Many talented engineers hesitate to move abroad, fearing they will lose career momentum and disconnect from the vibrant Irish engineering community. However, an Irish engineering degree is in fact a global passport, opening doors to innovation on an international scale while maintaining strong Irish roots.
This special mini-series explores how Irish engineers successfully navigate international markets, secure funding, overcome the fear of failure, and leverage their qualifications to build thriving careers overseas. They also discuss how the Irish engineering community supports them abroad.
Joining the conversation is Joseph Mooney, a Forbes 30 under 30 honoree at the forefront of US energy research, and Sinéad Conneely, a Structural Director and Engineers Ireland Chartered Engineer of the Year finalist.
THINGS WE SPOKE ABOUT
● Choosing to leave Ireland and where
● Irish engineering qualifications are valued globally
● Why Irish engineers are natural risk-takers
● Funding differences between US and Ireland
● Practical advice for moving abroad earlier
GUESTS DETAILS
Joseph Mooney is the Co-Founder of WattAir and a Research Engineer at the Georgia Institute of Technology, recently named on the Forbes 30 Under 30 list for Energy. Connect with Joseph: linkedin.com/in/josephpmooney
Sinéad Conneely is a Director and Structural Engineer at Simple Works in London, a finalist for the Engineers Ireland Chartered Engineer of the Year, and a leader in the UK construction industry. Connect with Sinéad: linkedin.com/in/sinéad-conneely-9b847139
QUOTES
"Some of the best engineers in the world are from Ireland, because Ireland is one of the best test beds for engineering projects". - Joseph Mooney
"All that matters... is: Can you learn? Can you take criticism?" - Sinéad Conneely
"That mentality is so valuable in the startup, aggressive and be kind of cute with what you're doing". - Joseph Mooney
"Being Irish is more valuable than your engineering degree in a way like that is currency". - Sinéad Conneely
TRANSCRIPTION
For your convenience, here is an AI transcription
Dusty Rhodes 0:01
Right now, on Amplified...
Joseph Mooney 0:03
Some of the best engineers in the world are from Ireland, because Ireland is one of the best test beds for engineering projects. You know, I've been part of talks where the US is trying to learn from abroad, so I'm trying to bring all of those learnings from Ireland to the US.
Dusty Rhodes 0:24
Hi there. My name is Dusty Rhodes, and you are welcome to Amplified, the Engineers Ireland podcast. Many talented engineers feel tied to Ireland, afraid that moving abroad could mean losing professional momentum. However, the reality is that an engineering degree acts as a borderless passport, allowing you to innovate on a global scale while maintaining deep roots in the Irish community. How? Well in this special global engineers mini series, we're going to be meeting several Irish engineers who have done just that, and will share how they did it. Today, I'm delighted to welcome Joseph Mooney, a Forbes 30 under 30 honoree at the forefront of US energy research and Sinéad Conneely, a Structural Director and finalist for Chartered Engineer of the Year. Joseph and Sinéad, you are both very welcome.
Sinéad Conneely 1:11
Thank you.
Joseph Mooney 1:11
Thank you. Pleasure to be here.
Dusty Rhodes 1:13
Let's start off the chat today, guys, just kind of talking about this global passport kind of concept for engineers. What I'd like to know is, how did you choose to leave Ireland, and how did you pick where to go? Maybe Joseph, you're in the States to kick off.
Joseph Mooney 1:30
Yes, I'm in the States. So I had a deep passion for research, and I saw that there was something in this technology called atmospheric water generation that ran across the globe, and I saw this amazing research professor, Evelyn Wang in MIT. Love to learn from her. I'd love to learn from her team and see how that is something that could like show commercial potential. Just wanted to kind of collaborate with home at the same time. How do I collaborate with home on a water scarcity problem, which to be, you know, non-existent in Ireland, I can get onto that. I decided to write a project with the EU Commission. So rather than just like the, you know, the EU to kind of get it there with the intent of starting something that would make a global impact, always like, bring it back to people that really suffer from the problem. But I think there's always that lure of building it successfully with heavy backing that could eventually make like so that was kind of the law of going to the US, high quality and good engineers from MIT, so I could find, you know, collaborators, which I did, you know, having that good link back to Ireland, being based cities that do have those Irish roots.
