Technical Work Is Evolving. Soft Skills Matter, but Hard Skills Still Get the Job Done - Justin Allen, Bosch

What skills actually matter in technical careers now that the work is more digital, more automated, and more interconnected?

Industrial employers are not asking schools to choose between hard skills and soft skills. They're asking for both, and they still need the hard skills to come first. At Bosch, Justin Allen sees that every day: teamwork, drive, and professionalism matter, but technical problems don't get solved unless people understand the systems, tools, and engineering underneath them.

In this episode:

• The hard skills vs. soft skills debate: soft skills matter, but technical work can't get done without hard skills
• Are digital skills now a soft skill?
• What employers really mean when they say they want drive, work ethic, and teamwork
• How MAGMA has figured out how to successfully re-skill the current workforce
• How technical careers are shifting from narrow expertise to systems thinking

3 Big Takeaways from this Episode:

1. Industrial employers still expect hard skills for all technical positions, not just "soft" or "employability" skills. Justin says it directly: while companies like Bosch value teamwork, drive, and professionalism, technical problems don't get solved unless people understand the systems, tools, and engineering behind the work. It's an important distinction for schools that hear employers talk about soft skills and assume the technical bar has somehow been lowered.

2. Digital fluency is moving from specialized skill to baseline expectation. Justin argues that younger workers are already showing up comfortable with digital tools, automation, scripts, and AI, while many employers are still adjusting to how fast that shift is happening. In technical roles, that means software awareness and digitalization are becoming part of the expected skill stack.

3. Schools and workforce programs need tighter alignment with industry's talent and skill needs. Justin shares how he's working directly with universities to help shape curriculum, evaluate where students are still missing key competencies, and bringing real engineering problems into capstone projects so learning stays connected to actual technical work. He also points to MAGMA and Michigan’s workforce ecosystem as examples of how employers, public partners, and training providers can help incumbent workers build new skills, retrain for technical roles, and stay aligned with what industry needs now.

Resources in this Episode:

Learn more about Bosch: https://www.bosch.us/

Learn more about MAGMA: https://miautomobility.org/

More links & resources on the episode page: https://techedpodcast.com/allen

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Transcript

TechEd Podcast Introduction: 0:09

Announcer, this is the TechEd podcast, where we feature leaders who are shaping, innovating and disrupting technical education and the workforce. These are the stories of organizations leading the charge to change education, to rethink the workforce and to embrace emerging technology. You'll find us here every Tuesday on our mission to secure the American Dream for the next generation of STEM and workforce talent. And now here's your host. Matt Kirchner,

Matt Kirchner: 0:38

welcome to the TechEd podcast. I am your host. Matt Kirchner, all kinds of great things going on here at the podcast, such that it seems like just about every week we are packing our bags and traveling somewhere to speak in an event, to keynote a conference. Last week, as we recorded this, I was in Indianapolis, Indiana at an education conference, doing a keynote. Next week, I'll be heading off to beautiful Orlando, Florida, to do another one. And so it was a few short weeks ago that I found myself in Southeast Michigan, the heart of the world's automotive country, at a conference, speaking at a conference at Schoolcraft College, as a matter of fact, and I met today's guest. He actually was on a panel just after me. Fascinating, fascinating human being. We're going to talk about what he does. We're going to talk about the organization for whom he does it, or for which he does it. He's actually the director of engineering for powertrain testing. So you think about powertrain in a motor vehicle. It's basically everything involved with transferring power from the vehicle to the to the surface of the street, through the tires and so on. That is the powertrain. And he does it for a really, really well known company, a company called Bosch, that is a multi multinational engineering and technology company. We'll learn about them as well. His name is Justin Allen. We're going to have a really great conversation. He is into all kinds of cool stuff, certainly automotive technology, what it means to be an engineer, what it means to stay at the same company for a long period of time. There's lessons there for our listeners and anybody who runs a business. We'll also talk a little bit about what's more important, hard skills, soft skills and so on. So excited for this episode of The TechEd podcast with Bosch's Justin Allen, as I mentioned, the Director of Engineering for powertrain testing, Justin, so awesome to have you with us. Thanks for joining me. Yeah, thank you, man. So let's start out with this. One of the things that you mentioned to me when we were talking, and we just don't hear this so much anymore, Justin, is that you've been with Bosch, and if people are watching on YouTube or they know what you look like, You're not an old guy. You've been at the same company for 24 years, which in this day and age where, you know, I had somebody on the podcast last week that mentioned that young people can see as many or expect as many as 27 career transitions over the course of their career. Here you've been with the same company for 24 years. So tell us about that journey, and what is it about a company like Bosch that keeps you there?

Justin Allen: 2:56

My relationship started with Bosch when I was in high school. Actually, I went to a career fair. Was signed on to attend a private university, and in the Flynn area, formerly known as General Motors Institute, now known as Kenner University, since the late 90s, sure needed to nail down an internship. Went to a job fair. There was all of the big threes, the OEMs, the suppliers and what have you. And this little German company, at least little to me at the time, didn't know too much about it, reached out, showed some interest in me, applied, and in May of my graduate high school year, I was selected to be an intern for for that next program. And the cool thing with that program is that that that program goes on for four years. So I spent my entire collegiate career, and I call it a career, because it really did start, and in the very beginning phase there with the company, had the opportunity to move to a full time position once I graduated. And here I am, amazing, obviously, moving along the along the company in the meantime. Why am I here? I'd say that it's a little bit of a cliche answer. Cliche answer being that it's, it's a it's a company that supports you, and it's hard to leave a place that has good culture, good people and good support. I think that's hard to find across the world and especially across the nation. But really, what really rings true with me is the company's logo, invented for life. That means that we are working on technology that is here to sustain livelihood for everyone in the world. It can be healthcare, it can be safety, crash standards, new, innovative environmental products, looking at Green Energy, things like that. So if we look at what Bosch works on, it's well outside just the automotive domain. We've got four sectors, and obviously the Automotive is our bread and butter. That's our largest but if you have a change in heart and you want to get into a different type of skill set, a different type of product, there's enormous opportunities within this company. And again, that it's that innovative for life mentality, that you're always working on something tangible, something that's going to impact people's lives in a positive manner. That's That's what matters to me. Is making sure that we're doing the right thing for the people, and as a result, the company takes care of you.

