Growing Beyond My Comfort Zone
By Sarah Collinge Pr Eng | Sector Manager | Digital Engineering
If I had to sum up my story so far, it would be this: a lot of luck, a handful of people who backed me before I’d fully earned it, and a habit of stepping into situations I wasn’t quite ready for.
I chose engineering almost by accident. I’d always loved maths and art in equal measure and could never pick a lane, plus I left the application process right to the last minute. Architecture felt like the obvious bridge between the two, but my last-minute application didn’t leave enough time for the required portfolio. Engineering was my backup option. I got in, and that was that.
My first placement was in the Water division – a field I never quite fell in love with. It also happened to be a slow period for infrastructure in the country, so teams weren’t fully stretched. I used the downtime to start exploring automation and computational design, something that had quietly interested me since I joined the industry, working through online courses and using what I’d learned to automate small parts of my own workflows. I requested a transfer to the bridges office but it meant relocating from Jo’burg to ‘Maritzburg and I genuinely couldn’t afford the move at the time. Then, a few months later, the assistant resident engineer on a local bridge project resigned. That opening was pure luck, and it was the door into bridges that I needed.
After my site experience, I didn’t want to lose momentum on the design side, so I moved to ‘Maritzburg – a city where I knew no-one. The only person I’d met previously was Gerrit, the head of the bridges and structures division. I called him up and asked if he would consider viewing an apartment for me because I didn’t have the time to see it myself. He did and I signed the lease unseen. Under Gerrit’s leadership, the team felt less like a group of colleagues and more like a small family – he led with a genuine care for people, not just their technical output, and I attribute a large part of my own growth to him. I followed him to Naidu Consulting two and a half years ago.
Naidu Consulting has an open-minded approach to new ideas that I hadn’t experienced before, and it has given me the space to properly combine engineering and automation – which recently became our Digital Engineering division. It is the first time those two interests of mine have had a real home together and it is easily the achievement I’m proudest of here. Stepping into something that didn’t exist before also means there is no roadmap to measure yourself against, and that’s where imposter syndrome tends to catch up with me. It shows up often and I’ve learnt that’s not unusual in this industry – there’s so much knowledge in the room at any given time, and so many genuinely brilliant people to work alongside, that it’s constantly obvious how much more there is to learn. I’ve had to make peace with the fact that this feeling might just be part of the job rather than something I eventually “solve”.
If I trace it all back, the biggest turning points weren’t plans I’d made – it was the colleague that resigned at just the right moment, a mentor backing me before I’d proven myself or a team taking a risk on an idea I’d presented. That’s what empowerment means to me – being trusted with opportunities before I felt fully ready for them, and having people back me anyway.
It’s tempting, especially early in your career, to measure yourself against everyone around you and assume they’ve got it more figured out than you do. In my experience, they haven’t – they’re probably improvising too. So if there is one thing I’d want other women starting out in the industry to hear, it’s that you don’t need to have it all figured out to grow. Some of the best things that happened in my career were things I stumbled into, not things I planned for, and that uncertainty was never a sign I was doing it wrong. It’s allowed to be part of the process.