Dusty Rhodes 2:36
And Sinéad, how about yourself? You're in London. What? Why did you decide to up sticks out of Ireland and move across the border?
Sinéad Conneely 2:43
So we were kind of just saying earlier that I am a little bit older than Joseph. So I graduated from uni in Galway in 2010 so two years after the financial crash, no engineering jobs in Ireland like we had gone in as undergrads in the boom and been told we'd be the highest paid engineers ever to leave college, and it was really competitive. Then, to get into civil engineering. It was like, it's like a serious thing. And obviously we came out, some of the lads in my class signed on the door straight away. And I went to London just to do a master's. I actually went and did a ski season. First, I went and got a job in a restaurant in France. I was like, it's now or never, so it's actually quite a good time when there's nothing going on at home. So I went, worked as a waitress, snowboarded for a winter, went to London to do a master's, and I got into two colleges in London, either to do a master's in civil engineering or a master's in applied mathematics. So I kinda, I was like, I'll see. Maybe I could get a job in finance. Maybe that's something that, you know, I could go in and reform finance after this big crash, I didn't really know anything about finance, and I did this master's in Applied Maths at Imperial College. And like, halfway through, I was like, finance is not for me. But I never thought I'd stay in London. I had this kind of like, you know, you talk about a global passport. I told my dad I would move country every year for 10 or 15 years. I would just change jobs every year, travel the world. He was like, okay, and I'm now in London, 14 years.
Dusty Rhodes 4:21
Now, the story I hear a lot of people, and be warned if you're listening to this and you kind of think you're moving abroad, the story that I hear from a lot of people is, yeah, I moved there for three months or six months, or something like that, and then I met somebody, and then that was 30 years ago, or something like that. Is that what happened to you? Sinéad, is it all right?
Sinéad Conneely 4:41
Okay, the first job I got was for a big consultancy. I loved working with them. I think London is still I think London is such an amazing place. My brother was visiting this weekend, and we were just like, walking around East London, and he lives in France at the moment. But I just think London is amazing. There you go. I wouldn't live anywhere else in this country but London, unbelievable.
Dusty Rhodes 5:03
You mentioned doing your masters there is that because you're kind of thinking your qualifications from Ireland wouldn't stand up in the UK?
Sinéad Conneely 5:11
We were told they wouldn't when we left. So I don't know, Joseph, did you get a Master's when you finished studying?
Joseph Mooney 5:17
No, I decided that I probably wouldn't get just went straight into the PhD. So I just wanted to research.
Sinéad Conneely 5:24
Because we only had a bachelor, and because we were all basically needing to go abroad, we were kind of told you're going to be competing with whatever British students, students in the US, so you probably need a master's.
Dusty Rhodes 5:37
So what was the reality? Then? Did your qualifications stand up? Or did you have to do the master's?
Sinéad Conneely 5:41
I would have needed a master's to get a job.
Dusty Rhodes 5:42
Get a job in London. Yeah. And what about Irish qualifications? I mean, are people familiar with them? Because one of the things they say is, if you have an engineering degree, you can work anywhere in the world, but maybe not.
Sinéad Conneely 5:55
Oh, I think they do. I mean, they only tell you this when you're in secondary school in Ireland, but there's obviously, like, the whole global university ranking system, and, you know, Irish universities don't rank so highly on them, but I don't think it really matters. Like, I worked with loads of European engineers, Greek, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, and they're all amazing, you know, and their universities don't rank very highly. I went to Galway. I don't know where it is, but you know anyone that I know who didn't go to say, a top 10 University, they're brilliant engineers.
Dusty Rhodes 6:29
Okay, so how about though, if you are travelling abroad then and all you're holding is an Irish engineering qualification, should you be worried or just go with it? What do you think? No, I wouldn't be worried. Joseph, what about yourself?
Joseph Mooney 6:42
No, I wouldn't be worried. Because, like, you know, if you get in the interview, then it's all up to you, right? And I think with engineers with passports, one of the reasons that it's so beneficial is that, you know, people like us travel and the universities that we've been to, and, you know, depending on we're just getting sights on these universities more and more like back, I suppose when people are interviewing, they would have said, you know, I went to the University of Ireland and, you know, Limerick or UCD or whatever, because it's just like now they're becoming more and more familiar, because we have these amazing engineers travelling.