Matt Kirchner: 5:04

And it's interesting, you know, as you reflect on kind of where things have morphed. I was just talking about this with somebody last week about how, you know, when I went to business school and I'm older than you are, but, but, you know, we all wanted to be Gordon Gecko, if people remember that character from the movie Wall Street, right? And not exactly that you wanted, obviously an ethically challenged character, but, but you wanted to be that individual that was like, you know, kind of the, you know, the slick, sleek, you know, business person making tons of money, driving a beautiful car, living in a beautiful household. And not that those things aren't fine and important, but it's interesting. More and more people are into what, what you just mentioned, which is this whole idea of what is the mission around the company that I'm involved with, and if I feel like I'm making a difference, if I feel like I'm doing work that is improving people's lives, it doesn't doesn't mean that the other benefits of working in an organization aren't important. But that's really, really important. I think, for our employers to hear is the more that you can emphasize with people what the mission is all about, and doing good as well as doing well financially. Really, really important to your point, a company like Bosch into all these different technologies. You know, I got interested in the technology probably 10 years ago, primarily through study, studying some of the work that Bosch was doing in the Smart Sensor and smart device area. And you start to learn about just the incredible innovation that's happening in this, in this German company, that's that's really doing a phenomenal job of driving itself forward, of meeting the market where it is, and so on, you know, to that point, of meeting the market where it is and recognizing, you know, what's staying the same and what's what's changing. I was a tier one supplier to automotive for a long, long time. For anybody that doesn't know that term, tier one? Certainly you do, but, but the idea is that you're supplying, at that time, one of the big three, typically, or maybe it was a Honda or a Toyota, somebody like that. But you're like, You're the first supplier to them. So there's no nobody between you and that company. So no stranger whatsoever to working in the automotive space, when you think about automotive technology, and particularly area, the area Justin that you're responsible for on the powertrain side, what are the technologies that are the same as they've been for, you know, decades and decades, and what are some of those areas where there's innovation that's going on, certainly

Justin Allen: 7:13

in the powertrain domain, combustion engines, right? They, they've been around since the turn of the century, and quite honestly, we see a lot of news about them in the last maybe four or five years, about a rapid depression or rapid regression, sorry, and then exiting away from combustion engines and this new presence of electrified vehicles or alternative powered vehicles coming in. And really, if we look at those take rates and those figures, we do not see combustion engines going away in the future. They're going to be here for the mainstay they may not be in the same forms as we see them across all recipes today, they're mostly going to be coupled with hybrid applications with some type of electric, electrified powertrain with them as well. So that's kind of one of the new segments. Also an area that we work closely on to is again, coming back that innovated for life is the future technologies for hydrogen, let's say, or for fuel cell vehicles. Hydrogen is a combustion product. So there's these little old technologies, call them old technologies, that are still being relevant today and still very much in the focus. It's a conversation that I have a lot with university outreaches and activities in academia is saying, Hey guys, we cannot forget the combustion engine. We're still going to need thermodynamics. We're still going to need hands on people to get in and dive into those pieces. Are they going to be carbureted? No, but they haven't been for 2030, years now. So as we look into those, some of those more advanced technologies, we see a lot in software and controls. There's still a lot of programming that has to go on to meet the regulatory compliance factors, either emissions, diagnostics, in use, compliance, things like that. So we still see the software domain very much growing, but still kind of remaining that that root, at least from a mechanical system or electrical system, you're still going to have the basic principles that you've that we've had for the last 3040, 50 years.

Matt Kirchner: 9:00

Yeah, and you think about just the what's happened in in the last two or three years, and a lot of it is driven by public policy and subsidies and so on, but, but folks have gravitated, you know, even back to internal combustion engines. Is some of the economic benefits that were, you know, in some ways artificial. You could argue those were good or bad, but, but, but in terms of subsidizing a technology as that's dried up a little bit. I mean, you've got another story every week about a, you know, an EV battery Plant, plant that's converting into battery technology for data centers, battery technology for the smart grid and so on. I mean, this has been absolutely, absolutely fascinating to watch, and I agree with you. It's going to be an and I don't know where the technology is going to change, just as it has. I mean, you know, when I, when I was first started driving, nobody even had a fuel injected had a fuel injected engine, right? And that's kind of all

Justin Allen: 9:45

you see these days. And scream,

Matt Kirchner: 9:47

yeah, exactly, but, but, so the technology changes. It's also mentioned, interesting. You mentioned the end of life side of things as well. So for folks that aren't familiar, there's a whole technology and a whole school of thought that has to go. Around, what happens to a motor vehicle when it reaches its end of life, and then how do we dispose of that vehicle? Or do whatever we're going to do with it, recycle it, what have you, in a way that's environmentally responsible. I lived through this is now 20 plus years ago, with the end of life vehicle initiative and Rojas in Europe, and some of the changes in regulation that drove all kinds of innovation here in the United States, with the elimination, for instance, of things like hexavalent chromium in a motor vehicle. And so there's, there's always this innovation that's happening and and you're absolutely right, the internal combustion engine is not going away. Love hydrogen technology. Love fuel cell technology, you know, love hybrid technology. It's really finding the best of all worlds. It also, though, all these changing technologies have an impact on the on the role of the engineer, right? And so you're, you're obviously super, super tied into engineering careers. Tell me about that side of it. So if I've got a student that's got a bachelor's degree in in engineering and is going into to work in the powertrain space, or somebody with a master's degree in engineering, and they're in their into or starting their engineering career. How do these changing technologies affect the career of an engineer?

Justin Allen: 11:09

Yeah, I think it to the it's more or less the same, in my viewpoint, as what it's been for the last generations, the differences the complexity and the technology and what the expectation is moving forward. So before, if you graduated and you had a power train focus, you would go work in the dyno lab and the emissions lab, and that would be your focus. And maybe you'd get out into a vehicle and you'd be a calibrator, and you'd be on the road, driving on test strips, things like that. Now that skill set is really shifting. Now the expectation is, yes, you know the you know the combustion process, you know how that system operates, and kind of the some of the levers that you can move with that. But now also, how does that impact the hybrid system? What are your trade offs there? How do you optimize your systems for our peak efficiency, for instance? So it's more of a systems engineering approach than it was just a specific kind of one, one competency area, and you broke that competency down, and you were the expert. Now it's kind of becoming you need to have the competencies across the whole powertrain topology, or the whole vehicle topology. You need to be able to understand software. Like I said. Coming back to car rated vehicles 20 years ago, there was no sure. Maybe there was a computer in the vehicle, but there weren't 1112, 13, of them driving, driving vehicles. I even look at one of my personal cars that's in the in the garage, it has two engine controllers in it. So it has one engine controller to drive one side of the engine and another to drive the other side. And those two modules need to talk to each other, and having that software know how to be able to dive in and have that, let's say like I'm a mechanical engineer. So thermodynamics was, was one of my fortes he transferred, was, was a was also a class that I excelled in, but I didn't have those software and logarithm classes and coding classes. My job never got into the coding. Let's be clear, but to go through and read a block diagram and understand how is the system functioning, that's incredibly important now to understand, again, that holistic view at a systems level, what are, what am I changing, and what does it impact further downstream? You know, I just

