Title: Perfecting Piano Product Design and Development: Emilie Camera ‘17, ‘18

[00:00:06,280] CHRISTA DOWNEY: Welcome to the Engineering Career Conversations. I'm Christa Downey, Director of the Engineering Career Center at Cornell University. 

[00:00:14,240] TRACI NATHANS-KELLY: And I'm Traci Nathans-Kelly, Director of the Engineering Communications Program. We are excited to bring you this forum where we will host lively conversations that we hope will inspire you. Welcome to the Engineering Career Conversations podcast. Today, we are talking with Emilie Camera. Emilie has had a fascinating early career arc, working first in product development for medical devices at Fikst, and now working as mechanical engineer for Steinway & Sons working on specialized bespoke and limited edition pianos along with the regular pianos that Steinway also produces. Listen up, Emilie has a lot to share with us and we're glad you're here. 

[00:01:03,100] CHRISTA DOWNEY: Emilie, it's so good to have you here today, welcome. 

[00:01:06,200] EMILIE CAMERA: Well, thank you. Happy to be here. 

[00:01:09,660] CHRISTA DOWNEY: I would love to have you start by telling us about the exciting work that you're doing and how you got here. 

[00:01:16,100] EMILIE CAMERA: So, my current position right now is at Steinway & Sons. I'm a mechanical engineer for them. And specifically my job involves working on the custom pianos, so limited additions, one- of-a-kinds, bespoke. We do limited runs of about 50, typically. Right now, I don't know if there's plans to do more than that in the future. But basically anything that's different from our standard piano, I'm involved in. 

[00:01:42,940] CHRISTA DOWNEY: Right. So what does that look like in terms of applying your mechanical engineering skills, and maybe just on a day to day basis, what does that look like? 

[00:01:52,780] EMILIE CAMERA: So I've gotten to see a lot of really cool designs come in. It involves working with industrial designers. They'll submit a design. I kind of have to tear it apart a little bit. Tell them what's possible, what's not possible. There's some design negotiations involved, usually. And also just education. A lot of designers don't know a lot about how pianos get made, and not a lot of people do. It's also informing them like, we need these holes to be available for shipping. We need these features for whatever reason. Always something new. Always something different. It's always a new challenge. It's a fun job. 

[00:02:28,450] CHRISTA DOWNEY: And at one point, you mentioned to me that you travel abroad for work. Can you talk more about that? 

[00:02:33,710] EMILIE CAMERA: Steinway has two factories, one in New York, in Queens and one in Hamburg in Germany. A couple months ago, I went on a trip to go visit the Hamburg factory. See how their operations run, which is really fascinating to see how the German factory and New York factory are so different, but also so similar because we make the same product, we make the same piano. So it's just seeing how the two different cultures approach the same problems was very fascinating, very interesting. And then in addition, we were collaborating with some Italian designers on a spoke piano we were working on. So as part of that trip as well, we traveled to Florence, visited their studio, saw the pianos being worked on by their team of artisans. 

[00:03:14,160] CHRISTA DOWNEY: Traci and I worked with so many engineers who are doing amazing things in the classroom and outside of the classroom and, you know, going on to have these great engineering careers. So many of the students that we know have hobbies that they can only, you know, maybe dream of. Maybe that's extreme. But they think, oh, wouldn't it be cool if I were to design this product that I use in, you know, in my free time that I love? And some people think of that as difficult, unattainable. So I'm curious to hear more about that. How did you get to this place where you are designing pianos and incorporating a passion of yours with your academic skill set? 

[00:03:59,720] EMILIE CAMERA: Yeah, yeah. This position really is like a perfect combination of my, like, passion outside of work, which is music and performing and my expertise or like where my career has been focused on, which is mechanical engineering and product development. I guess for a little bit more context, I have always been into music like I play violin, I still play violin in an orchestra in the greater, New York City area. Don't play as much piano anymore, but I used to be really into piano as well. So Steinway was a name that I knew of my whole life because I'm just in this music world and yeah, I don't think I ever expected to end up working at Steinway. I'm very happy I do. And it is a really fulfilling job. And I like the work that I do every day. But yeah, I think if you asked me when I was in school, I wouldn't have thought of this as an option. But if you think about it, every product needs to be designed, every product needs an engineer on it. Everything that gets made, somebody has to do that. And so I think when I was doing my last job search, I was thinking just like what is something that I like, what is like a thing that I'd like to use? Who makes them? How maybe I just look for a way to get to make these things. And so I saw a job open at Steinway, applied for it, and here we are. 

