Fernando Sarmiento grew up watching airplanes. Now, as a manufacturing engineer at Swift Engineering, he’s helping them fly.
The first of his family to become an engineer, Sarmiento forged his own path into the profession. Driven by a passion for planes and a ceaseless curiosity, in 2022 he graduated from UC Irvine with a B.S. in Materials Science and Engineering. He worked as a chemical engineer at Axiom Materials after graduating and moved on to Swift Engineering in April 2025.
Now, with a few years of experience on his back, Sarmiento wants to help other young engineers find their footing.
Engineering.com spoke with Sarmiento to learn about his engineering journey, his advice for engineers starting their careers, and his thoughts on getting more people involved in engineering.
The following transcript has been edited for brevity and clarity.
Engineering.com: What first drew you to engineering?
Fernando Sarmiento: I grew up really close to LAX, so as a kid I would always watch the airplanes fly over. I was always super fascinated by them. Like, how are these things even flying right now?
As I grew older I learned that engineers play a really big part in making these aircraft. So I saw that that was a career path that could potentially lead to working on one of these things. That was always a dream of mine, being able to work on something that was able to fly in the sky.
So I’ve been working away at that dream of mine since I was a kid. I was also super curious and always asking questions. And built a lot of Legos too.
Were there any influential engineers who helped shape your decision to become an engineer?
Growing up, in my family there were basically no engineers. I’m a first generation Latino, so not much of my family went to college here in the States, and the ones that did are not engineers. So I didn’t really have anyone from my family that was an engineer to look up to. I kind of had to do my own research and figure it out on my own, or in school they would mention that career path from time to time. So I wouldn’t say I had anyone who helped shape my decision, in terms of an engineer.
I would just say I had a really, really solid family backing me to whatever decision I wanted to make. I have my mom and dad to thank for who I am today and the position I’m in today. When I mentioned to them that I wanted to be an engineer, they gave me their full support. And I’m just happy to say that they’re proud of their son, proud he was able to become an engineer.
Where are your parents from?
My dad is from El Salvador and my mom is from Guatemala. Both immigrants. And they met over here and they raised me here in LA.
How did you find your way into materials science?
That was in college. I went in undeclared to college, but I knew I wanted to do some type of engineering. I really liked the mix of chemistry and physics that materials science gave at the time. I felt like mechanical engineering was more physics heavy, and then chemical was just full on chemistry. So I really liked having a mix of a little bit of everything. I love materials science.
Could you describe your involvement in an engineering project that went well?
At my previous company we were trying to launch a new material, and we had a machine that no one had used. So we were trying to figure it out on the fly. I was involved by running small lab-scale samples in the lab, and from there, getting data to try at a full production scale to see what could potentially work, what wouldn’t work, what we shouldn’t bother using our time on.
So I was collaborating with a few of the other engineers and technicians to help standardize a new product line of material. And I believe I was able to improve the team by training technicians on how to run the machine. I definitely gained a lot of experience there. I wrote basically all the procedures, all the paperwork for how to properly operate that equipment. I also learned a lot about working with technicians. It was kind of just learning through trial and error. I definitely made a lot of mistakes, but an important thing is it’s okay to make mistakes. Just try to not repeat them, and you can learn from them.
I think I was able to help the team by taking my knowledge from an engineering standpoint and being able to translate it down to the technician standpoint, putting all the paperwork in line. And I believe even to this day they’re still using that to train new hires to work on that machine.
At the end of the day, it was a pretty successful project. We were able to ship good material to our customers and got good feedback. It’s probably still a work in progress, but that’s just the nature of R&D.
What do you do in your current role at Swift Engineering?
I’m a manufacturing engineer now. Before, I was making the materials to make the parts, and now I’m actually making parts that could potentially go onto aircraft. And that’s the path I was looking to take in my career. So when I saw the opportunity I jumped at it.
I’m working a lot with the production floor on day-to-day tasks of making composite parts and troubleshooting. There’s always issues with any part that you’re going to make. So I’m working with them, trying to iron out any issues, again working on documentation, on procedures to make their life easier, giving them the right steps to follow for making good parts. That’s my role now.
What was the biggest engineering challenge you’ve faced so far, and how did you solve it?
Around December last year I needed to do some mechanical testing at my previous job. It was pretty critical testing, and I had very, very short notice and a short time frame to complete it. And on top of that, this was going to be my first time being the lead on running these tests, because the previous engineer had left. And whenever you do something for the first time, it adds a little bit of stress thinking that you could potentially mess something up. It was also the end of the year, so we wanted to push out as many purchase orders as possible to get the end-of-year financials to look good. So my back was really against the wall.
The big challenge I was facing for that mechanical testing is that we needed to complete it at elevated temperature. And the problem was that our test setup wasn’t great with insulating heat. You would heat up your test specimen and then it wouldn’t stay in the stable range where you could test it, or it would just not reach the test temperature at all. So that was a challenge. I definitely leaned on my team and asked a bunch of questions of everyone to try to figure out the solution.
