Celebrating World Engineering Day 2025
March 4 is UNESCO’s World Engineering Day for Sustainable Development – an opportunity to celebrate engineers and their contributions to society. Applause and the uTest community have many talented engineers, from a variety of backgrounds. In this blog post, a few of them share how they entered the field, who inspires them, some of their favorite things about the discipline, and how their work supports sustainable development goals.
Adonis Celestine, Senior Director, Automation Practice Leader
Adonis’ interest in engineering began with his love of cars. “I started out as a mechanical engineer. I love cars, so I wanted to learn everything about engines. But when I was in university, I came across an IT company who gave me a job right in the university itself. So that’s how I got into IT. Though the technology is different, I loved it a lot.” Like mechanical engineering, IT and software development are also about problem solving and building new things. “I continued in my engineering journey in the IT field building solutions and building products,” he said.
Visionary engineers who can translate their skills into groundbreaking products and successful businesses inspire Adonis. “A lot of engineers know how to do things properly, but they don’t know the next big thing that comes in the market. I respect someone who can guide engineers to take that next step, directing in terms of ‘This is what you should be building towards.’”
“Engineering is never constant,” Adonis said. That continuous evolution is one of his favorite things about the profession. “With engineering, especially in IT, things can change dramatically. I started off engineering mainframes and then came newer technologies like Java. I almost had to start from ground zero to learn new stuff. There are always things coming into and out of the market, which makes you a continuous learner. If you’re a bus driver, you learn to drive a bus once and that’s it. But with IT, you cannot sit. You have to constantly learn new stuff. That’s what I like about engineering.”
In terms of sustainability, Adonis recognizes the impact of his core job at Applause as leader of the test automation practice. “We bring more efficiency in building things right the first time. Let’s say you’re building software and then it fails in production. The time it takes to fix and rebuild that software – that has an impact on climate – use of the server and everything. There’s an ecosystem there which gets impacted by the defect. Just by bringing quality right into the product at a very early stage, I think our jobs contribute to efficiency which in turn translates into saving CO2 and emissions and so on.”
Paul Teasdale, Associate Director, Testing Services
Though Paul was interested in computers from the time home computers first became widely available, he didn’t initially consider a career in engineering. “The Sinclair ZX81 was the cheapest home computer available — my dad bought one when I was about 10 and I just enjoyed solving simple problems with code.”
“My first career was mainly in insurance handling,” Paul said. “But there was a nagging thought that [engineering] was something I should be doing or a direction I wanted to go down. When my son was born, I was looking for a change in career.” Paul decided to earn a degree in computer studies through the UK’s Open University and joined the uTest community to begin working as a tester. Two years later, he became a test team lead. Since then, he’s held a variety of roles in Applause’s testing services and solution delivery teams.
Paul’s mentors include his father, who was an electrical engineer who worked for General Electric for 40 years. “He was very practical and skilled at problem-solving.” Paul also mentioned Alan Turing. “He did work on Enigma during the war and was one of the pioneers of AI as well. He had a meticulous approach to solving problems. It’s quite an inspiring story – he’s one of those people who wasn’t really appreciated until after his death unfortunately.”
“Then there are people like Bill Gates, who have done things through philanthropic efforts to address global challenges and make a positive impact. That’s quite an inspiring thing to do – being really successful at what they do, then also doing things for the greater good,” Paul said.
One of Paul’s favorite things about engineering is the collaborative nature of the work. “Particularly in terms of the work we do at Applause, there’s lots of people involved: developers, product managers, fellow testers. Working together with them to solve problems and come out at the end with a successful software product and something that impacts user experience and improves the lives of people in its own way – that’s probably one of my favorite things about it. Everyone sort of comes together and brings their own expertise and solves problems.”
Paul highlighted the way the uTest community model creates economic opportunities around the globe as an example of sustainability. Through Applause and uTest, we’re bridging opportunity gaps by connecting skilled individuals globally with meaningful projects. Our community includes testers in various regions, ensuring that location is not a barrier to participation.”
Jim Forkey, Director, Engineering
From a young age, Jim loved tinkering with things. “I would take apart anything and everything I could get my hands onto. You name it, I would disassemble and try to reassemble it,” he said. Though some of his efforts were more successful than others, his tinkering sparked a love of engineering.
When Jim was introduced to the internet, “I had to know how computers worked,” he said. He studied computer science in college and discovered that he loved building things with software. “I learned you could [build] from a computer looking at a screen instead of having to physically assemble something and there was no risk to it. So it was a good mix of things I enjoy.”
Jim puts his engineering role models into two categories: “people that you don’t know who you aspire to be, as well as role models that you actually know.” Jim said he’s inspired by Paul Graham and Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI. “I actually find them to be role models for a different reason than their success in the AI world,” he said. Paul Graham’s article on the maker’s schedule versus the manager’s schedule impressed him. “It really showed how much he knew about building things and managing people, which I think a lot of companies miss. The world kind of tends to work on this manager schedule, but the maker schedule is very critical and important to engineering success.” Altman was one of the reviewers for Graham’s article.
In terms of role models closer to home, Jim cited his father. “I was adopted. My dad, who worked in the physics department at Williams College for his whole career, is very reserved, very quiet, and one of the smartest guys I know. He’ll just sit back during a conversation and then spit out the answer everyone’s been trying to figure out for an hour, when he’s had it all along. I’ve always respected that reservedness and great intellect.”
Jim draws inspiration from Rob Mason, Applause’s CTO, as well. “I enjoy working at Applause, and Rob runs a great meritocracy within engineering, which I think is really important. He’s just an incredibly smart guy himself, with a great amount of knowledge in the technical space. I don’t think a lot of CTOs are writing code day to day, but he can be out in the trenches with everybody else still. I’ve got a great deal of respect for him.”
What does Jim love most about engineering? “You can wake up and be facing a new problem almost every single day. I think that’s one of my favorite things. I also think engineers are a unique breed of people and I enjoy working with them.”
One of UNESCO’s sustainable development goals is to end poverty. JIm has first-hand experience with how engineering can help. “I mentioned I was adopted. I grew up in extreme poverty. So, I saw engineering — something I loved and had a great passion for and happened to be pretty good at — as a way out of that situation. A lot of people I grew up with found a way out through joining the military. I thought engineering would be more rewarding: intellectually, professionally and financially.”
“My adoptive parents had an expectation that you’re going to go to college, you’re going to get a quality education and there’s a standard,” Jim explained. “That plus having skills and passion for engineering really enabled me to achieve what I have today and then to pay it back.” Jim was in and out of state custody growing up. For years, he would take a handful of kids in state custody out to a water park for the day. “I wanted to show them, yes, I was in this situation at one point and you can get out of it. There’s a path forward. For me, it was engineering.”
Want to put your engineering and problem solving skills to good use? Check out job opportunities available at Applause and uTest.
10 min