Mikhail Ponomarenko · mechanical engineer and product manager
Every node is something I have actually done, not something I have read about. Distance from the centre is depth: I do it, I lead it, I define the method. Each ray is a branch of practice. Hover a synergy card and the matching nodes light up.
Skills are common. Combinations are not. These eight are the ones that took more than one industry to build.
anxiety pointed at engineering
Builds the failure scenario before anyone else does, then acts on it. Found an ignition risk in a thermal utiliser that was already sold and designed the protection. Insisted on drawing checks before cutting steel, and the clearance errors proved the point.
regulated industries speak one language
Took a product through a classification society personally: test programme, full drawing set, witnessed testing, failure analysis, design iteration. Medical devices, marine equipment and aerospace all ask for the same things.
MES from both sides
Implemented MES as the customer while running a production site, and now builds MES as a product at a vendor. Knows what a piece-rate operator says when a new terminal appears, and can write the user story and data model for it.
walking in after the predecessor left
Four independent cases across eleven years and four industries. Each time: understand someone else’s design, judge honestly whether to repair or rebuild, then carry it to a result.
a way of thinking, not a lucky break
The honeycomb of a cross-country ski became the load-bearing hatches of a shipping container. A drawing-numbering standard became product documentation. A shop-floor process description became a research method.
full cycle, literally
CAD and rendering, CNC programming, lathe, MIG and TIG welding, sheet metal, 3D scanning and printing, electrical soldering. Assembled the spreader by hand to find what the model did not show.
results where there are no levers
Key results were delivered in structures with no ownership, no reporting line and no budget: an independent vendor, other people’s regional centres, a shop floor on piece rates.
measured, three times
Quality function: 60 hours a week at the start, 40 after three months, 10 after another six for the same scope. Production: one year to build the process, then it ran without daily involvement. The freed time went into learning welding, drafting and new domains.