‘I Love My Job’: At ASML, If Someone Says It Can't Be Done, We Say ‘Challenge Accepted'

Welcome to I Love My Job, the series where we hear from women who really love their jobs. In this edition, we sat down with Vanessa Miller, a Mechanical Design Group Lead at ASML.

In her five years at the company, Miller has progressed through three roles with increasing responsibility. Today, she leads a team of 11 engineers at the company. At ASML, the opportunity to “move into new roles or expand your scope is always there,” Miller shares. “There’s really a path between any two roles at ASML… You can even find opportunities while staying in the same department, like I have.”

The teams at ASML aren’t the only thing that’s constantly growing and advancing! ASML’s main products are deep ultraviolet (DUV) and extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography machines. These are used to produce microchips, which you can find in anything from your phone to your dishwasher. “We work to advance technology to allow for smaller and smaller features to be printed onto those microchips, allowing for the quantity of transistors on a microchip to increase and the cost of microchips to decrease over time,” explains Miller. In short, her work is enabling smaller and more powerful electronics, which pushes the boundaries of Moore's Law.

In the video below, Miller tells us more about her exciting job and why she loves working at ASML. We also provide lightly edited highlights from the video discussion in the following article.

In case you have trouble watching this video, please click here to watch it on YouTube.

What do you find most exciting about your work?

I get to work on the most cutting-edge technology and get exposure to really difficult engineering challenges and have opportunities to find exciting solutions. Working in D&E means living in the design cycle. So, you're doing different things week-to-week as you're moving through the design process and getting to work with lots of different people on very multidisciplinary projects.

I get to see a project move from an initial concept to an actual physical product that is used and enjoyed by my customer — which is really gratifying.

How would you describe the culture at ASML?

We're really a bunch of technophiles: we're a company full of people that really love technology and like solving problems. There's a really collaborative nature at ASML. We're working on projects that could never be done by one person alone or even one discipline. Our culture is one that is always working together, learning, and trying to figure out new things… We have an attitude of, if someone says it can't be done, we say challenge accepted.

What is your favorite thing about working at ASML?

I’m really proud of what we're doing. I can see directly that what we're working on impacts all other technology and really the whole world by fulfilling Moore's law.

I've worked at other companies and not felt nearly as convinced that what I was doing was for the betterment of humanity…But here, I really feel our global presence. Being part of something that is pushing technology forward makes me excited to come into work every day.

How does ASML support you?

ASML has given me so many different opportunities to learn and develop. There’s many different software and cool equipment that you get to use on top of having engineering challenges that you might not get in another industry. Affording you an opportunity to solve a problem that hasn't previously been solved makes you grow in ways that you otherwise wouldn't… 

You really feel like you're an investment to the company. You're not held to just one thing, there's always something new for you to get to try out.

What advice do you have for other women looking to work at ASML?

Apply! Take a look online and see what I'm talking about when I say that we're keeping Moore's Law alive. We're doing amazing things. If you even have an inkling that it might be something that you're interested in, I'd say to apply. See what opportunities there are and learn a little bit about what ASML is doing and how it’s affecting all the technology you have in your home.

You can really see the effects of what ASML works on in your day-to-day life... There are so many different positions within this organization, and I'm sure there's one that fits you.

Fairygodboss is proud to work with ASML. Find a job there today!

Check out other posts in the ‘I Love My Job’ series:

• ‘I Love My Job’: At My Company, ‘You Can Carry Your Career Wherever You Go'

• ‘I Love My Job’: Work-Life Balance, Inclusivity, and a ‘Physically and Psychologically Safe’ Culture

• ‘I Love My Job’: I’m Empowered to Build My ‘Own Career Path’ and Experience ‘Tremendous Growth'

• ‘I Love My Job’: From Giving 66% of Every Dollar to Charitable Causes to a Supportive Team

• ‘I Love My Job’: From a Chance Encounter to a Cybersecurity Manager at a People-Centric Company