Dusty Rhodes 7:14
In what way would you big up the Irish qualifications then, so that they look a little bit more advantageous, or a little bit maybe sexier than it might be in reality.
Joseph Mooney 7:22
Yeah, I do think the Irish practical with how they approach problems, you know, it's the fundamentals, but we can apply it, which is very valuable strengths to the engine engineers out of Ireland is that, like we are engineers getting from A to B, it's just the quality of how we do it, but also the ease at which we do, and I think that's super important, enjoying the colleagues, but also, like the ability to have those transparent conversations, and I think it's a very big thing about our Irish people travelling, is that, like, they open up even more when they travel, you know?
Dusty Rhodes 7:52
And I think that's super valuable, and that's very interesting that you say that, because a lot of people, before they leave, one of the things that they scare the most of is failing yet when you get there, something changes in your head where it doesn't happen. Can you remember that happening to you?
Joseph Mooney 8:08
Well, the fear of failure was kind of left me very early on, like I was a swimmer and I failed every day. So when it was applied to engineering, I was okay with failure, that it was progress, right? You know, if I didn't do a correct tumble turn, I'd know how to learn how to do it, and then I'd make my time faster. So if I, you know, if I wired the circuit backwards, well, then now I knew how to wire the circuit better, or I knew how to go on to some sort of for me. Like, you know, if everything's dandy, you know, you have to fail, but it's just time.
Dusty Rhodes 8:41
And like, how about you, Sinéad, did you have any that sense of fear of failure when you started and obviously got over it?
Sinéad Conneely 8:45
Hell, I was really scared to even apply to the universities in London. And I was over in London with my dad and my brother. I think we were here for a wedding, and my dad wanted us to go in and see Imperial College and go in and see UCL, where I was applying. And I didn't want to go in, fine, leave it. And it was just pure, like, you know, I'll never get in, which is, I mean, okay, valid, but I had really good grades, and I was really good on paper. So it was, you know, like, it wasn't that founded. And then when I started my first job, because I had done to say, civil engineering, and Galway. Finished 2010 ski season Masters in Applied Maths. I two years out of engineering, and then went into this big consultancy in central London. I didn't know anything like I was terrified every day I was like, Googling, no, this is a long time before chat GPT. I'd be Googling, how do you design a steel beam? And then reading these, like university course notes, Queens. Queens, University in Belfast had these amazing they published all their tutorial notes. Be like in in the office, late, reading all this stuff. And I was like, they're gonna fire me. Once they find out I don't know anything, they will fire me. But. All that matters. And you know now I employ people all that matters when you're in and this goes for whether you're working in Ireland or abroad. Can you learn? Can you take criticism? Engineering is non stop failure to make sure that the building that you design doesn't fail, right, or whatever it is that you're designing, but engineering is non stop, hopefully constructive criticism, but if you can't take it, I've had some people working like with us, had to sit them down and be like, if you can't get on this track of having constant it's a constant feedback loop and see that it's not failure, it's progress and it's improvement, then it's really not the career for you, because it never stops, ever.
Dusty Rhodes 10:45
When you're away, I think there's also kind of a little bit of a change in the Irish people or other people that you would meet, and you might meet Irish people that in Ireland you wouldn't necessarily talk to, but when you were away, you're both smiling at this when you're away, suddenly they become pals, and you end up doing things for each other. Did you find that to be true?
Joseph Mooney 11:08
Yeah, I would have I meet with every, every Irish person I can. You know, there's a little bit of your clicks back home. We're so alike in that we took the risk to move abroad. We want to see how we can like both kind of make the most of our time here on is the way of who you know like, and who are the clicks back home. It's more this together, and it gives you a sense of security when you're abroad. So like, I would have separated myself from people that I wanted to get to know more when I was abroad. And like, I moved to Boston, but then I moved to Atlanta, and like, within the first week click, there was an amazing person that met me and just accelerated my connections across, like, the entire state of Georgia. And then they all became aware of what I wanted to do, and then they just liked me with everyone that was, you know, the rapid development of what we're doing here. But yeah, and I think we should probably bring that mindset back to Ireland. Now I'm a bit naive, and maybe it's there, but I would love for that.