Matt Kirchner: 13:05

mentioned in the intro this keynote that I did in Indianapolis last week, and it was to a group of of IT professionals, primarily. And there were advanced manufacturing people in the audience as well. But basically those, those two groups, but probably 70% was it. And I talked about in manufacturing, the convergence between it and OT, in other words, the idea that our systems are no longer just, you know, mechanical or fluid power or, you know, motor and motion control and so on that we had this whole aspect of, you know, the software side and the IT side. And from this is more from a production standpoint, but the need to understand both. And what I'm hearing from you is whether I'm an engineer, I'm a technician. It's the convergence of all those technologies, and we can't just be a subject matter expert in one and get away with it anymore. We've got to understand that whole systems thinking, Am I getting that right?

Justin Allen: 13:50

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, you walking away from the engineering side. Let's go to more of an hourly worker, mechanic or technician. They need to know how to diagnose these systems, right? They need to know the scan tools. How do the scan tools function? What features are the scan tools looking for? It's it's becoming more and more imperative that that everyone along that process chain has that understanding, and not just process experts. It has to be everybody across the board. And quite honestly, it's been a little bit of a challenge here, at least in the state of Michigan. I'm sure it's nationwide, about how do we train those people? We've got all these new vehicles that are out there. How do we make sure that you take your car into the dealer for warranty work and you have some type of issue with software or electronics that you can work on it safely? That's the most important thing, and that you have the know how to be able to dive into it. You don't need to rely on those experts from wherever they may be, which is not in your local

Matt Kirchner: 14:43

shop, right? Yeah, I spent a lot of time around automotive and diesel programs in technical colleges and community colleges. And it's, you know, that job is getting so hard. I mean, it used to be. I, in fact, I'll tell a quick story. I remember helping a buddy of mine change, change the oil on he had a 19. 1876 blazer, right? So big Chevy Blazer. And you would open up the hood, and there was just the engine there, right? And you could look at everything. You could see the engine block. You see the cylinders, you could I mean, you know, it was like, you could see everything. And now it's like, you open up the hood of a vehicle and it's like, what's even going on underneath there? And you think about these instructors at the Technical and Community Colleges, whether they're training engineers, their training technicians, just so much that they need to know and they need to understand. So becoming more and more complex at the heart of all that. And this is a, you know, a debate that's kind of ongoing in education is, you know, how much of it do we teach the systems? How much do we teach the, you know, the soft skills, which nobody is going to doubt are important, and then how much do we focus on some of the hard skills in the in the base Technologies. I'm a manufacturing guy. So you walk out on a manufacturing plant and it's all, you know, it's, it's basic AC, DC, it's electric relay control, it's fluid power, it's conveyors. It's, you know, the control of motors. It's, you know, measurement, engaging mechanical drives, you know, for for the work that you do, obviously really important in terms of how we're how we're transferring power, and a lot of those fundamentals haven't changed a lot. You know, there's the way, the way we use them, the way we monitor them, and so on the way we deploy them has changed quite a bit. But are you seeing the same thing on the automotive side of those base fundamental skills still as important as they always were, absolutely

Justin Allen: 16:19

I mean, if I, if I separate hard skills and soft skills, we're always going to be focusing on hard skills, right? Soft skills are there. They're they're inherent. There's they're not, oftentimes teachable. And sometimes you may find someone with great soft skills and or sometimes you may find someone with poor soft skills, and you try to mold them and shape them, but you're never going to be able to that's who they are as a person. That's who they are as an individual. But certainly those, those hard skills, are what we focus on, right and and we come back to those hard skills, which are going to bring innovation to the company. That's that's going to be our big focus is, what are they? In terms of embedded, embedded systems, software, highly technical positions, that's what our main focus is, when we, when we're heading to the job market, looking for positions and looking for candidates.

Matt Kirchner: 17:03

Yeah, so to quote, I think it was, I'm not going to name the company because I'm not positive. I'm 99% positive. But it was the CEO of a major retailer that everybody would recognize was asked probably 25 years ago, you know, what do you look for in new employees? And in that person's answer was, we will first. We want to find people that were raised right by their parents. I don't know that that's completely fair, because not everyone had parents that raised them in a certain way. And we certainly don't want to write somebody off just because of of the environment in which they grew up. But I think to your point about, you know, a lot of those skill a lot of those soft skills and personality traits being inherent. I had somebody that works in the personality profile world, tell me years ago that you know pretty much by the time you're seven, and definitely by the time you're 11, whatever those soft skills are, your personality profile is pretty well hardwired. You're not going to take somebody who's wired a certain way and totally change their fundamental personality. They may be able to act inside or outside of that for periods of time, but I think you're right. I mean, a lot of us are wired the way we are. Certainly we want people to come to work every day. We want them to, you know, stay off drugs. We want them to be able to take some level of direction. We'll get into some of those other soft skills here in a little bit. But you and I agree that that certainly a lot of those are hard wired. And then the hard skills and the ability to understand the technologies with which you're working in the fundamentals of those technologies, super, super important. So now let's talk. And I teed up a few of them on the soft skill side and and one of the things that fascinated me about that panel that you were on was the discussion around what soft skills are important. So So talk about that as you're looking at new team members, and you've been doing this for 24 years, you've seen every version, or at least, many, many many versions, of different types of people. What are the things that are really,

Justin Allen: 18:44

really important from a soft skill perspective, I'd say teamwork, right? Teamwork, drive, work ethic. Those are going to be the biggest ones. Those are ones that are going to be hard to mend and to try to try to shape somebody into if they don't have the drive, you're going to have a hard time motivating them to get them to get the drive to what you need to be. So first finding the person who's got the ambition and, like said, that work ethic that's out there. From a soft skill perspective, I'd say overall, things really haven't changed much. And I'll bring in maybe a little bit of a of a controversial aspect of it. Yeah, there's is the digitalization and software that's becoming more and more of a soft skill than it is a hard skill, to be honest. Interesting that expectation is being set now, especially with the new generation, the new workforce coming out. A lot of the older workforce doesn't have that digitalization skills, right? They grew up with laptops, so they grew up with computers that were entering the workforce when they were they know how to use them generally. They're they're okay. They can punch their way through the systems without much hand holding. But what we're really finding is that newer workforce is coming in. They know how to use digital tools. They know how to use AI. They know how to how to automate things. They know how to head to a script and write a code and. Lot of them are doing that at home. They're doing it in their private lives, and then they're bringing that into the workplace. And like I said, I'm viewing that and then maybe this is my personal perspective that's a little bit skewed, but I'm viewing that as digitalization and automation is becoming more of a soft skill.

