Since joining NXP in 2012 as a student employee, Sandra Hollerweger has filled several roles within the company, gaining wide-ranging experiences and exploring her interests along the way.
From our location in Austria, Sandra currently works as Product Manager for cloud software solutions and smartcard ICs — a role she says fascinates her. Sandra believes that mentorship has been key to her success to date. Having explored the unknown herself, Sandra is devoting some of her time to encouraging young women and girls to embrace technical careers, as well as pursuing other diversity, equality and inclusion (DE&I) initiatives at NXP. She describes exactly how she’s doing this in a recent chat.
SH: I joined NXP’s Research & Development (software development) department back in 2012 as a student. I completed my master's thesis with NXP and then joined as a full-time employee in 2015. I transitioned from the R&D department to the CAS team (global customer application engineering in the sales team). There, I acted as Global Product Support Owner, driving technical product designs to lead-customer projects.
I transitioned to the Product Management team in early 2021. I’m currently a Product Manager for cloud software solutions and smartcard ICs in the product line MIFARE Smart Cities, which is part of the Secure Transactions & Identification organization. My focus is on the MIFARE 2GO cloud software solution and the secure smartcard product family, MIFARE DESFire.
SH: My role focuses on product definition, product requirements definition and prioritization, roadmap development and market positioning. This role fascinates me, as it lives on frequent communication with customers and external partners to collect market feedback and requirements, which allow me to build and deliver products that exceed customer's expectations and fulfill the market need. Additionally, this role requires collaborating with several departments at NXP internally. Day-to-day, I’m in constant alignment with the R&D department for product specification and implementation, the marketing team for product positioning and pricing, the legal team for customer contract negotiations and the sales and business development team for pitching new products to customers.
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One of the things I like about product management is the split between technical and business-oriented work. The intersection of business and technology allows me to strategically drive the vision, development and lifecycle of NXP products. This makes my role very fulfilling and exciting.
SH: Mentoring has been pivotal to my career development over time. I believe mentoring is key to personal and professional development. I’ve always appreciated my direct managers at NXP. They’ve always been open to giving honest feedback that helps me to consider other perspectives and reflect on specific situations. Mentorship is vital at NXP and the company is promoting it across its diverse teams. A case in point is the Business Cross Mentoring (BCM) Program, which NXP Austria is a member of.
The program connects NXP team members (including me) who aspire to advance their careers with higher managers in other Austrian companies who then act as their mentors. This also happens vice versa, whereby a mentee from another Austrian company is connected with a mentor from NXP. I benefit greatly as a mentee from this initiative.
SH: NXP strongly believes in diversity, equality and inclusion and puts lots of effort into building an inclusive work environment. Various learning opportunities are available to ensure the active participation of team members in DE&I initiatives. The message at NXP has always been that every one of us can contribute to DE&I efforts by creating an inclusive environment for all colleagues. Throughout the company, colleagues are encouraged to bring their authentic selves to work. Those efforts are reflected here at our Austria location.
NXP Austria’s recent equalitA label, awarded by the Austrian Federal Ministry of Labor and Economy, underscores the company’s commitment to DE&I. Another testament to the company-wide commitment is NXP Austria winning the Leading Employer Award for the fifth year in a row. The award considers multiple factors including employee satisfaction, company internal values, workplace security, work environment, health and safety, HR support and internal communications among others.
SH: I think DE&I is a very important topic that affects us all. Every person can make a small contribution either by listening, learning, understanding or actively supporting DE&I initiatives.
I’m passionate about encouraging young talents to pursue technical careers and join a technical company like NXP Austria. Therefore, I participate in career fairs and school tech days. I also share insights about my job at NXP with students via Q&A sessions and presentations.
I do all this to raise awareness among young female talents on the importance of education in a technical field and the job prospects in such an area. For me, it’s essential for young girls to see other females thrive in technical fields. They need to become more aware that there’s a place for women in typically male-dominated professions. As role models, it’s vital to show that stereotypes can be broken. This is my view and I’m happy to do that if it motivates young girls to join and thrive in technical careers.
Florian, as the Head of Communications Austria at NXP, is driving both internal and external communications. With a keen focus on delivering NXP's message effectively, he implements innovative strategies to engage colleagues and the press. Additionally, Florian serves as the Austrian local chair in the University Relations Council program, ensuring aligned collaboration with universities.
