Life at JLR blog
Meet Didi, one of JLR’s foremost Software Engineers. Leading the change in the automotive industry
We spoke to Didi about her upbringing and experiences leading to her career as a Leading Software Engineer at JLR.
Didi was software lead engineer on the vital ‘Gateway’ electronic control unit, playing a key role in delivering the software on Gateway Module with the new EVA2 vehicle network architecture. Originally a software engineer in her native India with Cisco Systems and Ericsson, Didi never imagined that one day she would work for a car company. “I could never have made that connection when I started. But when I came to the UK and was looking for work, I spoke to my old manager at Ericsson, and he said I should look at the car industry. Software was becoming more and more important in cars. He thought it would be a good career choice.”
As a little girl growing up in India, her favourite subjects were science and maths. “How did I develop those interests? I don’t know. I was just naturally curious about things around me. Neither of my parents had a science or technology background. They just wanted me and my sister to have a good education and to focus on what we loved doing.” Didi was born in Kerala, in southern India, and studied electronics and communication engineering at university.
“It covered networking, programming and hardware. I was fascinated by computer networks and the internet. We didn’t have a computer at home. My computer work was all done at university.”
She began working for a small company as a network engineer before joining Cisco Systems as a software engineer in Bangalore. She stayed there for nine years, before moving to another networking and communications giant, Ericsson. Her husband moved to the UK to work on a short-term project and Didi came too. “I wanted to take a break and travel around Europe. The plan was to stay for maybe a year and then go back to India.”
Instead, they stayed. After working in software for the NHS and then in banking, she came to JLR in 2018. “I joined the Gateway module team as software project lead. Gateway is the electronic control unit that takes care of the networking in the car. It’s a role that fascinates me and it’s connected back to the sort of work I did for Cisco and Ericsson.”
“Cars are moving more and more to software, with everything on the cloud. We are now talking about software-defined vehicles.” In the Gateway team, Didi worked on all JLR vehicles. ‘For the Defender we implemented the new EVA-2 network architecture. On EVA-1, every vehicle line had individual software. For EVA-2, which began on Defender, the network architecture was unified. The same software and architecture were used on subsequent model lines, like the new Range Rover, which was a significant improvement over how we did software in EVA-1.
“We spent two years working on the new Defender EVA-2 Gateway software, to make sure we got it right first time.”
What are the customer benefits of the new architecture? “It was the first time we introduced software over the air. Also, we had features like secure diagnostics, dual banking and background download – so the customer doesn’t know the software is being downloaded. We also introduced an ethernet switch for in vehicle communication and diagnostics.
Last year, Didi moved from the Gateway team to central systems integration. CSI looks at software integration and readiness of feature delivery for each program and introduces processes and tools to support integrated software delivery. “My role is overseeing the end-to-end process and ensuring that the different tools can be linked to meet our regulatory requirements. We’ve just started the journey. It’s going to take a couple of years to complete.”
Advanced software can make vehicles more customer-friendly through greater personalisation. “Cars are still probably designed mostly for men. But with software we are integrating a lot of apps which automatically bring in a lot of preferences. That makes cars more personalised and more individual, helping male and female owners.”
Engineering is however still male-dominated. “We had a workshop recently with 60 engineers and only four were female. It’s not a good representation. It must change.”
Didi really enjoys working in the car industry. “One of the biggest joys is that I can experience the product and get real customer feedback. At Cisco you might have developed a feature but it’s somewhere in the backdrop. You don’t get first-hand customer experience. At JLR, you see your work on display. I really like that.”