Forging a Career in Alternative Energy Generation
Ruslan Timerbulatov, 2020 | InEnergy, Research Engineer
Meet Ruslan Timerbulatov, a research engineer in the R&D department of InEnergy. Ruslan joined Materials Science Master's program after a mesmerizing experience at the university's Open Doors event and never looked back. Now he runs experiments, solves technical challenges in the lab and models prototypes using the skills he gained at Skoltech.
why Skoltech?
After completing my BA in Engineering, I realized that I would like to contribute to the development of a sustainable energy generation system. I was especially interested in the field of solar energy. I found a research group at Skoltech which was developing innovative perovskite solar cells and became strongly motivated to join it.

During one of Skoltech's Open Doors events, I visited the laboratories and was amazed by the level of experimental infrastructure. The most important thing was that students could easily get access to sophisticated equipment like Raman Spectrometer or X-ray diffractometer or vacuum thin film deposition setup. That day I understood that studying at Skoltech was an opportunity I simply couldn't miss.

Master of Science in Materials Science and Technology of Materials
Modern industry is in great need of professionals in materials science, ready to develop new materials and devices for application in renewable energy, consumer electronics, healthcare, and other areas. Our practical approach gives our graduates the opportunity to gain knowledge and skills for success in electronics, energy, chemicals, automotive industry, and other sectors. Learn more.
what was your career path?
After graduation from the Skoltech Materials Science MSc program, I've created a list of top Russian full-cycle companies in the field of alternative energy generation. I monitored job openings published by these companies and wrote personal letters to the employees of these companies. I was asking them about their working experience and their career journey. One of these personal letters lead me to an interview at a company which didn't have any active job openings, but they were ready to open a job position for an active young specialist. After passing through five interviews I found an interesting position that was closely related to my specialization and was acceptable in terms of salary and other conditions. It became my first full-time job.
what is your job like?
It's hard to describe a typical day in my job because I cover a wide spectrum of tasks every day. My day may start with preparing the suspension which is used for the production of anodes of tubular hydrogen cells. After lunch, I can configure the electromechanical equipment for testing the hydrogen cells. And in the evening I might spend a couple of hours on 3D designing of the system for deposition of electric busses on the hydrogen cells. The list of tasks might also include performing the experiments, data processing and analysis, literature search, solving of technical problems, engineering, 3D design and prototyping (3D printing, laser cutting, mechanical processing).

All the tasks require mindfulness and engagement. There are so many different things to do that I can't get bored. At the same time, this diversity of tasks is caused by the need of making everything with our own hands from a scratch. Our goal is a commercially-viable product. And the development of cheap, reproducible and scalable manufacturing techniques is not a trivial task.

how do you apply what you learned at Skoltech?
I suppose that the most useful skills which I got in Skoltech are working with scientific literature and the skill of experimental work. The knowledge about scientific methodology helps to check the experimental hypothesis with the least number of experiments. The knowledge about the properties of materials and deposition techniques helps to solve the technical issues and design the device with the desired technical parameters.

Thanks to Skoltech, I have acquired many practical skills that now are serving me well in my daily work.
and now about Skoltech
We are Skoltech – a new international English-speaking STEM university that was founded by the group of world-renowned scientists in 2011 in Moscow, Russia. In just 8 years, we united dozens of researchers and globally renowned professors, built a stunning campus, set up world-class labs and made it to the top 100 young universities in the Nature Index. Read more >>
Discover Skoltech in less than 3 minutes
more stories? sure: