Meet the future of energy: Diego Buriti Araujo, Test Engineer at Northvolt

Why did you decide to move to Stockholm?

My wife and I were planning to leave Brazil and live abroad. We were looking for new professional opportunities worldwide. She applied for a job at Electrolux in Stockholm and got hired. This was when we decided to move to Sweden.

How did you get interested in this field? And what previous professional experience do you have?

When I was a kid, I really loved understanding how things worked. I used to disassemble my toys just to see how they worked: I’d lose a toy, but I’d learn something. I think this is what led me to become an engineer.

I worked with high-voltage testing equipment in my Master’s thesis and after that, I spent almost four years at the Institutos Lactec working mainly with electrical equipment and materials. In that period, I was introduced to the battery world working with lead-acid batteries.

After moving to Sweden, I spent a while working with Qualitrol, in the field of power transformers, and then I got hired by ESSIQ AB, an engineering consulting company. I was assigned to Northvolt in January 2018 and became a permanent employee in October. This is my second week as a permanent employee at the company.

What do you do at Northvolt?

I am a Test Engineer within the Battery Systems Testing Team. At Northvolt, we have tests in many different areas such as production line, design validation, and certification. Our goal is to make sure our products comply with all the technical and safety requirements. The Testing Team also works very close to the Design Team: we need to test and validate every new design update, checking if they work and if they are reasonable for production.

At the moment, we are doing some destructive testing where we literally set the batteries on fire in different ways. We need to make sure that our product will be safe no matter what.

What was your first impression of Northvolt when you began working as a consultant in the company?

I loved the idea of working to support a greener environment, and I was quite excited about Northvolt – it sounded like a great company to work for. Here, with so many people from different nationalities (more than 30!), I feel respected, warmly welcome and my voice really matters. Beyond that, I’m impressed with how many new things I learn every day.

What do you do when you are not working?

We bought a beautiful apartment one year ago in Stockholm and just I simply love spending time at home with my wife, either watching Netflix, watching some sports, like American Football, or receiving friends at our place.

Coming from Brazil, food is a really big deal for us, so we love going out for a bite and our trips always revolve around food! To balance all that out, I love skiing, playing tennis and going out to enjoy Stockholm’s beautiful nature.