[00:05:19,370] TRACI NATHANS-KELLY: It's always completely fascinating to me. To your point, Emilie, everything that we use has to be designed by somebody. We need materials people, we need mechanical, you know, for either the factory end of it or designing the product itself. I first came to realize that when I was working with an engineer from Avon. Big burly guy working for the Avon company. And it just occurred to me, every single thing. So to your point, there's all of these jobs that we just don't even think of when we think engineering. And I love this example that we have of yours with combining the arts and engineering in such a wonderful way. I absolutely, I'm absolutely jealous of your job, frankly. 

[00:06:03,800] EMILIE CAMERA: It's a very fun and interesting place. I was also surprised with, I guess the position because, you know, Steinway does have this narrative. That is also the reality that pianos are made by artisans, which is very true. There are definitely a lot of crafts people in the factory doing a lot of really artisanal woodworking. The process of tuning and voicing a piano is, like, people trained for two years before they are able to do that as their career. To me I was like, oh, because all these artisans and crafts people work on these pianos, they don't really need engineers. But that's not completely true, because somebody does need to set the specifications. You need to know what material is going in, and when you're doing it at such a volume, there is engineering work that has to happen. It's not like you're making one violin, right? Like a luthier will make one violin and they'll work on it for a very long time and then they'll have that one violin. Whereas the piano factory does create a certain amount of pianos every day. For that process to run smoothly, you need engineers. 

[00:07:13,310] TRACI NATHANS-KELLY: So this is part of what your day looks like. We talked about before all of the different components of technical work that you bring in day to day like CAD and so forth. So what are some of the other technical skills that you bring to this artisanal work? 

[00:07:34,230] EMILIE CAMERA: Yeah, for custom pianos and the limited addition, the bespokes versus limited editions both have their own separate set of problems. Bespoke or one-of-a-kind is more so how do we make one of these pianos without really affecting the line too much? And then the limited edition end is, okay, this needs to be part of the production line. How do we make that transition as smooth as possible or as seamless? For the work that I specifically do, there are different very specific ways of thinking that you have to approach when you're working on these projects. And testing is a big part of what I do as well. Just because when we get a custom design or an industrial designer gives us a new project to work on and they have some, like the top stick is what holds the top up on the piano, that's a pretty critical feature. So if they have a new top stick design, it's usually proving out that that's not going to fail in any way. Or if they want to propose a new leg design, like how do we make sure that this is going to hold up our piano? Things like this that are usually in the production line, nobody thinks about it at this point because it's just making the same legs, they work. We've proved them out a long time ago. But when you introduce these new things, you have to do that work all over again. Which again, is always a little bit of a challenge, but it's always very interesting. I always end up learning a lot. 

[00:08:59,560] TRACI NATHANS-KELLY: Like the smallest of change. You have to retest everything and you would think, oh no, we'll just test this one thing. No, it's always a bigger project, isn't it, to do that quality control? 

[00:09:09,780] EMILIE CAMERA: Definitely. And especially because, you know, Steinway is kind of known as like the premier piano manufacturer. And, you know, you want to make sure your quality standards are up to that. So we're very against taking any shortcuts and thinking like, oh, this is probably fine, like no, let's, let's prove it out. Let's make sure it's fine, let's make sure this will last more than a lifetime. 

[00:09:34,190] TRACI NATHANS-KELLY: I love that idea and those kind of technical challenges. And we also like to ask folks, so what are some of the other kinds of challenges you face at work? And what do you do to get yourself out of any of those tight spots? 

[00:09:49,820] EMILIE CAMERA: In all of my product development, I guess career, it's been very challenging from a technical perspective. So from a technical perspective, working in these like really early nebulous phases of projects have been really challenging. It's when you have a lot of undefined problems and you're not really sure of how you're going to solve it, or you don't even know what questions to ask, like those. That can be a really challenging moment. I don't think I'm the only one who finds this period of time challenging, but it is something that I try to get better at, or I try to figure out what questions do I need to be asking, not even thinking about what the answer would be. Just like, what don't I know yet? That is always a little bit challenging. 

[00:10:31,780] TRACI NATHANS-KELLY: To ask the questions about the things you don't know. Maybe that you don't know. 

[00:10:36,700] EMILIE CAMERA: The unknown unknowns. Yeah, yeah, yes, absolutely. 

