The story of Nolan

Senior Engineer, R&D

I’m Nolan and I’m from South Africa. I joined Toyota 20 years ago in South Africa and can honestly say I have loved every minute of it – I think of myself as an ambassador for Toyota. 

How and why did you join Toyota?

I’ve always wanted to be an engineer – seeing how people and things interact and designing things to help. I began my Toyota career working in our Localising department. While working I started to learn and experience the guiding principles of Toyota – respect for people and continuous improvement in everything we do, or Kaizen as the principle is known. It’s part of the Toyota Way, and is embedded in everyone here. 

Can you briefly describe your journey through Toyota until now? 

Early in my career I was fortunate enough to go to Japan for six months. It was there that I really got to experience the fantastic global culture we have, and it was an eye opener for me. I liked it so much I requested an ICT – that’s an inter company transfer – back to Japan, and in 2008 I went back there to work for two years in R&D. You can do that in Toyota – you just need to drive your own career, but they will support you in what you want to do.

I’m driven by a passion for cars and design, so after some time back in South Africa, I applied for a new role in R&D at TME, where I’m now a Senior Engineer working in quality planning. TME is a very diverse and inclusive organisation and part of a bigger family we all share the same Toyota DNA. I’ve seen that first hand, and TME is a company that really takes care of its people. 

What's it like to work at TME?

I think it’s important to understand and accept people’s backgrounds and cultures, and here at TME we have many, many different nationalities. I’m in a global environment now and being open to internationalism and diversity is part of working for Toyota.

What do you enjoy most about your job? 

I’m very happy in R&D and we have a very good team here. We are working on moving from an automotive company to a mobility company and we have a lot of new concepts to work on. It’s very exciting and I’m proud to work for Toyota. 

If you are looking for a challenging engineering role where you will learn a lot, you could not find a better company than TME.  