD is usually my go to, actually,
Aaron Moncur:let's back up a little bit. So let's talk a little bit about how you got started in your engineering career. Where did that where did that journey begin?
Rafael Testai:It began when I started. I mean, we're all human beings. And we all get frustrated sometimes. And as I was running my company, Evenki, the software company, I wasn't a software developer myself, I was the person that CEO, if you will, that was the title by basically like a program manager that does everything, negotiate salaries, get contractors, etc. But I will always depend on others to build my ideas, like I needed the software developers to build the features that I wanted. And I didn't feel it didn't feel good to have to rely on others. Because if others weren't motivated, or they weren't working as quickly as I could have, because a very big drive, then I had to depend on others to to push products out the door and features. So I told myself after I sell this company, I don't want to depend on anybody else to at least build a first prototype again. I want to be reliable, self sufficient. Now. That's what got me started.
Aaron Moncur:Awesome. And have you been able to start realizing that even in small ways?
Rafael Testai:Yeah, definitely. But you also learn about entrepreneurship that a lot of times as entrepreneur, like the person that's leading the company, you spend a lot of time talking to people and solving. It's like people problems, the majority of the time, you're just like dealing with people making sure everybody gets along. And, and after a while, with my personality. I just like to get things done. And I sometimes run out of patience with that. So I tell myself, What is it about it that I liked the most. And I think what I like the most doing is having a canvas in front of me and being an artist and creating solutions. Because if you're an entrepreneur a lot of times you got to spend a lot of time emailing and dealing with with people problems, and I'm not sure that's what I enjoy the most at this stage in my life. I like creating now.
Aaron Moncur:Okay, what are a few experiences that you've had in the past that you feel like have prepared you to be a good engineer?
Rafael Testai:I think that my biology and medicine and genetics prepare me to be a good engineer because of the high attention to detail. One of the everyone says like very detail oriented perfectionist, but let me give you an example. Like with genetics and DNA, it always there's more detail to it. You can always zoom in, there's always more and never stops. And when you have that mindset, you're always looking for more and you've been very careful. For instance, when I ran Evenki my previous company, Andrew Bart, one of my mentors, he's a multimillion dollar mentor. He has like multiple companies who sold over 300 $300 million With the revenue that he sold, and he was one of my mentors, so I'm very grateful to have him. And he has dozens of startups in the world that he mentors and is part of the advisory board. And in one meeting, he told me Raphael, you're the most detail oriented founder I've ever talked to. I was like, Yeah, I was like, you're probably saying that just messing around is an expression like, No, you really are. That way you pay attention to detail, the Gantt charts, how you how you manage everything, like you're on top of it always. And I thought that was a good trait, something I should pay attention to, as I picked my next career, which ended up being engineering because as an engineer, you really got to be focused on the minor details that make all the difference.
Aaron Moncur:I agree. I agree. So this next question you may have just answered, but what's what's the best compliment that you've been given in a professional setting?
Rafael Testai:I think that was the best compliment.
Aaron Moncur:Yeah. The most detailed founder he's ever met. Hmm. Yeah, that's, that's a big deal. What a huge compliment. So I've worked with a lot of engineers over the years, and I worked with ones that are really detail oriented. And, but but maybe take a little bit longer to get things done. And I've also worked with engineers that are not very detail oriented, but tend to get things done really quickly. Do you think that there's a balance in there? Or is one better than the other? What are your thoughts generally about that?
Rafael Testai:Absolutely. There's a balance. And the balance is usually dictated by the budget, the budget will let you know how much time you can allocate usually. And, as a rule of thumb, I either take two approaches, whenever I have to do something, I tell myself, I'm not going to sleep until I finish this. Or the other one is, I'm going to give myself X amount of time to do this. And however much I can do, that's how much I'm gonna dedicate and then move on to the next task. So I think one of the two different approaches?
Aaron Moncur:Well, that's a good I like that tactic. I'm going to give myself this much time. And whatever I have done by that time, that's it. Do you ever, do you ever relax that a little bit at the end? Or are you really, really stringent all the time?
Rafael Testai:on that first one? No, I like, I usually would like to go more. But if I tell myself, I'm gonna do this specific task for two hours, that's how much I give it. And I'm pretty good at getting to the unacceptable and a good solution. By the end of the two hours, or however much time I decided.
Aaron Moncur:Nice, nice. How about working with other engineers, maybe other engineers are are slower than you or faster than you, I have there been any, any best practices that you've come across to effectively work with other engineers as part of a team.
Rafael Testai:I was thinking about this the other day. And I thought to myself, I noticed a pattern with with certain people that we don't want to bother those around us. We think that if we contact them, then we're gonna bother them. But I thought to myself, sometimes you just need to talk and overcome you over communicate almost like make sure that we're on the same page before making drastic changes and moving in a direction.
Aaron Moncur:I agree. 100% communication is super important. So you're still fairly early in your engineering career, you've been applying yourself to this discipline for a few years now. But even still, you've made a lot of progress. And where you are now is is far beyond where you were, when you started. If you had to look back at yourself, when you had just started learning about engineering, what what would you today? What would today's ref tell Raph, you know, two years ago or or whatever it was that you started? That that you wish you'd known back then?