Matt Kirchner: 20:14

Interesting. It's a really fascinating observation. You know, I was watching an interview last week with Jensen Wong, who, as we all know, is the CEO of Nvidia, and somebody asked him, you know, what is the most important skill that a young person should have? And what he said was, have the ability to prompt and interact with AI, and that'll be more important in the future than than just about anything else. You think I had somebody mentioning, we're on this kick of a keynote a week, it feels like and I keynoted an event in in Wisconsin, about now, three weeks ago, I think, now, and somebody asked me, what should we be teaching our students? It was a, it was a higher education event. What should we be teaching our students about prompting artificial intelligence and generative pre trained transformers? And I was like, nothing. They, I mean, they're, they're gonna figure that out on their own. There's nothing that some you know, I'll take myself as an example, nothing that some 50 some year old guy is going to teach a, you know, a 20 year old student, about prompting a GPT that they can't figure out on their own. We can talk about ethical use of artificial intelligence. We can talk about applications. We can talk about the use of AI in the workplace, but in terms of showing them how to interact with a digital platform like a like a GPT, you know, there's nothing that there were going to teach them. The need to kind of understand that. And we're seeing that in the in the digital natives. That's almost more of a message, in some ways, for people that are my age, or maybe younger, that are, you know, deep into their deeper into their career, and saying, you know, you got up skill this as well. If this truly is a shot soft skill, if this is becoming a ticket to the dance, as they say, and that you're not going to be successful without these skills, well, it's time to upskill yourself around those technologies. I think that's a really, really interesting observation Justin and probably is a little controversial to some people, or at least uncomfortable. But you know, if you speak the truth, you speak the truth, and if that's what you're seeing on the ground, then, you know, you've got an obligation to share it. One of the things that I feel like I've got an obligation to share, especially with educators, is this whole idea, you know, we've talked about hard skills, we've talked about soft skills. I hear from so many, especially in the high schools, where they say, well, all our employers care about are the soft skills. You know. We ask the employers, you know, what is? What do you want? And they say, well, we want students that can just do the and I agree with you on the ones that you mentioned, whether it's teamwork, whether it's the ability to to work with others, to solve problems, you know, super, super important skills that we need to instill in people of all ages. But the you know, then the employer goes to the school and says, Well, just give us the people with these skills. And what the what the educators are hearing is, well, our employers don't care about hard skills. And I'm like, Well, yes, they do. It's just if all you can get is the soft skills. You know, if you're choosing between soft skills and no skills, you're going to pick the soft skills. But I tell them, and again, in my world of manufacturing, if I get somebody who can take direction, who comes to work every day, who understands how to work in a professional workplace, who understands how to problem solve and troubleshoot and and has that drive that you're talking about, and I can get in manufacturing, the person that understands manufacturing technology, how to be an operator, how to interact with that technology, what Lean Manufacturing is, what what smart manufacturing is. I'm going to take the person with both every single time agree or disagree. I mean, clear that up for our educators,

Justin Allen: 23:24

yeah, yeah. I'd say, as a technology company, I can maybe phrase it quite shortly and maybe eloquently, go for it is, how do we solve the problems? We don't solve the problems via soft skills. Yes, that's one mechanism to do so, but the problems don't get resolved unless the hard, skills are there

Matt Kirchner: 23:41

as a foundation? This is what I love about you, is that it took me, like, three minutes to say what you just managed to say in a sentence. So that was, that was beautiful. Keep going.

Justin Allen: 23:50

Yeah, I just wanted to just just iterate on that. Is that right? You have to have those basic know, how's because otherwise, if you take a person with a bunch of an abundance of soft skills, and you throw a technical problem at them as a company, we're going to say, hey, we we expect you to have the know how to do this. And they can maybe write great work meeting minutes. They can be there all hours of the day. They can be emailing anybody. But unless they understand the technical background of that, we're just facing an uphill battle. So I think the hard skills are absolutely imperative to have as a foundation for all of their kids.

Matt Kirchner: 24:26

Yeah, don't be surprised if you see that little clip there on social media somewhere, because I think you absolutely nailed that. That was That was perfect. And I love the way that you put that, that you don't solve problems with soft skills. You need the hard skills as well. And I agree 100% and again, one of the things that really fascinated me about you is not just the experience that you've had at Bosch, not just the fact that you've been at a company for 24 years, not just the fact that you've got a great engineering degree from a university like Kettering, who that I know really well actually, and you've got all these but you're also now spending a lot of time yourself, again, is still a relatively. And guy interacting with universities, interacting with with educators. So, so talk about that. Now, if you're talking let's stay on the university kick and say you're talking to a dean or an associate dean or a professor in in a university. You know, how do they need to be thinking about closing a loop between what you're seeing in manufacturing and in industry and what there's what they're teaching in the classroom. Talk on that, yeah,

Justin Allen: 25:24

it's, it's a really key aspect and something we take very seriously here within my division, we've actually got a team set up to just handle University outreach topics. So our central HR team focuses on a handful of universities that are are strategic for us for us for a number of reasons. Mostly it's those hard skills. It's the type of competencies and the type of skill set that we're getting, either from job applicants or from new hires, or even some of the hires that we have in the organization. So we then go and interface directly with those deans, with the faculty, with the staff, the professors. We go into their labs, we look at what they're doing, we look at the curriculum, we evaluate what what it is they're teaching the students. And then we will put in students into our organization and say, okay, great, we hear you, universe University XYZ, that you're focusing more on hybrid or more on electrified power trains, for instance, just just as an example. And then we will bring those students into the organization and through internships and through programs. We'll say, Okay, now at your junior level, you guys have had this class, this class is supposed to have introduced this topic. We will assess that and provide feedback directly to the university and say, hey, the students that we're getting from your organization are missing x, y or z, and provide that back, because that's important for us as an organization, obviously, but that's also very important for the industry, is that if we have a big gap like that within the industry, that's that's a big problem, and we can't just let that go from a national perspective. We need to make sure that nationally, we keep that that competency, whatever it is, that we need to build up. So a lot of it, like I said, is having those conversations, having a frank discussions with the with the faculty, even integrating ourselves a lot in the curriculum development. We'll get a lot of feedback from the from the professors, from the faculty, saying, Hey, we're going to make this change. Can you guys help support us in making those changes? Or can you guys help make proposals or provide some content for us? And that could be academic material. That could be hardware samples that we give to them and say, Hey, we're going to put these things in your lab, in the students hands. They can look, you'll touch. You can smell them. They don't generally smell like anything, but you can, you can, you can actually understand what they are. So then when you do come in industry, you have a really good idea of what you're going to face.

