Expatriate Opportunities

Michael Berend (47) has been employed with us since 1985. His winding, impressive career path has lead from Application Engineer to Manager ASIC Software Support up to Director Information Technology.

Michael, what can you tell us about your FME experience?
Oh, there have been so many fantastic experiences in my FME life, it’s hard to limit my word flow….But since I have to, I shall talk about my assignment to our sister company Fujitsu Microelectronics Inc. in San Jose, California.

Flying over the big ocean in January 1997, I had the exciting prospect of living in a different country with my wife and my child for 3.5 years. As my son was young at the time, it was a great opportunity for him growing up with two languages.

The company was very committed in making our move as smooth as possible – actually making our whole lives comfortable, which in turn accelerated my professional motivation. Also, in the US there was a person in charge of all assignees from overseas, helping them find homes, deal with insurances, banks and all kinds of US bureaucracy.

It was a big challenge to coordinate worldwide projects with several local sub-teams in Japan, UK, Germany, US, juggling between three different time zones in order to shift the project work. Moreover, this sort of project management asks for the use of different management styles depending on people’s culture. In this international environment, I dug deep into the field of mentalities and learnt why people in different cultures work/behave/react so differently.

When I returned to Germany in May 2000, the company carried home boxes of outer possessions, but I carried home bundles of inner possessions!

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Karsten Grüner (39), Design Engineer, joined FME in October 2000.
At the moment, he is on a 1-year deployment in Japan.

How did you come to work for FME?
The first contact with Fujitsu was for my diploma thesis. After a 6 months break which was mainly used for some long travel, I joined the MCU Design Center as a Design Engineer.
What convinced me to start my career here was mainly the working style among the Microcontroller Design Engineers: Their way of making decisions, the team cooperation and personal engagement.

What did you learn here?
Besides all the technology details: Even the best team is made by human beings. Even when we give a lot, we're not perfect, and not expected to be.

What experiences have you made on an international level?
There are so many people here form different nations all over the world, with different cultural backgrounds. It is amazing how easy things can be if we share a common idea (and how difficult, if we don’t). An extraordinary experience was working with colleagues from Serbia who joined FME just a few months after their country had been bombed by NATO airplanes. That made me think a lot.

What is so special about working for FME?
I’m writing this from Japan, where I am currently deployed to. This is very special to me. It’s nice to know a country from travelling, but it's a complete different experience to live the daily life. There are many trivial things that turn out to be a little adventure, like using a bus with no Japanese companion or paying your first Japanese electricity bill. My work life is similar to that of my Japanese colleagues, with one privilege: I don't have to attend all the meetings because most of them are held in Japanese!

What prospects do you see for your FME future?
FME provided all possible effort to anticipate and eliminate potential problems, but now it’s my turn to make my assignment to Japan a success. Therefore I am eager to learn and to acquire the necessary skills, also (or especially?) in the non-technological fields.

What would you say to a newcomer at FME?
"Gambatte kudasai."
This Japanese expression means anything between "Come on!", "Cheer up!" and "Give it your best effort."… It is said just about any time you start to do something. But it is not just said for politeness, Japanese people really do take it to heart.