Dusty Rhodes 12:05
A lot of people talk about networking. They find difficulty with networking, but everyone I know who's moved abroad just it happens naturally. It's not a skill. It's just something that you do, and then six months later, you go, Oh my God, I've been networking. So it's kind of funny, both of you also have something in common in that kind of you've moved you've done a bit of work, you've got used to your surroundings, and now you're both running your own projects. Sinéad, can I start with you? Because you're a director and structural engineer with Simple Works in London. Tell us about the company and what you guys do.
Sinéad Conneely 12:36
So we are seven years old, so we're structural engineers. My co-founders and I met at our old company. One of them is Irish. You talk about Irish people looking after each other. She and I met in a pub on St Patrick's Day. She had gone to college in Dublin with some guys from Athlone. I had gone to college in Galway with some guys from Athlone, who'd all gone to secondary school together, right? So then she and I were the only two girls in the group that day. We got to chatting. She had been working somewhere else, convinced her to come and work for old firm. So it was me, her, and then two guys that we've met in our old firm. So we set up Simple Works, and our kind of reasoning for it, our old company worked on really big stuff. So like, from an engineering perspective, really exciting. My last project was like two towers down a Vauxhall three story basement complex construction sequence, but we wanted to work on stuff that had a bit more purpose so and also we wanted more autonomy over our design decisions, because when you're working on really big stuff in a really big organisation, and this was naivety, right? We were probably too young to be doing what we were doing. But that's what everyone told us we were sat down so many times by people in our whole company being like, You're too young. Just wait. You're like, no. But we wanted to be able to choose what we worked on, and we wanted that stuff to be, you know, projects that really give back. So whether that's a teeny, tiny, little piece of artwork, you know, on the side of the road, or, you know, big, multi unit residential for local councils, for affordable housing. And those are the kind of the two scales that we work between now. And, you know, we became a B Corp a few years ago, so we had to quantify how much of our work was for purpose driven clients. And it's always kind of between 60, 70% of our turnover. Of our turnover. And it means, then that we've also attracted engineers who want to work on that kind of thing. And our team is one of the things I'm most proud of at the minute. Our team's amazing. They're like, one of them organised this Master Chef challenge last week for our team social, and it was just so much fun. And they're all really different. They all want to make a difference. They're all, I don't know. They're just fun, no, but it's a good crack.
Dusty Rhodes 14:49
Has a good team and the sense of shared purpose, and so that, Joseph, you're kind of off on a different side of things with your project, because you're more research based. Am I right?
Joseph Mooney 14:56
Yeah, it sits down for like, everything that Nathan. Through Simple Works, you know, engaging with the key is super important, and building a strong team with strong core values is like, you know, of what a successful company needs to have. But, yeah, I started a company this year. Started, I suppose, paying myself, and we do decentralised access to water by converting here and any available heat into potable water on site for, like, you know, the water scarcity, you know, 2 billion odd people motor scarcity, and is expected to, like, almost double, you know, I had the intention started a company, like, from a pretty early stage when I was doing my PhD in university. I was with the professor, Vanessa Egan and Jeff punch, and they were kind of aware of this. So the skills to write a grant application to something like the EU Commission, you know, to get into a group that really translates into hard tech. And when I moved to MIT, founder Bashir, he was a researcher taking over some projects in water harvesting. But he himself, was from Lebanon, and he kind of showed me what it really meant the water, you know, how it dictated how you live, to access education, as to health care. And then I started, like more into the problem. You know, there's huge inequalities associated with water scarcity now, to communities, to find out what was a real problem, and commercial perspective. And then a bunch of these farmers just started talking, we're losing like, over half of our yields. We're thinking we're gonna have to close down business needs anymore. So we're like, look, listen, let us build a solution with you, portable and accessible and year round, to make sure that you don't have that fear, or you can, you can focus on something else. So since then, we raised some moves to Georgia Tech spun out. The company raised some more in the agricultural space. But then we're focusing on the growing fear of the rapid development of AI data centres semi on how they over consume natural resources. So we're trying to tap into those with them more resilient, but also, again, going back to Sinéad's, how do they do the community, and not just like consumers. You know, we're trying to be that steward from the water type.
Dusty Rhodes 17:05
You mentioned funding there. I would imagine there's a huge difference between looking for money in Ireland, and you can imagine what that might be like, as opposed to looking for funding in the States. How did you find it?
