Oksana Simchuk

Testimonial published in 2020. Roles and career details reflect the account at the time it was written.

At some point in life, everyone has to choose. It could be something as simple as cheese in a shop or something as consequential as a place to study; either way, you have to decide. From childhood, we discover whether we are drawn to art or science, knitting or football. The choice is personal, and it should be based on what interests you—not what an aunt, uncle, brother or distant relative wants.

I had loved the exact sciences since school; history and literature did not interest me. I decided to apply to a technical university and signed up for the school’s preparatory courses for Kyiv Polytechnic Institute. The intensive timetable, assignments and tests were demanding. There were so many faculties, departments, letters and numbers to choose from. It took work to understand them, but I managed to narrow my options to the Thermal Power Engineering Faculty and the Faculty of Informatics and Computer Science.

I got into my first choice, the Thermal Power Engineering Faculty. Then came the next decision: which specialisation to choose? I loved computers and found them easy to work with, so I chose Computer-Integrated Technological Processes and Production at the Department of Automation of Thermal Power Processes. I did not yet know what that long name meant, but it caught my attention. Its meaning became clearer as I studied.

The first years were challenging. I take my responsibilities seriously: I attended classes and completed my work on time. There was a lot to study, and each subject brought something new. Since students in different specialisations share many early courses, it was initially difficult to see what set one field apart from another.

The most interesting part began in the fourth year, when most courses were directly related to the specialisation. I began to understand the work I wanted to do. SCADA won me over: in simple terms, these are systems for collecting data and controlling technological processes. We studied several kinds of systems, and I realised that this was the field I wanted to pursue. One thing I valued about graduating from the department was the confidence that we could learn to automate different kinds of processes, and an understanding of how to approach that work correctly.

In my sixth year, I actively looked for work. It was difficult, especially as a woman, but I kept sending my CV to technical companies. Eknis-Ukraine invited me to interviews and hired me. At first, I felt that people were reluctant to trust me with technical work and that management doubted a woman could be an engineer.

I drew on my determination and worked hard to show that women can be engineers and do the job as well as men. Management came to recognise that women, too, can be highly capable and that qualities such as patience, attention to detail and endurance can be valuable.

At the time of this account, I had worked at Eknis-Ukraine for more than five years and led a group developing automation systems. The two other members of my group were women. We developed and implemented automation systems, including supervisory control systems and substation automation. Our projects at the time included an automated process-control system for GPP-7 at EGOK in Komsomolsk, 330 kV GIS automation at CHPP-5 in Kyiv, and dispatching for the Mezhevskyi District Power Network in Dnipropetrovsk region. Our main task was to create a clear, reliable interface for dispatchers and ensure that the system operated reliably. Over those five years, our group had developed dispatching systems across almost the entire Dnipropetrovsk region, including two central dispatch centres, many high-voltage substations in Kyiv and other facilities across Ukraine.

After graduation, you might become a design engineer, commissioning engineer, installer or SCADA developer. What matters is finding work you enjoy, believing you can succeed and making the effort. What did the department give me? It taught me how to learn, pointed me in the right direction and helped me find my place in life. Isn’t that what we are all looking for?