Software Academy – a new Learning Opportunity
Hi all! My name is Jelena. I have been working at Continental for half a year.
I was looking for a company where I can work on different projects, where I can learn, be innovative and be a part of a great and supportive team – so Continental was a logical choice. My position is a System Test Engineer in the Commercial Vehicles and Aftermarket Business Unit. I am part of the Static Platforms Team. Our job is to verify if signals are distributed through clusters and body control modules properly so applications on them can work correctly. That is a very interesting job since you need to have a deeper understanding of how the implemented software reacts with the hardware and controls it in real time.
On Social Media I first heard that Continental will launch a Software Academy. The Software Academy is an internal learning platform that is designed to improve and widen the skills of Software Engineers and any colleague who would like to expand his or her knowledge in the field of software by providing classes. The focus lays on topics that will gain importance for Continental in the coming years, for example Agile Development, Cyber Security or Artificial Intelligence. I was so excited that I immediately sent a message to my supervisor Jovana Krstic asking her if she knew more about it and if it would be possible for me to access courses.
A few days later we got an e-mail that the Software Academy has been launched. Instantly I clicked on the link from the e-mail to see which courses were available for me and started watching the most interesting course that I found. Most of them were for beginners so they were very easy to follow and comprehend. There were a few courses that I found particularly interesting – Embedded Programming, Cybersecurity, and Microcontrollers. Because I have a MSc degree in Microcomputer Electronics it was exciting to review things I had already known and to learn new and innovative things. Since the launch many new courses have been uploaded. Now you can find a full range of courses of different fields from economics to mechanical engineering. All the courses that I took have descriptive and understandable animations and authors give their best to explain the concepts.
Beside online courses at Software Academy, you can sign up for in-person courses also. A few days ago, I noticed a very interesting course about CAN communication but then I realized that it will not be held in Serbia. Actually, all the in-person courses are only held in places where Continental has had development centers for years, which was a little disapointing at first. But since our business unit is very young (Continental has been in Serbia since 2017) I believe that in the future some interesting in-person courses will be held in Serbia also.
In my opinion the most innovative approach so far can be seen in the ‘Multicore Introduction and Challenges’ course. In that course very complex topics (one of them is how processor’s treads work) are explained in a very tangible way – using funny animations and a great analogic story (example of one animation can be seen in the picture). I can recommend that course to anyone who wants to have a deeper understanding of how processors work.
I am very proud and honored that I am part of this movement that aims towards improvement and education of the all employees that are willing to progress and work on themselves. I am sure that this will be a very fruitful and promising collaboration and I can’t wait to pass on this excitement to all the others who will join me in this adventure and learn with me!
This article was written by our employee.