Joseph Mooney 17:14
There is a bit of a difference. Like the check sizes are stated, the checks kind of come faster. I'd imagine the amount of grants a bit larger, right? You've got a couple of bodies in, like the EU and stuff like that. But in order to, like, move fast, you kind of have vigils that are willing to front that money, and they know that it's a risk hitting on those one or two unicorns to make sure those pots stay alive. That culture is becoming a little bit more apparent in all of this stuff happening in the in the US and abroad. Yeah, a big thing for people moving to the US is, like that investment landscape, to rapidly get to scale and impact.
Dusty Rhodes 17:52
And do you find the same with innovation in that, you know, kind of what's their phrase, move fast and break things. Are you able to do that a lot more in the States than you would have if you'd stayed in Ireland?
Joseph Mooney 18:05
I think so. And it's more because so many people are moving fast and breaking things that allows you to just be like, you know, I'll just go for it. I think the like Irish mentality is, it's pretty ballsy. You know, they are risk takers. You know, it's like, Benson, get into this concert for free. I'm going to do this to get into this place for sphere. Why can't we apply it to engineering like and I have done, you know, there's these closed events where it's like, run by the mayor, and I walk up, where's your name? I was like, Oh, I know the mayor. And I just say, no more, and just walk through and I don't it's like, that mentality is so valuable in the startup, aggressive and be kind of cute with what you're doing. And I respond, and so that they just need to bring it out more, and people like us can kind of come back and show that it can be done on that, like startup or like industrial level.
Dusty Rhodes 18:49
Sinéad. Do you find any similarities with what Joseph is saying? Because for me, London is kind of like, it's not quite as mad as the States is, and it's closer to Ireland, but at the same time, it's still like 10 times the size of Ireland.
Sinéad Conneely 19:02
So yeah, what's interesting, like, the big difference in the construction industry between the UK and Ireland? Ireland's way more regulated. But what it does is it puts more responsibility onto the designers. So in the UK, and I didn't know this until recently, I watched a documentary about precast construction, like decades ago. I can't remember, was it 60s and 70s, but all the fallout from the Grenfell disaster and the kind of like rapidly changing of regulations in the UK to try and catch up to maybe where they should have been, which has caused, actually, a slowdown in the construction industry because they can't catch up quick enough. Part of the deregulation was structural in that the Tory government. Now, I might say something that's not totally factually correct. I'll try and keep the some facts out.
Dusty Rhodes 19:50
Okay, we'll takewhatever you're about to say with a pinch of salt.
Sinéad Conneely 19:52
But I'm pretty sure it was the Tory government, because we'll blame the Tories. They wanted if you wanted to bring in a new regulation in the construction in. Industry, you had to get rid of two so over a couple of decades, they just totally deregulated the construction industry, and they put most of the responsibility onto the builders and onto the main contractors. Now, you know, if my company does the structural engineering on a project once it goes to site, unless the client really pushes for us to be there, the contractor doesn't have to have us on site checking stuff, right? And if it's a design and build contract, which means they take full responsibility, they're the ones who have to pay us to be there. So sometimes they're like, don't worry about it. We'll make sure it gets built, right? Whereas, in Ireland, the engineer has to sign everything off, which is correct. But here the contractor can decide that they'll do that and they'll, you know, cover the cost for all this sign off by just paying their own staff to do it. So and then what happened with Grenfell is that things kind of made it through onto the building that never should have been on the building. So when people are asked to make decisions on like safety and build ability with cost always at the forefront of their minds. People make bad decisions, and it will always be the way. So the only way, really, is regulation. People hate regulation. Oh, my God, regulation like flies in the face of capitalism, and you're like, it's okay. I really like it. Everyone here is really upset about there's a new thing here called Gateway two, and it's basically you have to have everything sorted out before you get to site. But people are upset because there's not enough resource at the regulator, so it's delayed all these projects. And actually, yeah, because the economy here is going they're blaming it on gateway too, but it's because of Brexit, and it's because of Ukraine, and it's because of covid, and it's because of the politicians and everything else, but everyone's blaming gateway two. And I'm like, Guys, Gateway two sounds amazing. Imagine we're going to know exactly what's going on the building. Every time there's an error, they'll say, oh, look, it was because of that as an important thing to make yourself, like, implementable.
