Meet Sietze and Willem
Sietze Algra and Willem Joosten work for Philips Drachten, at the Electrical Development Department (EDD). Willem is a Senior Electrical Design and Embedded Software Engineer and Sietze is a Senior Electrical Design Engineer.

Solving puzzles and innovating
EDD develops Electronics for home appliances. Sietze and Willem work on products like trimmers, light sensitive alarm clocks, shavers and water and air purifiers. Sietze is involved in the last phase of the development process. He makes sure appliances are ready for production. “We can’t afford to make mistakes. If a product doesn’t work well we can’t just update it, because it will be on the consumer market for about seven years.”

Willem is involved in the pre-development phase. “I collect all new ideas. It is very exciting to work on these ideas. However, we can dream as much as we like, but in the end we just have to wait and see how the consumers like our products”. 
Sietze: “It is quite a puzzle to make an appliance as user friendly as possible.”

Creativity
Willem: “We don’t work to a strict schedule. What we do depends on the project we are working on. There’s lots of variety! Writing software, programming, soldering, responding to emails, meetings, tele or videoconferences with China.”
Willem: “Creativity is important. You start from scratch. You have all these elements to put together. Sometimes you will think you are done and find yet another small mistake to fix. The company expects products to be developed within a year, so we have to be aware of budget and costs. By being a smart designer, you can develop products that can be sold for a good price.
Sietze: “Engineers are creative”

Sensors everywhere
Sietze: “There will always be new applications. One day we will use shavers that can tell what skin type you have. ”
Willem: “Sensors should always work. You have to take things into account such as humidity, temperature, consumer behaviour. That is quite a challenge. Some of our products should even be fit for use in the shower. ”
Sietze: “We work with people who test the products. They get a shaver and tell us how they like it. These are not ordinary shavers. They are packed with sensors which can measure all kinds of things. We use that information to our advantage.”

Answers anytime
Sietze: “New employees have loads of chances here. Electronics offers so many possibilities.”
Willem: “We often need new people. Young people are hired all the time.”
Sietze: “We have more and more female employees. And people from abroad. People from 31 nationalities are working here! You can travel all over the World while working for Philips. “