My name is Chris Mann, I’m a graduate engineer in Powertrain and Test Operations at Whitley. I joined JLR in November 2007.

What attracted me to JLR was the new design philosophy, we’re bringing a lot of new products and there are a lot of opportunities within the company. I’ve always wanted to work for this industry and there’s no better place to start really. The road I took to get my job at JLR was studying Mechanical Engineering at the University of Birmingham, graduated in November 2007 and started after 3 months of job searching.

One of my major achievements was introducing the test facility at Whitley, which allows us to test engines with full exhaust systems which we haven’t been able to do previously. I’m currently working towards chartership with the IMechE and hopefully I’ll become in chartered in the next 4 years, and hopefully move up to a management position in the not too distant future.

There’s no typical week really with JLR, the job changes quite a lot, you see a lot of variation within your role. In my spare time I like to ride motorcycles, I’ve got a GSF650, I arrange poker nights with the other graduates and thanks to JLR I’ve learnt to run a snowboard.