Joseph Mooney 22:21
I think, like, working like, it's pretty standard. Yes, it's pretty like, wild Westy, you know, like things change, we would like to use, like, regulation and policy to your advantage in like, a sustainable point, but it's just, you just don't know what the future holds in the country like this. But whether you know, the bodies, you know, what kind of needs to be. If it was an easier and quicker process, it'd be amazing. Like, you know, like lead certification or something like that. Like, how can you tie into that as a startup to make sure that you are, like, the solution to be, like, in the US, I'm kind of doing this at the moment. It's like, you know, who were I to talk to? And, you know, you just don't know, whereas in again, it's a little bit more direct.
Dusty Rhodes 23:04
Joseph, kind of looking then kind of the opposite way around. Is there stuff that you see that's happening around you, that you think Ireland should be paying more attention to, things that we should be doing here?
Joseph Mooney 23:17
I do. I'm probably not going to relate this as much to water, but energy side, but energy water are coupled, can be lost in our old ways, a little bit in Ireland in terms of being transparent, I will take the example of, you know, small margins and stuff like that that are being like rapidly research brands, but because there's been such a bad face in the past on things, harder To get those projects back into the country. So times, I think could be an important thing to Ireland. Now, granted, we do have some amazing engineers. There's infrastructure engineers in the country. It's just, you know, like regular, rapid progress sometimes. So just being a little bit more transformative. The, you know, the US is pretty good at it's like, moving fast.
Dusty Rhodes 24:02
Sinéad over in London. What's going on there that you think Ireland should be doing more of?
Sinéad Conneely 24:07
I don't think, and I don't totally know, but I have been trying to relate the two a few times recently. Affordable housing and social housing is better in London. It's really hard to get a council house in Ireland, and it's really stigmatised. And here it used to be less stigmatised. So kind of, again, this, like 60s, 70s period where the welfare state probably was more prolific. I think something like 60% of people lived in social housing. And it was something to be actually quite proud of, because the council housing was amazing. You know, you could have quite a nice life in the city, and it was recognised as being a way just to keep things equal. And then, you know, there was the whole Margaret Thatcher thing, where she wanted everybody to buy their homes back, everyone to be a homeowner, which, in itself, was a nice idea. It meant that the council sold all their stock backs. And now. Know, the councils have these, like, huge bills where they still have to keep people in social housing, but they're paying private landlords, so now they're trying to build back their stock. And there's, like, loads of housing associations here. You do have in Ireland, just not as many. And I think this idea of equity and making sure that people have enough, and also making sure that, like, you know, the economy's changed so much here in the time that I've been here, and definitely the gap between the rich and the poor is widening, and I live in an horror that has, like, a crazy number of kids under the poverty line. And we're right beside the City of London, which is where the Financial District is, and you're just looking at it, and you can see the gap right, wider, wider. And like, people rob your phone on the street here. And I, to me, that's a metaphor for, like, a phone is a very, very expensive thing to some people, and it's kind of throw away to other people. And you know, now there's a whole, like, sub economy of smartphones. I don't know if you've, like, if it probably isn't in like, I don't know if it makes it into the news in Ireland, but where my office is, you can't walk around with your phone out. It will be it will be stolen, and they're being sold, and it's just this thing of, like, just huge gaps. But while I don't think Ireland has the same gap, it's starting to appear. It's it's there in Dublin. You know, this is a crazy housing crisis in Dublin, and this idea that the Council could be building homes, I don't think, is quite so powerful as it is here.
Dusty Rhodes 26:37
No speaking of home and looking back towards Ireland, for both of you, how do you maintain your network within engineers Ireland?
Sinéad Conneely 26:48
Despite living abroad, the beginning of last year was my interview, but I haven't been that involved, to be honest, but I am getting more involved,
Dusty Rhodes 26:55
Getting more involved now, right? That's interesting.
