{"id":28871,"date":"2025-02-06T14:44:15","date_gmt":"2025-02-06T14:44:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.systra.com\/uk\/?page_id=28871"},"modified":"2025-12-01T17:46:17","modified_gmt":"2025-12-01T17:46:17","slug":"alex-woods","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.systra.com\/uk\/careers\/early-careers\/meet-our-apprentices-and-graduates\/alex-woods\/","title":{"rendered":"Alex Woods"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Role<\/strong>: Track Engineer Degree Apprentice<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Career Area<\/strong>: Engineering Design <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Current Study Level<\/strong>: Degree Apprenticeship<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Location<\/strong>: Manchester<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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My role at SYSTRA<\/h6>\n\n\n\n
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I work as a Track Engineer assistant technician in the Track team at SYSTRA, which is a role supported by my degree. With this comes a plethora of responsibilities and activities I undertake daily, the fundamental being railway track design. I contribute by producing technical drawings and models through the use of CAD, which is a 2D and 3D modelling software. Along with this, I have picked up some work as a model manager, where I collaborate with other disciplines, such as civil engineering, ensuring there is no issues with our workflows. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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On a day-to-day basis, I attend collaborative meetings within the Track team, discussing any updates on the project and task assignment. I will then update my personal task checklist and begin any work I have on, or pick up something new. This work could be running clearances to ensure a train does not strike any stationary objects it passes by on our new design, or using Bentley Rail Track to generate a visual track design from our calculated dimensions – no two days are ever the same. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Overall, my position at SYSTRA is to help deliver successful and accurate designs alongside the engineers, senior engineers and contractors. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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Why I chose a degree apprenticeship<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
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Throughout secondary school I always had a passion for maths and physics, from the mechanics behind things, all the way to astrophysics. Coming out of my GCSEs with 9s, I was able to pursue my Sixth Form subjects of Maths, Physics and Geography. I wanted to go into a career surrounded by physics, and what better pathway than engineering. I wanted a degree; however, I didn\u2019t want to go down the traditional university route.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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I had already heard of degree apprenticeships, so from there my mind was set on one. SYSTRA\u2019s apprenticeship route offered everything I was looking for – engineering and a degree whilst obtaining five years of work experience in the process. The interview process was straightforward, although I did a lot of preparation for it beforehand. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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