The German Group Bosch, with over 8.800 employees in Romania has established its Engineering Center in Cluj in 2013. Since, the Center has been growing continuously, today reaching the number of around 1200 employees, and it is still growing. In October 2021, the Engineering Center Cluj extended its development activities to Bucharest too, and has over 400 open positions for hardware and software specialists.
Tobias Matter, Head of Bosch Engineering Center spoke in Digitalio’s podcast In The Loop about the technologies developed by the company in Romania, but also about how the position of Engineering Center is being strengthened through sustained investments in qualified labor force.
Romania is housing some of Bosch main global activities
Being present for more than 28 years in Romania, Bosch Romania is holding responsability for several global activities developed by the Group.
„We do the global sales planning here in Cluj, which is unique. Unique is also the fact that we have a close connection between development activities and production here in Cluj. As the Engineering Center is closely connected to the Bosch Plant in Jucu, our software engineers can connect the software that they are developing with the hardware, and they can eventually see their product running on the car, because we also do applications here on the cars before them being sold to the customers. We contribute to all new modern technologies that are being developed by Bosch. We have full ownership for certain development project, on a worldwide scale.”
Tobias Matter, Head of Bosch Engineering Center
Revolutionary technologies developed by Bosch in Romania
Bosch in Romania is developing various solutions, from mobility solutions and industrial technology, to energy and building technologies.
We are at the moment on the way of becoming a leading IoT provider and we`re working on solutions for smart homes, industry and connected mobility.
In Romania, our headquarter is based in Bucharest, where we have our sales offices for Mobility Solutions, Consumer Goods, and Energy and Building Technology business sectors.
In Cluj we have a strong engineering center which is hosting more than 1200 engineers working in software, hardware, mechanics, reliability. As mentioned earlier, we have extended our engineering activities also to Bucharest.
We have two major production units in Romania: in Cluj, we are producing control units for the automotive industry, while in Blaj Plant, we are producing automotive and industry technology as well.
Besides that, we have a service solution center in Timisoara which offers business processes outsourcing services in 18 languages.
Tobias Matter, Head of Bosch Engineering Center
Focus on education – one of Bosch long-term social legacy in Romania
For developing qualified labor force, Bosch is deeply involved in the formation of future engineers, starting from the university benches.
We are involved in all kinds of hardware and software development programs. We have to focus on the labor market, and education is one of our long-term social legacy.
We have already established a lot of partnerships with technical universities, like the Technical University of Cluj-Napoca and Babes-Bolyai University.
We have also started an intense collaboration with the Polytechnical University from Bucharest.
Together with our partners, we have established a lot of programs for students, as the variety of the projects that we have in our development center is huge, we prepare the students to work on state-of-the-art industry projects In order to bring the young engineers to high level of competency, we offer multiple modules of study: scholarships, three master programs and courses.
We have more than 600 hours of lessons per year. We have common research programs with the universities, we have the Summer Working Student Program which invites more than 200 students to work on state-of-the-art industry projects along with us each summer.
Tobias Matter, Head of Bosch Engineering Center
From onboarding to continuous training
Career paths at Bosch imply multiple aspects, starting with carefully designed onboarding processes focused on both technical and soft skills to further development programs. The development of the employees is being carefully addressed by the company through continuous training and a wide range of alternative career opportunities within the company.
We have onboarding programs through which the new employees can connect with the Bosch culture. And then, based on each employee’s competencies and personal interests, there is a wide range of possibilities for each and every employee.
We have a mentoring program, we have leadership and specialists development programs as well, because we need both good leaders and engineers with extensive technical competencies. To become a specialist within the global Bosch entity is another career path. For example, within the local organization at the Engineering Center, one can choose to join different teams over the years, in different areas, to further develop oneself.
So, there is no need to look externally, as we are involved in so many different activities and we are one of the leading contributors within the Bosch international development network.`
Tobias Matter, Head of Bosch Engineering Center