[00:10:41,160] CHRISTA DOWNEY: So we talk in this podcast with each of our guests about this idea of creating a healthier, more equitable, more sustainable world. And Traci and I were actually just talking about this this morning and how we hear often from students that these three things are top of mind for them. Students are looking at, how can I make an impact in my career? How can I make an impact while using my skill set and engineering, while doing something that I enjoy? Maybe while also living in a location with people I love and care about, right? It's a lot to balance it out and figure that out. When I think of your work, I'm just going to start to give what comes to mind for me. I think about the joy that comes from the arts and how important that is to a healthier planet for all of the people on it. I just wanted to see what else you wanted to say about this topic and maybe even spinning it in terms of insight for students who are grappling with that. 

[00:11:49,500] EMILIE CAMERA: When I started my job search, like right when I graduated, I did the MAE undergrad at Cornell. And from there I did the one year M.Eng. right after it. Just because I think after undergrad, I kind of geared my undergrad more towards aerospace kind of field. And then at the end of it, I learned more about what the aerospace field is and what the projects they work on and what kind of their day to day looks like. And I was like not really interested in that as like a career option. Like I kind of like I wanted something different. And so when I did my M.Eng., I just focused on doing a ton of just hands on projects just to get more experience of just building stuff and like seeing what kind of stuff I like to build. And then in that I learned that that is a field that is product development, just prototyping, building things, getting them made. Usually the timeline is a lot faster than it would be in aerospace too. So you actually see a project to completion in a shorter time frame. And then from there kind of led me to this like I want to work on projects that do something good for people. Like I've kind of been focusing my career now on this do no harm mantra like I could do something fun. I could do something actively helpful. But I don't want to do anything that I think would bring harm to the world, people in it, et cetera. Yeah, my first job I was working at like an engineering design consultancy. Working on mostly medical devices. There, it's easy to wrap your head around the do no harm because medical devices are never made with malintent. Medical devices are always to help people, it's always to advance medical technology, get people more accurate results, get it to them faster. Then when I started my job at Steinway, I had a little bit of a crisis too, where I was like, oh, this isn't actually actively helping people the same way that I was helping people at my last job. Like I was at my last job in the pandemic, and they were making a lot of respiratory equipment, things that were actively helping people during the pandemic. And so I was like, oh, to go to pianos, that's not quite the same. But the more I thought about it, the more it is just again, it's not actually doing any harm, but it is also adding value to people's lives. These products are made by people who really care about their craft. They care about the product. They see the value of the final product, and our customers are people that enjoy music, want to express themselves. But yeah, so for pianos, it's hard to say that they like definitively make the world healthier equitable, sustainable. Because it's like there's no real metric that proves that, or at least that I'm aware of. But ultimately it brings joy to our customer. And I think that is something that can improve health. 

[00:14:31,840] TRACI NATHANS-KELLY: Absolutely. One of the main things I heard during the pandemic is, you know, so many people were like, you know, oh, we can work from home. You know, there's all these different ways of figuring out work. But the other thing that a lot of people noticed is in our moments when we're having such a hard time, where do we turn? We turn to the arts. So like streaming for shows, arts concerts, all of this just exploded. And it really got most people through the pandemic and they turned to the arts. And you know, what you're saying is resonating very deeply with what I was thinking about before. Then we also wanted to ask, because you you've talked about the artisans and everybody who has impact , input, talent, to bring to the things that you're constructing right now. What people, organizations, talent pools are really important to your work right now? 

[00:15:32,680] EMILIE CAMERA: The crafts people at Steinway are a huge resource for me. I'm still pretty early in my career and I'm very early at Steinway. I'm about two years there now at this point. And there are people who have been there for 30 years, 40 years. Like their grandparents have worked at that factory. Like they've been at Steinway for generations. And so you do have to have the humility that like these people know more than I do. Like I've been here for two, they've been here for 30, 40 plus. Like I may have a degree in engineering, but they have a beyond degree in piano making. Whenever I'm kind stuck on a problem, usually the people in the factory are the ones that I consult first. Because one, they have more experience, but two, ultimately my designs are going to be implemented by them. So I want to give them something that they can work with and that they feel confident in and that they are aware of. Because nobody likes getting a new part and they don't know what it does, and they weren't involved in the process. I think all the process people at Steinway are a huge resource for me. Then, just understanding your customer, which I think is a big part of product development in general. I think anybody who's developing some product for anybody needs to understand their end user. Whatever ways I can understand the end user, I try to. For pianos, it'll be like piano technicians and tuners, because they are really looking at the guts of the instrument. And they see a ton when they go tune and work on pianos all around their region. So they have a lot of information on just like what goes wrong, what wears out first? What are pain points between different pianos that they've seen, or pain points between even different Steinway pianos that they've seen? How can we solve those problems? Then also, I found that Steinway salespeople also are a good resource because they interact with customers daily and they are like a primary resource for customer grievances. They are the ones who are going to hear like, oh, I don't like this, I don't like this, I don't like this. And then they'll be able to filter that information up and then give us better informed designs. And then of course, also understanding artists and understanding what musicians see on these pianos. Like whether or not they're beginner, amateur, professional. What do you like about it? What don't you like about it? What do you wish was different? All these types of things are very valuable information. I think it kind of goes for any field. You just want to understand the end user and any permutation of the end user as well. 

