Validation Engineer Graduate Juliana
Pre-programme life
Upon graduating from pharmacy in Brazil, Juliana started working in the industry in a number of small companies (cosmetics, healthcare products and medicine (oral solid doses). Because of the smaller size of these businesses, she got good exposure to many different validation activities such as process validation, equipment qualification, some CSV and cleaning validation.
Through doing a bit of everything, Juliana knew that validation was for her – she loved the diverse role.
“One day I could be writing SOPs, protocols, or reports at my desk and the next, I could spend the whole day on the floor with the equipment and seeing how the process works.”
Juliana moved to Merck – a tablet manufacturing facility before a big move to Ireland.
“I knew Ireland had this huge hub of pharmaceutical companies, and I knew opportunities were so, so big.”
With 5 years of experience under her belt, Juliana made the decision to move to Ireland due to the huge industry opportunities the country offered. In addition, she felt a connection to Ireland and to the culture so she decided to make the move and see what happened!
Getting into the Innopharma Technical Services Validation Programme
Juliana moved to Ireland as a student learning English. Coming over with no job meant that she was looking to enter the industry ASAP. When Juliana first heard about the Innopharma validation programme from one of the members of the Innopharma team – she thought the offer was too good to be true.
“I rang my dad and I explained the free industry training, the interview prep and the career opportunities the programme offered and he thought something funny was going on. Neither of us could believe it”
After deciding to go ahead and meet with the Innopharma Technical Services team, she knew the programme was for her and she accepted a place on the following intake!
Juliana found the programme amazing for building her confidence, seeing how certain things in the industry may be done differently in Ireland compared to Brazil and confirming how much of what she had experienced at home transferred to the Irish industry. The programme also helped with her verbal and written English and Irish work-place culture.
Post Validation Programme
The programme prepared Juliana for her interview with Eil Lilly where she continues to work as a Commissioning and Qualification (C&Q) engineer in Kinsale. This role is responsible for commissioning and qualifying new equipment, new systems and system components and ensuring they are all within the correct operational range.
Juliana is also responsible for the qualification of any modifications to existing systems/equipment, ensuring that they are still within the correct ranges after the modification has been made.
This involves a series of tests where the system or equipment either passes or fails, in the latter case, she will investigate and continue to modify until the system or equipment is fully qualified.
Juliana spoke of her interview prep on the programme, preparing her for the challenges or scenarios that could arise in any interview for a role with the biggest names in the industry.
The programme assignments also helped Juliana as they were reflective of real-life, everyday work assignments.
Hopes for the future
Juliana is excited to continue growing in her career, with hopes for possibly moving into quality and then maybe even education in the future as she loves to share her knowledge and experience with others in the field. .
Discover more and apply for our Validation programme here.
