Last week former Watford Girl student Ella, and her colleague Ed came in to talk to us about the work they do at McLaren Automotives and their journey to get there. Both Ella and Ed chose Maths, Further maths and Physics at A-level and went on to study mechanical engineering (MEng) at university which included a year of work experience. Ella joined McLaren in September 2022 and worked as an associate design engineer in the design department. Earlier this year she transferred to the aerodynamics department and is working on an unreleased car. Ed has been working at McLaren for over 14 years and is Head engineer of their powertrain and chief engineer of the McLaren Solus GT.

After explaining their personal journeys, they moved on to talk about the journey a conceptual design idea goes through before reaching the road; from developing their powertrain and aerodynamics to going to Portugal for four seasons testing of their new cars, the whole process was extremely fascinating. I found the part about the crash testing of their Carbon fibre tubs and chassis particularly remarkable because I hadn’t realised how much thought went into something as small as a bolt to ensure safety for the driver in the eventuality of a crash. But the highlight for most would have definitely been the McLaren Artura that Ella and Ed were ever so kind to have brought in with them. It was really cool to see it up close especially after they had just explained the process it had gone through to be there in front of us.

Overall as someone who is already extremely interested in the world of engineering and automotives I found the whole experience thoroughly fascinating. I felt I got a lot out of it and from what others have told me it managed to convince quite a few that engineering might be the career path for them.