One of the longest-lived programs for intellectual and technological development in Brazil, the Embraer Engineering Specialization Program, achieves its 20th anniversary.
Conceived from a strategic vision to accelerate the learning process for recently graduated professionals in various areas of engineering to work in aeronautical technologies, the program combines a professional master’s degree from Brazil’s Aeronautics Institute of Technology (ITA) with a course to prepare engineers to work in multidisciplinary teams at Embraer. The program includes courses taught by ITA professors, experienced company professionals, and hired consultants.
Over two decades, the Engineering Specialization Program has been constantly evolving to adapt the specialization of professionals to the needs and challenges of the company. More recently the program has also started to cover courses such as Industry 4.0, Data Science, and Project Prototyping in 3D Printer, among others. More than 1,600 professionals have already gone through the program that has become the main gateway for engineers who want to work at Embraer.
“Diversity, innovation and a genuine desire to build a sustainable future are some of the differentials of our Engineering Specialization Program, which has become a reference in knowledge management and has strengthened Embraer’s holistic, flexible, creative and collaborative engineering culture,” said Luís Carlos Affonso, Embraer’s Senior Vice President of Engineering, Technology, and Strategy. “Embraer’s recognized technical and technological capacity is part of our DNA of innovation and will continue to be developed through partnerships and initiatives for training and qualification of new talents, stimulated to create the future’s most innovative products in the industry”.
The innovative program has provided the company with greater availability of highly qualified professionals, aligned with the business growth strategies in recent decades. At the same time, the initiative’s success balanced directing the training of people, according to the needs of technological readiness, the vision of the future, and planning for the natural replacement of company professionals.
Educational structure
The first class took place on March 19, 2001, at the Embraer Unit in Eugênio de Melo, in São José dos Campos, in the interior of São Paulo, in facilities built especially for this educational purpose.
The learning methodology has, among other differentials, teaching through strategy with the use of prototyping that encourages groups to make tangible solutions created for real problems, analyzed while developing a collaborative project. In the final phase of the program, participants must work as a team to develop an aeronautical product concept that meets the requirements of a proposed challenge, seeking a technically and economically viable solution.
In addition, the program has reinforced the development of personal skills related to attitudes, behaviors, and emotional intelligence that promote teamwork, flexibility, communication, leadership, empathy, and other emotional and behavioral skills that are equally important in the work environment.
Each class receives more than 3,000 hours of theoretical and practical training on a full-time basis. The annual investment is in the order of R$ 5 million. On average, the selection process receives around five thousand applications. The number of vacancies is variable and follows the company’s future strategic need.