Matt Kirchner: 27:38

And do you find that most educators are pretty open to that. I mean, I think in some people, in some cases, and it certainly would depend, I think, on the universities you're working with, there's a paradigm of maybe some higher educators being a little bit more closed minded, or like, the idea that they've got all the answers. It sounds like the those that you're working with are pretty open to suggestions and to morphing their programs over time. Is that one?

Justin Allen: 27:59

Yeah, I would say we've been pretty fortunate in the in the individuals that we've been in contact with. They've been very receptive, very open door policy, having us come even multiple times universities to pitch topics, even sometimes asking us to come back and talk just to the students about the topics that we have passions in. And it's it's a great opportunity. I use one example that we that we focus on with a couple of universities are like capstone projects at senior level design projects, where we make sure that we interface with these universities and we bring real, actual engineering problems to them, and say, Here, here's a problem. First, here's an NDA, but here's a problem. Let's, let's dive into it, and let's work on it, and let's go through and then that gives them that feedback. That also gives us a really excellent snapshot, because these are students that are getting ready to go down that commencement aisle, and gives us that end feedback back to the to the universities of where they stand. In those cases, we don't even need to have interns or students. They can just be students working on a senior design level project.

Matt Kirchner: 28:59

Absolutely well. And I think that's really good advice, too, for employers that maybe are looking at ways that they can interact with their higher educators. I've over the years, sat in on a number of assessment projects where you're actually assessing the capstone projects of engineering students. So in other words, they take maybe a semester, maybe an entire year. In some cases, usually they'll have a member of faculty. In fact, probably always have a member of faculty that's advising them. There's somebody that's coming from the industrial employer that's advising them, and so they're working on a real world problem and and, you know, in addition to the benefits you mentioned, which are, which are significant, I've even heard of employers who say, you know, the students came up with an angle on this that we weren't thinking of, and we actually were able to build some innovation into our product or our process as a result of that value that the students add, added and then you're you're right. It's almost like a it's like a free internship and an audition, right? So you're getting to see as you're interacting with these students, you know, how well honed are their hard skills? How well do they understand these base technologies? How good are they at problem solving? What happens when they run in. Will hurdle. Are they able to get over it? If the and I've heard stories about, hey, that, you know, the Capstone presentations are on Tuesday afternoon and it's Friday night, and the thing isn't working, and these students are spending the entire weekend, you know, 14 hour days, getting their solution to work as best as it possibly can, so that they can, you know, they can shine in their capstone presentation. That's the real world, right? I mean, that's and you're being able to just kind of look right into that fishbowl and see which students have it, and maybe which ones have a little bit more work to do. So super, super valuable. And in those interactions, I've got to hear that you're I got to believe Justin, that you're hearing from students about their thoughts on the future of work. I was just reading an article this morning as matter of fact that was kind of going through the anxiety in this case, that young parents have around the advent of artificial intelligence and and you know what? You know as you hear more and more about how higher education and education in general is going to change, and how the world of work is going to change, it was this whole article about the anxiety that these parents have about the future for their kids. You know, in this particular case, you're interacting with students, what are you hearing from them about the future of work, and what are some of the things that they're really excited about, and where are they may be a little bit scared for the future?

Justin Allen: 31:09

Yeah, first, from a personal perspective, that's interesting. And the parents anxiety, because my I've got some two children in the 10 to 13 age time frame on they're very much more into the digital domain than than mom and dad are. And I hear often from my my daughter, who's the eldest, is always telling my mom, Mom, why are you doing you actually believe that that's not real? That was generated by AI. Come on. And it's it's interesting to see that kind of generational perspective as it shifts, for sure, but certainly, as as, as as as we look towards that next generation, right? We all know that AI is is here, but we have to look at kind of this, this hype curve. And we've got this big hype curve that's got a real sharp inflection point. It shoots up, but then we kind of have this rapid regression of things as we realize, well, maybe this isn't right, the technology that is right for right now. And we start to shift, and we go from AI to Gen AI, and we move on to more augmented reality. And I think that's that shift is happening. And I think a lot of lot of individuals, especially organizations, are evaluating that and saying, How does this fit in my in my world, my world as a person, my world as a company, and trying to then adapt, because we don't see that AI is going to take over for all positions, right? We're still going to have jobs out there. AI may reduce some positions, but it's going to be in a very limited fashion. We had an executive one of our, more or less our CTO. We don't go by CEO, CEOs and so on, but more call it our CTO globally, was in house last year, and I had the opportunity to sit down with her in a closed door session with some other associates, and she brought up a really excellent point. She's like, you guys have got to make sure you understand AI. And AI is a language learning model, and once you start to put numbers in those in that system, it doesn't know how to calculate and how to derive the next calculation, right? So you can't just purely go into an AI system today and say, Hey, go solve bernoullis equation. For me, it can look that up. It can find that but given your example or your problem you have in your lab, it's not going to know how to solve those problems and in an efficient manner. So I think we have to remind ourselves that, yes, there is the AI side of things that can be theirs as an enabler, but it's not going to be the ultimate. And that we're all heading towards that solution, but we all still need to know how to use the systems, and, more importantly, what to trust from the systems. Not every system is going to give you the

Matt Kirchner: 33:34

right answer. No, that's exactly right. I was just reading a blog post. We've mentioned it a few times on the podcast by Matt Schumer. The whole idea was, you know, literally, as recently as a few years ago, if you asked a generative, pre trained transformer, what seven times eight was it could tell you 54 or I had an example about, I guess, about two weeks ago, I was putting together a slide for a presentation, and I asked for an image of kids playing baseball. And it literally gave me the it was, it was so bizarre as to be funny. It was a kid picture. This a kid standing on home plate. Two hard balls are coming directly at him, and there's two kids standing behind him, on either side with baseball bats over their heads, you know, like they were going to swing at this poor kid. And I'm like this, you know, we can't trust AI with everything. If I can't trust it to come up with an image of a normal image of baseball, and instead it has some, some crazy, Byzantine torture process, a

Justin Allen: 34:28

riot or a baseball game, exactly, right?