Sinéad Conneely 26:57
Why? Well, with engineers, in particular, Irish engineers are amazing, and it's a very probably selfish thing, but I would like to be attracting more into London. How about yourself,
Joseph Mooney 27:09
Joseph, I frequently have interactions with Engineers Ireland, primarily because my father was an engineer for the ESB. I've worked with institutions that work with engineers Ireland. But yeah, no, the primary thing is just talking to my father and his friends that were heavily involved with engineers Ireland and the International engineers society, the European one. And like as this whole data centre energy resilience boom is going on, and just having more and more conversations with back home. Because, as Sinéad said, like some of the best engineers in the world are from Ireland, because Ireland is one of the best test beds for engineering projects, and just learning from them to kind of bring that knowledge to here. So like, you know, I've been part of talks where the US is trying to learn from abroad. So I'm trying to bring all of those learnings from Ireland to the US. And then just, you know, the constant engagement that engineers Ireland have with us abroad, with like, you know, our successes and everything, like, even when some things could happen on our end. You know, engineers Ireland have no fear of reaching out. And I was involved with the the institute, like, you know, going up through the university level, participating in their competitions and stuff like that. And I was kind of, like, just the foundation for that frequent communication flow.
Dusty Rhodes 28:22
Do you ever have a fear of missing out on life back in Ireland, or have you just made your new home and that's it?
Joseph Mooney 28:28
Yeah, I love home. I feel like, you know, one of the reasons I want to collaborate with back home more and more is that I can get home more and more. The first thing that everyone I think abroad does when they wake up is call home and living abroad is great. There's some great perks and beauties of the greater world, but like home is home. There's no place like it, and there's no place like the people, so there's always a miss of home. And yeah, just good vibes coach people from back home.
Dusty Rhodes 28:55
How about yourself do you find kind of being in London with so many flights and Ryanair and stuff like that. You're back a couple of times a year.
Sinéad Conneely 29:03
Yeah, there was. So I'm 38 now live off the back of all the weddings. But for a while I had, like, weddings a year, right? Whereas now most people have kids, I have two, one year old. So I actually have been going home more in the past year to see them. I do miss, you know, that hurts, that not seeing them like too is tough. My dad works to be able to work together, so it's nice to see him. But I do think Joseph, you said, like the people and we talked previously about Irish people be worried, you know, going abroad with their qualification, but being Irish is more valuable than your engineering degree in a way like that is currency. And I don't think there's any country in the world you could talk to, except maybe Israel at the moment, who isn't going that you're there. And you know, Irish engineers, they work harder. Joseph, you said earlier, more possible, and there is an openness and a directness sometimes people, but once they get to know you, they value.
Dusty Rhodes 30:15
Last question for the pair of you, Joseph, if you could go back a week before you left Ireland, and knowing what you know now, what one piece of practical advice would you give yourself?
Joseph Mooney 30:29
I would say, take the risk earlier. You know, be ambitious. Earlier, engage with your Irish community. You know, more aggressively, you are broad, and it is nice to collaborate and get to know other people from different cultures, but like, always have that grounding with your Irish roots, because you don't know how beneficial that is. And as Sinéad said, it's like, it's tough living abroad, but there's sometimes I'm just walking down the street and I kind of just stop to myself and smile, being like, you know, never did. I think I'd be in Atlanta, Georgia, starting a company that could have a global impact, you know, and it isn't for me taking certain risks along the way and working with other Irish people that made that possible. So I would have just said, do it earlier. You know, this could have happened in a year, rather than three
Dusty Rhodes 31:19
Cool and Sinéad for yourself if you could go back a week before you left Ireland, what advice would you give yourself?
Sinéad Conneely 31:25
Spend more time packing your bag. I arrived in London with the hangover after my going away party and had no underwear but a skateboard of five pairs of trainers.
Dusty Rhodes 31:38
So you had the essentials. Then essentially, yeah, good stuff. Listen. Thank you to both of you for sharing your time and your experience with us. If you would like to learn more about Joseph's work with water or Sinéad projects at Simple Works, please check out the links in our show notes. But for now, Joseph Mooney and Sinéad Conneely, thank you so much for joining us.
Sinéad Conneely 31:58
Thank you. Thanks
Joseph Mooney 32:00
Thanks very much.
Dusty Rhodes 32:01
We hope you enjoyed our conversation today. If you know another engineer is considering a move abroad or looking to expand their global network, please do share this episode with them. They can find us very simply by searching for Engineers Ireland, wherever they get their podcasts. This episode is produced by dustpod.io for Engineers Ireland. For advanced episodes, more information on the global engineers series or career development advice, you'll find a wealth of resources on our website at engineersireland.ie until next time for myself, Dusty Rhodes. Thank you for listening.