Rafael Testai:Um, I think that, I guess, efficiency is one of the things that defines me, it's one of my favorite words. And that's a huge compliment. And someone tells me that I'm efficient. That's, that's one of the best things he could tell me. But at the same time, things take their time. And we have to understand and accept that. Some things just take time, you just you just have to deal with the problems, everyday problems that come with it. You can't accelerate the curve, sometimes as much as we want. To me personally. There's only so much you can do and you can take it you have to take it one day at a time. So don't get bogged down or stressed if it takes a little longer than you expect.
Aaron Moncur:Yeah, can accelerate the curve as we know now during COVID flatten the curve, no accelerating. We don't want to do that. We don't
Rafael Testai:offend any of the listeners with our COVID-19 jokes. But that's our defense mechanism to cope. This situation, you're gonna have to keep from crying. Right? Exactly.
Aaron Moncur:Because you're a lot of toilet paper. Okay? Can you share maybe like one, one big success. And it also maybe maybe a fail that you've had, that you think might be interesting or enlightening for other people to hear.
Rafael Testai:Once success, I, my university, ASU contacted me the career services from ASU contacted me because they noticed on LinkedIn that I did a very quickly career switch from genetics to software development to now mechanical engineering, and they asked me how I did it. And if I can mentor other alumni as your alumni around the world when it comes to switching careers, so if people are the Career Services, or they have quite a bit of experience with careers, they conduct me and they consider me someone that has done it successfully. I think that's a win. I suppose some people stall or they don't want to go for it, but you got to go for it. So that would be a success. A good career switch. A failure? I mean, lots of failures. But we learned everywhere, and they turn into successes. Yeah, I can't think of anyone because I don't I don't store information in my head like that. Like that was a failure. So nothing comes to mind right now.
Aaron Moncur:Okay, yeah, it's hard to come up with that kind of thing on the spot. All right. Every morning, when you walk into work, Is there ever like? Do you ever have a biggest fear? When you walk into work? Or is every day different, there's just nothing in particular that that you stress out or worry about?
Rafael Testai:Sometimes, with engineering, well, I guess quite a bit of times, you're faced with problems that no one has ever solved before. So when someone comes to you, and asks you how to do something, you may not know right away. But it all comes down to being an engineer. And an engineer is someone that can find the answers. So not knowing of the beginning of exactly what to do, but trusting in myself That is who I am, I just find the answers to problems. So the first initial reaction is kind of like fear, but then you know, like, this is who I am, I found solutions. So
Aaron Moncur:do you have a process that you use? I mean, I agree engineers are probably our job is to solve problems. In fact, I, when people ask me what an engineer does, I said, I say that an engineer is a professional problem solver. That's what we do. That's what we get paid to do. How do you go about solving problems? Do you have like a general process that you follow? Or is every problem different and unique enough that you handle it differently?
Rafael Testai:Every problem is usually unique enough. But there is a process that one can follow, like just a design process. Anyone can go with that. I'm sure a lot of people are familiar with that. But one of the key things that's been hammered down to me from all the different courses that I've taken, and from what I've seen, engineers around me, is really defining the problem. Sometimes we're handed a cartoon CAD that other engineers have worked on to kind of solve the problem. And then the customer changes their mind. And they don't want to move forward with that engineer firm. And maybe they'll they'll come to me, or they'll come to us. And we have to look at what they did before the previous engineers, but we don't necessarily have to move in the same direction. Because we heard this phrase a lot. You have to stick take a step back and see really what the problem is. Because the solution may not be what the other person started or may not be what everyone appears to think is evidence.
Aaron Moncur:Yeah, yeah. Okay, last question. I think that engineers have kind of a unique mindset. How do you think you look at the world? Or? Or maybe do you think you look at the world differently than the non engineers because of the training and experience you've had as an engineer?
Rafael Testai:I've heard Steve Jobs say this, I used to read books about Steve Jobs and other successful founders. But everything around us is made by humans. And that it makes things less intimidating, if you will, like if you find something very appealing, like a mechanism, the way something moves, the way a door opens, or maybe even a pool cleaner. It was made by by a human just like yourself, and if you have that skill, so you can build yourself or you can even build something better. And I'm all about doing the best that I can and it's like a competition. I'm very competitive. So whatever it is that I'm doing, I want to build the best that's ever been done. So that's the way I look at things. Knife.
Aaron Moncur:My wife, she makes fun of me because every time I pick something up, I'm always turning it around in my hands and analyzing it and thinking about what manufacturing process was used to make this, you know, like, Where are the parting lines where the ejector pin marks? That kind of thing? She always gives me a hard time. But that's, yeah, engineers are the best. You can never be
Rafael Testai:bored with that mindset.
Aaron Moncur:I agree. Yeah. It's a eternal curiosity. Right. Exactly. All right. Well, Raph, I think we'll wrap it up. Now. Thank you so much for being on the podcast and sharing a little bit about your experience as an engineer, very much appreciated any, any last words that you'd like to leave us with?
Rafael Testai:I'm just a learner for life. So I'm always going to continue learning. And hopefully, I pray that I keep my exciting I mean, it was YaSM because that's one of the things that drives me. I'm very excited to wake up every day and do what I do.
Aaron Moncur:Can't put it better than that. Thank you, ref.
Rafael Testai:Thanks for having me.
Aaron Moncur:I'm Aaron Moncure, founder of pipeline design, and engineering. If you liked what you heard today, please leave us a positive review. It really helps other people find the show. To learn how your engineering team can leverage our team's expertise in developing turnkey custom test fixtures, automated equipment and product design, visit us at test fixture design.com Thanks for listening.