Matt Kirchner: 34:32

So, so, so, lots and lots of ways to go. And I just, you know, I use AI personally as kind of like a co worker, right? I mean, I'll typically have whether it's, you know, it's chat GPT or perplexity, or cloud or copilot, kind of open next to me, ask it a question, let it go, do its thing, come back and, you know, go back and forth. But, but that's the way that I look at it, is that it's a, it's an aid, it's a, it's a resource. And it is, it is going to transform a lot of different a lot of different. Jobs, there's no question. But I think for the better for those people that keep up with it and and stay up with it. And I think that, you know, as we, as we think about the employee experience and the team member experience, and in a lot of ways, I think if we create the environment, the right environment, our employees and our team members will have either greater, even greater futures and and be even stickier in terms of wanting to stick around with the organization. For a long period of time in the same way that you have, I mean, for 24 years with the same employer, if I'm an employer and I want to say I want more Justin's. I want more people that are going to be willing to look at our culture, our business, their job, the fact that we're changing the world for the better, and not that anybody's an indentured servant and has to stay anywhere forever. But you know that has a desire to say, with that same employer, what advice would you have Justin for employers that are trying to create the kind of environment that's kept you around for

Justin Allen: 35:55

as long as you have that's that's a, that's a good question. It's a for me, I've had many of opportunities to find other avenues in the organization. But ultimately, what, what holds me here is, is people, right? And building those connections, you've got to create a culture in your work environment that people want to be there, they want to work on exciting topics, and they want to work together with each other on exciting topics. That's really the to me, what's, what's one of the big drivers, as you mentioned earlier, you can have great financial success. You can sell amazing products. But if you don't have the the strong work core behind you that have got good knowledge, again, going back to those hard skills that they you can rely on people to solve the problems that are in front of you. If I was in an organization that we had a litany of problems and we can't solve any of them, I'd probably look around and say, Boy, am I in the right spot. Are these people in the right spot? You start to question and doubt your co workers, which is never a healthy topic at all. So it's really about fostering that environment, and since day one, as I started my career, it's also about fostering the associates in your organization. And that fostering starts at the entry level and continues all the way up through the top person in the organization, that everyone there needs to be out looking for their peers, needs to be out looking for the people ahead of you, as well as particularly the people that are behind you. And that's kind of our duty as, at least, I feel, as a leader in the organization, it's my obligation to be there, to be as a resource for those associates, to to reach out to and look and seek out information. And you you segwayed

Matt Kirchner: 37:30

almost perfectly into the next question I was going to ask you, which is on this topic of mentorship. And you know, you talk about an organization having an obligation to foster that next generation of of talent. I know you've had great mentors. I know that you're really involved in the mentorship program at Bosch, so let's chat on that a little bit, how closely our longevity and mentorship tied to each other, in terms of a person sticking around at a company in and then if a student is considering maybe a new employer or their first employer, for that matter, and is asking questions around what kind of a mentorship program that employer has? What should they be thinking about in terms of what makes a great mentor?

Justin Allen: 38:12

I think what what makes a great mentor is connection. You have to be not only connected in your current role, but you have to be able to put yourself in the position of the associate that you're there talking with and speaking with, you may not know all their ins and outs, the hurdles of what they may have to do in a technical perspective of their job, but it comes back more to those soft skills, and helping coach some of those soft skills, or things to look out for, or even explaining processes that may be not well understood or large, I don't say political topics, but larger, larger topics that are outside the associate Hispanic control that say, Hey, you shouldn't be putting your calories into that topic, but you should be focusing on what impacts you and you as your growth. That's what matters. But I think coming to the question about the mentorships, I'd say the vast majority of those mentorships, they're lasting on a five year basis, maybe 10 years, if they extend a long time. Seldom do we see mentorships that are lasting for careers. Don't get me wrong. There's certainly people that do have mentors that that's, Hey, that's my mentor. He's been my mentor for the last 20 years. But a lot of the mentoring that I've been doing has been kind of these three to four year windows where associates are really looking for growth in their current position. How do I get to the next level? How do I go from an associate to an engineer, or from an engineer to a senior engineer? Or what is the let? What is the line pathway to leadership? Do I want to take a leadership role? Or do I want to take a more technical role and kind of helping navigate them that sometimes the associates may feel a little bit uncomfortable going to their supervisors. Quite frankly, just those, those are difficult conversations, and a lot of us, a lot of us, have been through those, those situations in our lives that we don't know. We're skeptical to make those decisions, and the mentee is there to help them. It's not to guide them and tell them, hey, this is what you need to do. What's been. Best for you, but here's your opportunity. One thing that that's really important at Bosch too is the way that we approach career growth, and it's it's a much different than I think a lot of other companies do. Your career growth is in no one else's hands but your own, and you need to take the reins. And if you don't take the reins, then don't expect your career to grow, or you to grow throughout your career. So utilize the the levers that you have in front of you and and start to engage in conversations and reach out to mentees to have those relationships and build those relationships if you don't have them, because if you don't have anyone advocating for you, you're not going to be successful moving to the next level.

Matt Kirchner: 40:38

Absolutely. I think about some of the larger consulting companies here in the US and how they've created models where students are, I shouldn't say students, new employees, and employees of all ages are actively working on creating their own opportunities within their practice group and finding their own projects and interviewing with supervisors, managers, partners, directors, managing directors, on getting onto that next project and really owning their career progression, which I think is important in a couple ways. Number one is that, you know, it really, it puts the responsibility on the individual to make sure they're looking out for their own career progression. But secondly, they're going to find the path that makes the most sense to them, as opposed to having that path chosen for them. And I think that that kind of a culture super, super valuable, again, along with great people to guide you in the form of a mentor. And you know, I think back to my first job out of, I guess my second job out of college, but within about six months after graduating, I worked for the organization that I worked for while I was in, while I was in school, and then, and then morphed into a new opportunity about six months thereafter, that company had a mentorship program that they that they changed while I was there, and when you got there, they assigned you a mentor, and they said, This is your and the interesting thing was, I mean, the individual they they picked for me was a nice enough guy, But wasn't somebody that I would necessarily want to emulate or aspire to be or choose as my own mentor. And then about 18 months into that, they flipped it, and they said, now you can pick your own you don't have to take the one that the company has picked for you. Is that, tell me a little bit about Bosch's program. I mean, how does the student select their mentor?

Justin Allen: 42:17

Completely voluntary. So first versus the student or the associate signs up and says, Hey, this is something I want to do. And then from there, it's either in their prerogative to find a mentee for themselves, or they can write their name in say, This is my role. This is what I'm interested this is kind of where I where I want to grow, where I see myself going. And then we'll also pull the leaders and say, okay, in those specific areas, we have these individuals that would like to seek guidance. How can we link them up together? And again, that helps build the network. We're no small company at 430,000 associates across the globe. So there's sure there's availability, right?

