For thirty years, MAINSTREAM has tracked a profession built on hard-won experience – the engineer who knows a bearing is failing by the sound it makes. But the people who carry that knowledge are leaving: 25,000 engineers will retire within five years. The graduates who could replace them are being courted by consulting, renewables, and big tech.

So this session hands the stage to the people walking in the door. Four early-career engineers – some in their final year, some weeks into their first role, all shaped by internships at Glencore, Thiess, Horizon and BAE Systems – sit down for an honest, unscripted conversation about reliability seen from the start of a career, not the end of one.

It is a rare chance for an experienced audience to hear why this generation chose maintenance and reliability – and to test the assumptions both generations hold about each other. Expect candour, a few uncomfortable truths, and plenty of audience interaction.

• Why this work? What actually attracts and keeps young engineers in reliability when consulting, renewables and big tech are all calling.
• Senses vs. screens. Our research found 85% of professionals worry younger engineers over-rely on AI for equipment health (31% “very concerned”). When do they trust the dashboard, and when their own eyes, ears and hands?
• The “why” generation. This generation wants the why behind a procedure, not just the steps. A risk to safety culture? Or the curiosity the profession needs?
• Closing the knowledge gap. With the apprenticeship pipeline in crisis, how do experienced engineers pass on tacit knowledge to people who may not stay forty years?

Interns and engineering graduates of Glencore, Thiess and Sealed Air.