Work That Protects Your Family
It was already clear to Amanda Mohan that she wanted to become an electronics engineer when she was just eleven years old. However, it was only in her 13 years at ZF that she realized she could help prevent accidents or protect accident victims from serious injury.
The Senior Engineering Manager feels like a #FutureStarter because she works every day to make traffic even safer - including in assisted and autonomous vehicles. The first time Amanda realized the importance of passive safety was during her vacation in the summer of 2023. On a highway near the Grand Canyon, an oncoming vehicle suddenly left its lane and came straight at the family car.
"My husband was at the wheel, honked the horn and was just able to wake up the driver, who had apparently fallen asleep. But he reacted too late. While we were able to swerve at the last second, the vehicle behind us collided," Amanda said. As a result of the accident, the front sections of both vehicles were crushed up to the bulkhead and all airbags deployed. Despite the severity of the accident, all the occupants were able to leave their vehicles without severe injuries. "In situations like this, you realize how important it is to work intensively on passive safety," said Amanda, who spent almost a decade at ZF developing electronic control units for airbags. "The unsatisfactory thing was that no warning or protective device prevented the driver coming off his night shift from falling asleep at the wheel in the first place.”
Already as a kid, Amanda Mohan knew that she wanted to become an electronics engineer.
Early influence: The path to becoming an electronics engineer was mapped out
The fact she already had a clear desire to become an electronics engineer as a child is thanks to a summer program at her school. In a workshop, she managed to build a digital clock from electronic components - and it fascinated her so much that her passion remains to this day. "I never wanted to go into the car business, I dreamed of going into space travel," she admits with a laugh. "But: C'est la vie. Having nothing to do with cars is almost impossible for someone who grew up in Michigan." After completing her bachelor's and master's degrees in electrical engineering, she found her first job as a Field Quality Engineer at an automotive supplier. "That was a valuable experience, but apart from broken alternators and starters, it had nothing to do with my passion for electronics." In 2010, Amanda joined ZF as a resident quality engineer and supporting TRW’s first electronic control unit for the hybrid slip control brake. "In terms of electronics, I had finally gotten to where I wanted to be," she says, describing her move at the time.
Passion for passive safety
Two years later, she switched to the Passive Safety division and from then on worked as a Senior Product Engineer on airbag systems and their control systems. "Airbags aren't exactly sexy as a product but they save lives. And that always gave me the good feeling that I was working on something very meaningful," she said.
And she liked the fact that she was dealing with complex systems and challenges. "Reliability is the most important aspect in safety electronics. There is no room for error - the airbag must deploy correctly every time. We have to simulate all possible cases and be prepared for them." For example, if the power supply is interrupted in the event of a collision. In this case, airbags now have their own energy storage system, which guarantees their functional safety independently of the vehicle battery," she explains. "When it comes to safety technologies in particular, we are guided by requirements from the aerospace industry, where redundant systems are provided for almost every area of application."
Amanda leads a global and decentralized team which carries out various special projects to optimize efficiency in development.
In the automotive industry, ISO 26262 regulates the required standards for safety-relevant components in order to prevent malfunctions. The fact all ZF products are now ISO-compliant is not the only thing that pleases Amanda. "Thanks to the increased networking of their components, cars are becoming driving computers,” she said. “As an electronics engineer, I think that's really cool!"
Global process optimization team - for more safety on the roads of the future
In 2021, Amanda retired from product development, marking the end of an era with a bittersweet blend of joy and sorrow. "I loved working with my team in Farmington Hills. It was 10 years of my life in which I, often as the only woman in a male-dominated environment, received every conceivable support from my mentors and supervisors - at a time when I not only had two children, but also had to overcome breast cancer."
Amanda shares her experiences as a female engineer in the Society of Women Engineers in her weekly newsletter #BadAssEngineer on LinkedIn and through her involvement in diversity initiatives at ZF. Today, she leads a global and decentralized team with members from Poland, Mexico, Germany, India, the United Kingdom, and the United States, which carries out various special projects to optimize efficiency in development. "We focus primarily on value-adding elements and processes for the engineering communities, as well as design efficiency and cost savings," she said. She is no longer just concerned with airbag modules, but with all technical systems that can be used to influence safety. That includes conventional vehicles, as well as automated and autonomous vehicles, including brakes, steering, and monitoring systems.
Dealing with complex systems and challenges is a part of her job that Amanda really enjoys.