I realized I needed to minimize the distance between my test specimen and the furnace. There’s two heating coils on the furnace, so I just needed to get those as close as possible without affecting any of the mechanical tests, without getting anything in the way of the extensometers or anything. So to do that, I had to custom make some insulation blocks. But at the end of the day, luckily, it ended up working. The ramp rate for the heat ended up going up quite significantly, and it was able to stay stable at that temperature.
I’m glad I was able to lean on my coworkers and fellow engineers to find that solution. I’m also happy that people in the future won’t run into the same issue. If you’re not documenting your changes, the people after you aren’t really going to benefit from it. That was a pretty stressful time, but it really forced me to learn to improvise, and I felt like I came out a better engineer at the end of it. So even though it was stressful, I’m glad I had that challenge.
In your opinion, what more can be done to increase the participation of young people in underrepresented communities in engineering today?
I believe exposure is a really, really big thing. I think if we’re able to expose our younger generation to the career path of being an engineer from a younger age, they’ll be inspired to actually pursue it. I think showing them some of the fascinating things that we work on can be really inspiring for a lot of students.
There’s a program called MESA—Mathematics, Engineering, Science Achievement. They work with underrepresented communities as outreach for engineering in different middle schools and high schools. So I think by supporting programs like that, if we’re able to get them at a younger age and show what you can do by becoming an engineer, I feel like a lot of people would be inspired and a lot of parents would be proud to call their child an engineer.
Were you involved with MESA?
Yeah, I was in that program in high school, and it was really cool. They did a bunch of different contests, like who could build the strongest bridges out of straws, or an egg drop test where you had to make an enclosure for the egg. It was different projects exposing you to thinking outside the box, which engineers have to do every day. I think the younger you can expose people to that, the better.
What unique perspective do you think diverse teams bring to engineering or design projects?
In a diverse team people come from different backgrounds, and everyone will have a different way of dealing with and solving problems. I think that’s the really important thing. Having a diverse team can lead to more thinking outside the box. And you can learn about how people from different cultures and backgrounds approach problem solving, and you might learn something that you didn’t know before, learn about an approach that you had never taken before.
So I think that really leads to more creativity in a group setting. And I think a lot of projects could really benefit from having a diverse team, having several inputs from different backgrounds, to try to achieve the same goal.
What advice to you have for junior engineers looking to develop confidence in the workplace?
As a young engineer, starting your career can be a little bit intimidating at times. You see everyone in the office running around, we all have meetings, there’s deadlines, everyone’s working on multiple projects. So it could seem that everyone’s super busy and doesn’t have time, but I think a really important thing to try to minimize making mistakes is asking questions.
It’s okay to ask questions. No one’s going to look at you funny for asking questions. It’s expected. Even if everyone seems super busy, we spend a lot of time writing procedures for how to do things. So if your superior is busy at the time, they could at least point you in the direction of some documentation, some specs or some procedures to review while they make some time to show you the ropes. Ask a bunch of questions.
Also, it’s okay to make mistakes. I’ve definitely made a lot of mistakes in my career so far. I’m probably going to make some more. The big thing is to not repeat them, and learn from them. While I’m working on a project, I try to document any mistakes that I’ve made so I can remember: Hey, I tried this. I’m not going to try this again. Or: This is the solution to what I tried from before.
I know the full-time world can be intimidating for new grads, but please just ask questions. I really enjoy showing interns and entry level engineers the ropes. I don’t have a problem with it at all. If I’m busy at the time, I’ll just try to point them in a direction that they can review some paperwork in the meantime. And after that we can get on to the hands-on stuff.
If you had unlimited time to apply your engineering background, what global challenges would you be interested in tackling?
My background is mostly in composites, so I love working on composites and making parts. A really big thing around those is sustainability. The materials that they’re made out of are not very sustainable, and there’s a lot of waste generated when you make composites. Anyone that works in composites will know that.
There are a lot of companies that are starting to make environmentally friendly resins, bio-based resins, and use natural fibers as a reinforcement for composites. Applying my background in composites and working on stuff like that would be a dream of mine. I would love to put my skills to use there.
Any final thoughts you’d like to share about your experience as an engineer?
My key takeaway for younger people, or Latinos like myself looking to get into this: Don’t be afraid.
I was definitely intimidated at first getting into this industry. At moments you kind of feel out of place, you don’t see too many people that look like you, but that’s okay. Just ask questions. No one’s going to look at you any type of way. You’re trying to improve yourself, and we all recognize that. At the end of the day, it’ll make you smarter, it’ll make you a better engineer.
The post Ask questions, make mistakes: Succeeding as a young engineer appeared first on Engineering.com.