Matt Kirchner: 42:56

Exactly, yeah, if the if one doesn't work out, there's another 429,999

Justin Allen: 43:02

people in mind, right? That's there. And to your point too, about getting assigned a mentee is that your or your mentor, is that not everyone is a good fit to be a mentor, right? Right? And not, not every person do we need to symbolize or to create another version of some people? Maybe we absolutely don't find Frank, right?

Matt Kirchner: 43:22

No, for sure, our thoughts go back to a company that I, that I ran years ago, a manufacturing company where we had a mentorship program, and it was an informal one, when I got there, where you would, if you're a new employee, you'd basically just, you know, be assigned to someone on the on the floor, on the shop floor, with a great deal of experience and and, you know, we had like, the same the same person was just like, plowing through mentees. And finally, we're like, Well, what? What's going on? He's like, Well, none of them are tough enough to work here, so I work them out pretty quick, and it's just like, that's not exactly what we're looking for in a mentor. So I think that was an example of, probably to the extreme of making sure that you're picking your mentor and making sure that that's the kind of person that's going person that's going to inspire you and foster your career and so on. Speaking of that, I know you've been really involved with this organization called magma, which relates to talent in Michigan, in where certainly you reside, where you and I met. So talk about magma a little bit. What is it and what's its mission?

Justin Allen: 44:20

Yeah, so magma M, A, G, M, a, so Michigan Alliance for greater mobility advancement. So this was an organization that was founded back in 2009 and it's focused about, focused all on keeping technical jobs specific to the transportation industry in the state of Michigan, making sure that we, we keep that that core competency skill set, mostly in the automotive domain, but now we're branching ourselves more and more outside of the auto domain, but also still touching transportation. The opportunity came up to me, and I absolutely lash on it. Obviously, I'm very passionate in I was guided throughout my career. I was helped. I was up skilled. I was trained. I was provided a lot of information, so when it came time to the opportunity to pay that back, I absolutely raised my hand in the air and said, Yes, this is something I really have a passion about. So it's a great organization. It comprises of academia, industry, as well as some workforce development folks littered throughout the state. We get together as a governing board on a quarterly basis and review what's out there, what's important, what's relevant. What's relevant for my organization may not be what's relevant for the guy that's sitting next to me across the table, but we can have fruitful discussions about that and focus on different areas. Transportation is obviously one big sector in the Detroit area that we're heavily focused on, right? That's that's the that's our bread and butter. But also we, we've realized in the last year or two, we need to be looking at other areas. We need to be looking at infrastructure, filling stations, charging stations, rest stops, or even, of importance for the state, looking at transportation, when it comes into tourism, what does the airport infrastructure look like? What does the ports look like? Where is our maritime transportation sector? How are they represented? Those are all topics. Again, they're well outside my automotive background and powertrain but still super interesting for us as a state to again have that open dialog together with industry stakeholders and academia stakeholders and the and the state, they're oftentimes at the table talking about that. What do we see as a new technology that's coming up? How do we prepare for it? How do we make sure that we as a state are well suited for that? And to be frank, the ultimate goal at the end of the day is to keep as many tax dollars in the state of Michigan as we can. That's our that's our end mission. So So

Matt Kirchner: 46:41

magma is, is that funded by state, state dollars? Is that where the funding comes from?

Justin Allen: 46:46

Yeah, it's funded by Michigan labor and economic organization. So am I Leo? And then also we get some grant money from the state as well, as from the Federals as well. So kind of multi facet. The cool thing with that too is then you've got kind of these subsidiary organizations that are built up, I wouldn't say necessarily, inside of magma, but in parallel to magma that are there in the counties, that are deployed out there, that are helping the citizens in in the counties, in the cities. Hey, I'm looking for an opportunity to grow my career or shift. It can be blue collar. It can be white collar. There's plenty of training opportunities that are out there. And then the individuals, the citizens of the state, and one of the qualifications is, you have to work from the state, or you have to be employed by by someone in the state of Michigan, then you're open for these additional training programs, which are really focused at upskilling and retraining a workforce to make sure that we're well suited

Matt Kirchner: 47:39

for the future. Yeah, talk a little bit more about that. And by the way, Director Corbin, so Susan Corbin of the of Leo, has been on the podcast. We'll link that episode up. That was a number of years ago, but talk a little bit about the upskilling and the training work that you're doing.

Justin Allen: 47:51

Yeah, it's, it's vast. It can range from anything. So there's more or less a catalog of prescribed training opportunities that are there from the state, but then each county will have their dedicated thing. So like here in Oakland County, we get a lot of skill trades development, a lot of blue color development, but also we get a lot of white color development opportunities that are there too. Just recently, in the last year, one of the leaders in my organization highlighted as he was coming towards his retirement and said, Hey, I think we've really missed problem solving. In the last couple years, we haven't really done a great job at problem solving. So we contacted Lawrence Tech University here locally, another great school, and said, Hey, do you guys have anything that you can offer in terms of in terms of problem solving? There's nothing that exists in the catalog right now. But if we can send the curriculum to the state and say, Hey, this is what we want to do. This is how many people we want to train and upskill, and this is who's going to do it. Ultimately, the state, the state signed off on it. We were able to upskill, I think 15 people in that training class, get them the in depth problem solving experience that we were looking for as an organization. And at the end of the day, it's, it's, it's refunded by the by the state, and we're able to get the money back. Our local partner in the university, they get compensation for their time owed. And it's, it's a win, win for everybody.

Matt Kirchner: 49:08

Perfect example of how state funding combined with a local university, combined with the private employer, with a with a need and a goal, can can all work together. Other success stories that come to mind. I mean, that's that's a great example, but, but give us another one.

Justin Allen: 49:22

There's an excellent one, which I think we can hopefully link in the into the podcast, put them in the show notes. You bet there's a local channel here in the Detroit area. News Channel did an incredible story about a girl by the name of Drea Roberts. She was an Oakland Community College student, and she graduated high school, went on, started a family, and kind of, kind of got lost in her career and didn't know what she wanted to do. Had a couple children along the way. Her children got a little bit older, and she looked at her opportunities and said, You know what, I kind of feel like, I'm out of place. She was in the retail space. I want to get into something more technical. So she went to. OCC did a program on a short apprenticeship, went to a job fair, got hired by Williams International, who's a large turbine company, for those that don't know, that specializes in airplane manufacturing. And now she's a CNC operator at Williams International, huge company. Now she's in a spot where she can grow and she's flourishing. And what was really inspiration to me, and that message is that at the end, she says, this is just kind of one step. My next step is in the next five year horizon, I can see myself getting an engineering degree. So it's sparking that not only getting people into industry, getting them placed into job positions that that's important, but then also getting to say, Hey, this is not the ending spot I can continue to learn and grow. And ultimately, I think that's those are huge success stories, to be able to get placed in an industry that you have no experience with, but then also get in the industry and say, Hey, this is really interesting, and I want to grow.

