Council senior engineer Jeeva Ali discusses her career journey this Cultural Diversity Week

Strathbogie Shire Council’s senior engineer Jeeva Ali didn’t expect she would move to Australia to pursue her career, but she is glad she did.

After studying a degree in engineering overseas, Jeeva said she struggled to find a graduate position.

“The journey has been slow but big. I (now) have five years’ experience within the industry,” she said.

“I started my Australian career as a graduate estimator with a small firm in Melbourne, where I learned essential engineering skills and how to deal with external consultants.

“I worked as a site engineer for Regional Roads, Northeast Victoria, where I focused to learn and understand more about roadworks, maintenance and asset management – which paved my path to the senior engineer role with Strathbogie Shire.”

Jeeva began her role with Council in July 2022.

“I have never worked with a local council, and this was something very different to the corporate jobs I had before.

“To me, Council is such a big organisation, it’s like running a little country essentially! That makes it a great place to work because you get exposed to so many different disciplines.”

It was Jeeva’s father who first encouraged her to become an engineer, after she grew up seeing him work in the construction industry.

“Curiosity made me question a lot of things on the designs and I was always amazed by seeing these designs come to reality,” she said.

“I grew up in the middle east and whenever I travelled around I used to see a lot of high density buildings and massive bridges being built. I knew it from then that this will be my future – working in construction, assisting in building roads, bridges and buildings.

“From my childhood, I loved to be creative and do things simply, but differently.

“Engineering gives me this opportunity to study, evolve and think/do things differently and uniquely.

“Engineering is also something that is very solution oriented – as engineers we are constantly solving problems, finding better solutions and making changes.”

This Cultural Diversity Week (March 11-23) Jeeva reflected on the many different skills, talents, interests, beliefs and needs of the various groups that make up Australia.

She said this week was about appreciating and respecting those differences, helping us to understand other cultures and different perspectives.