Making music professionally doesn't stop for Markus when he walks off stage. On the contrary, that is when the principal part of the work begins: organising concerts, booking locations, promotion, mastering. In fact everything that goes with it. And his work is beginning to bear fruit: His band, "Stand Up Stacy", a Munich rock group in which he plays bass has a record contract, plays in well-known clubs and at major festivals.
Music has always been Markus' passion. At six, he started to play the piano. A few years later came his first guitar. Someone he knew at school persuaded him to play in their band. But they were looking for a bass player. "I just gave it a try," says Markus. First they played cover songs then their own, the sound became more professional, the band was given a different name, but the line-up remained mostly the same: guys from Penzberg to the south of Munich who are crazy about punk rock.
Even though at first glance they might not be immediately apparent, Markus sees many parallels between his job with the EDAG Group and the coordination and organisation of a band. Markus has been with us since 2019. His career is impressive. After working as a development engineer for camera-based driver assistance systems for one and a half years, he became a project leader in Intensive Vehicle Testing and Vehicle Upgrading. For a short while now, he has been a team leader in Integration & Validation
"A customer must be able to operate his car intuitively. And we make sure that, with new software and new vehicles, this is the case, so that no serious errors will occur later on," is how Markus describes the task assigned to his team consisting of software and automotive specialists. It is precisely this mixture that makes the team so special, says Markus. "We learn and benefit from each other."
Before joining the EDAG Group in 2019 to start his first job after completing his degree in industrial engineering, Markus had a student job with one of the major mobility companies. He wrote his Bachelor's thesis, which was about setting up a new business unit, in Singapore. Sounds interesting. "But in fact, it was a bit boring," says Markus. Not Singapore. But the structures in a large corporation. "You have your three clearly defined tasks for which you are responsible. I thought to myself, there must be more to it than this," recounts Markus. Because his sister works for another engineering service provider, he had already gained an impression of this field. And so he came to the EDAG Group.
What he enjoys here are not just the flexibility and rapidity of a company with relatively flat hierarchies but also the wide variety of tasks. "Today I might be sitting in the bid presentation, while tomorrow I'll be tinkering about with a vehicle. And if you want to get things moving or have a new idea, you will be seen and heard here," explains Markus.
For example, he initiated a training programme in response to the acute need for new staff. The reason for this was that after Markus and his team had taken on the new intensive vehicle testing and vehicle upgrading project, the order volume rapidly increased. Before this, new employees were trained up separately by sitting next to an existing team member and observing what he or she did. The new training programme enables the team to train several colleagues in the complex work contents at one go, and then put new employees to work quickly and efficiently, and also respond more dynamically to customer requests.
"People who perform well and think outside the box receive recognition and encouragement," says Markus. For him, this was already the case after the first one and a half years with the EDAG Group. He became a project leader. "Of course I wondered if I was up to the task. But I was assisted every step of the way." And besides, the subject was not entirely new to Markus. While he was 18 and still at school, he worked as a volunteer organising educational events, which meant coordinating about 50 people.
But what Markus enjoys more than anything else in his work with the EDAG Group is the team spirit. "We share a great many interests. And make sure that someone will fit in from both a profession and a personal point of view," says the 28 year-old. This creates an atmosphere in which everyone can rely on everyone else if needs be. As was recently the case, when Markus‘ team was required to prepare a vehicle for hot climate testing. A last-minute customer request. A prototype was given 140 measuring points, and Markus and his colleagues installed 300 metres of cable in the car. "We finished ten minutes before the truck arrived to take the car to to the plane to Dubai," recounts Markus with a grin. "A lot of people doubted that we would manage to do it, but as team this just motivated us all the more."
