Being an Engineer S5E10 Derek Pietz | Industrial Automation, Losing A Million Dollars, & Successful Startups
Derek Pietz shares his journey from engineering student to co-founding a successful automation startup and his current role leading engineering teams at Intuitive. He discusses the challenges of starting a company, lessons learned, and trends in the automation industry.
Main Topics:
- Engineering career path
- Founding and growing a startup
- Challenges and pivots
- Prioritizing work/life balance
- Designing robotic surgery equipment
- Improving team morale
- Communication best practices
- Future of AI and vision systems in automation
About the guest: Our guest today is Derek Pietz, the Director of Automation Equipment and Test Engineering at Intuitive, a trailblazing company at the forefront of robotic-assisted surgery. Prior to his role at Intuitive, Derek has been a part of four start-up ventures including one as a co-founder. He has built and led engineering and operations teams, designed machines, run a P/L, pitched investors, obsessed over supply chain, developed sales strategies, taught robots to make pizza and fixed customer problems.
Links:
Derek Pietz - LinkedIn
Intuitive website
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