Matt Kirchner: 50:53

That's awesome. Yeah. What a great example of showing somebody. I mean, you know, if you can't see it, you can't be it. You show them that there's this great opportunity for them. You give them the skills. Shout out while I'm at it, to my dear friend Bo Everett, who I know is probably instrumental in a lot of things. So, and I know Bo well, at Oakland Community College, so, so awesome. I mean, that's just a beautiful story. And in the end, that's what we're trying to do, right, is change lives. We say here on the podcast, we're securing the American Dream for the next generation of STEM and workforce talent. That's exactly what it's supposed to look supposed to look like. So credit to you, credit to magma, credit to OCC for an amazing partnership and a great example of how we can make this work. You know, you've talked a lot about education today, Justin, we've talked about the whole idea of really getting involved while you were still in high school, in a career program, internship. We've talked about your thoughts on what universities should be teaching, the importance of hard skills and soft skills, all these other great things. I'm sure, in addition to that, you've got something everybody does. These are questions we love asking every guest on the TechEd podcast some way of looking at education, some view of education that might be a little bit surprising or different to some people. What's yours? How would you say you look at education a little

Justin Allen: 52:03

differently my mine? I maybe have already tip my hat a little bit on that question, but I'd come back to the fact that industry has the ability to be very integrated into academia, and I think that's something that a lot of students, a lot of parents, a lot of the the citizens, don't necessarily see or understand, and maybe not every, every industry is there, but I think it's that's one key element that I think a lot of people miss, is that there is that background input, and there's that that back and forth where, where we do provide input to academia. We do help shape curriculum. We do Shift topics. It's not just you're paying your tuition dollars and it's going to some organization and they're collecting money and they're collecting money, and they're teaching the same thing for the last 40 or 50 years. There is these transformational shifts that do occur, and do happen, and industry is a big part of it. Sure, academia has their own interest too, to meet their, their their needs, right? They've they've got their own interest. But think that's that's probably a surprising thing. If you would have told me that even going to a university like Kettering back 20 years ago, that that, hey, industry is there, I would say, Yeah, I could see it on the walls and the halls and everything. But to me, those are just kind of sponsorships we didn't see and understand that. And now being on the opposite side of it, it's kind of like a moment of revelation, like, Oh, wow. Like, we are helping shift the next generation, and that's imperatively important. I feel,

Matt Kirchner: 53:21

yeah, no question about it, it's imperatively important, and it's also that's a great message to educators about the importance of engaging with your employers and making sure that the work that you're doing is aligned with their interests and vice versa. And so many of them do in ways that I think a lot of people don't recognize. So that's a really, really good observation. One final observation will allow you here before we have to close up shop on the TechEd podcast. Justin is another question we love asking our guests, and that is, if you could go all the way back to that time when you're a sophomore in high school, you're 15 years old, and now here, knowing everything you know after a 24 year career in a place like Bosch, in many, many years to come, I'm sure if you could go back and give that young man, one piece of advice. Is a sophomore in high school, what would you say to that young Justin? I'd say

Justin Allen: 54:04

it probably the same thing Matt would say to himself, you know it all, man. But seriously, I think it's having the confidence right. 15 years old is a really daunting age to be looking at yourself in a career perspective and saying, what is it that I want to do? I have no idea. And don't be afraid to make those decisions. You've always got the opportunity to segue into something else and use those experiences that you have. Just because you make a decision to go into one direction does not mean that's where you're going to be for the next 40 years. And I know that's it's always been daunting to me. There's always these career discussions about, well, what do you want to do when you grow up and say, well, kind of hoped I was already there. What? What's on the horizon? That's really difficult, because if I answer that question, I may shoehorn myself into a corner. You absolutely don't shoehorn yourself into a corner. There's, there's plenty of opportunities to grow. So the decision that you make is just a temporary decision, and it's important to know that you can take experiences out of that decision and grow and learn and make yourself more well rounded. That's at the end of the day, what makes it important, not about what you're going to do in that exact moment, exactly you don't have to have

Matt Kirchner: 55:15

your whole life planned out. Or is, you know, I like to think about it, it's it's not, it's not. Doesn't matter what you didn't pick. What's important is what you did pick, and then you're on that path and and there's on ramps and off ramps throughout life, and there's all kinds of ways for you to to get on to whatever's next. If what you chose wasn't right for you, but certainly or didn't end up being right for you, you're going to learn some things along the way, but, but not making that decision, not going after it with reckless abandon, not going after it with confidence, can hold you back in ways that that I think a lot of young people don't necessarily recognize. So so super, super grateful for that advice, not just for the 15 year old Justin, but for any young person and any person of any age really, about how they should think about their next experience and their next their next career. Move, education. Move, personal. Move, whatever. It's been super, super glad that you had incredible confidence to come on to the TechEd podcast, Justin. And really, really great, great opportunity for us to spend some time together. I knew this was going to be a great conversation for especially the hard skills and soft skills and the importance of both the importance of engaging with education, awesome, awesome careers at Bosch. And certainly, you're a great example of that. And so can't thank you enough for taking some time for us and joining us on the podcast.

Justin Allen: 56:24

Yeah, thank you, Matt. I appreciate it excellent opportunity again, and a topic that I'm very well versed in and have a lot of passion in. So absolutely happy to share my experiences.

Matt Kirchner: 56:33

Super well versed, and that was evident by all the answers that you gave and the insights you offered us on our audience. Justin, want to thank Justin Allen for being with us on the podcast. He is, as we mentioned, the Director of Engineering for powertrain testing at Bosch. We'll also take this opportunity to thank our audience for joining us on yet another edition of the TechEd podcast. This episode, of course, a fascinating one, and you will find those show notes we talked about a couple of the resources that Justin pointed to. We'll make sure all those are linked up in the show notes. We have the best ones in the physical business. We will put those at TechEd podcast.com/allen that is TechEd podcast.com/a l, l, e n, when you're all done checking out those show notes and all the links they're in, check us out on social media as well. You will find us everywhere, Facebook, tick tock, Instagram, YouTube, the YouTube channel is absolutely lighting up, and so that's a great place for you to find the TechEd podcast. Doesn't matter where you go to check out your social media, you will find the TechEd podcast when you do reach out, say hello, we would love to hear from you. And until next week, I'm Matt Kirkner, your host. Thanks for joining us. You.