[00:18:08,920] TRACI NATHANS-KELLY: It's so interesting. It's so interesting, especially for this product, because I've sat before a Steinway before, it looked like perfection to me. So I can't imagine what people would mean. 

[00:18:19,640] EMILIE CAMERA: That's good to hear. 

[00:18:22,300] TRACI NATHANS-KELLY: It's a beautiful, it's a beautiful piece of equipment. 

[00:18:25,780] EMILIE CAMERA: To add on to that question, at my last job at the design consultancy that I was working at, it was mostly engineers on staff. And I found just being around a lot of engineers was a great resource and really was a great learning opportunity. Because, you know, I was given projects and everybody else around me was given different projects. So I could see how they approached the problems they had and then vice versa. They would see the way I'm approaching problems I have and either give advice or give input on it. And that helped me really grow a lot as an engineer.

[00:18:58,300] TRACI NATHANS-KELLY: Well, what we learn filters through so in so many wonderful ways, right? We like to ask each person about their sophomore year. What would you have liked to have known during your sophomore year? And that's because that's what we kind of decide when our major, what our major is going to be and so forth. When you were a sophomore, what do you wish you knew back then? 

[00:19:19,050] EMILIE CAMERA: I think when I was a sophomore, I was very focused on just like doing what everybody else is doing. And I think a lot of sophomores probably still have this kind of I don't know if it's a drive, but it's some kind of like I like, I feel like I'm falling behind If I don't do X, like if I don't get one of these internships this summer, I'll be behind. Or like, if I don't get onto this project team, I'm putting myself at a disadvantage. You're not, you're not putting yourself at a disadvantage. You get to where you need to be eventually. It's not worth stressing about like following the right path, It's just about learning what you want to learn and moving forward from there. 

[00:19:56,230] TRACI NATHANS-KELLY: I agree that I see a lot in my office, very stressed out students, not sure, and what else should I be doing? What else should I be doing? Like you're doing enough. 

[00:20:06,610] EMILIE CAMERA: Yeah. Especially, I mean, I mean, Cornell is a great place to try, like a bunch of different things. I definitely tried a bunch of different research labs, a bunch of extracurriculars to try and figure out where I wanted to go. And that's what college or undergrad is for, to try out a bunch of stuff. And Cornell has a lot of opportunities to try out all of these things. 

[00:20:27,350] CHRISTA DOWNEY: In addition to all of those extracurricular things, Cornell has a lot of opportunities to take classes in many different areas. So can you tell us about the classes that had the greatest impact in preparing you for your career? 

[00:20:39,780] EMILIE CAMERA: Two classes really impacted me, I think when I was at Cornell. And one of them was 2250. The MAE 2250, the course where everybody learns how to machine. Everybody learns how to prototype. Everybody gets some hands on experience, which, you know, prior to that class I had none of this experience really. And then there of course are some people who are like, oh, I've built cars already and I'm like, okay, great, I'm falling behind. But no, like this class exists for people who don't have this experience prior to learn these tools, because you'll need them in your career later on. That's really the first introduction of product development that the mechanical engineering curriculum provides. And so that was my first introduction to like this is a field that exists. Great. Take a class that really like hammered home. That's what I want to do was Rob Shepherd's and [inaudible] class. Innovative product design. And that really kind of showed people do this as a career. They go through the whole process of product design and product development. And doing that was really exciting. And I felt like very rewarded at the end of the course with the project I worked on. And I think that was really a big point where I kind of switched and was like, okay, this is what I really want to be doing. I like the results I got here. I feel extremely rewarded. I want to figure out how to do this full time. And then of course, what also helps is everything that I didn't enjoy. The courses and experiences that didn't quite fit. Because it points you away from things that you're not going to ultimately feel fulfilled by at the end of the day. While the classes that I really liked and really enjoyed doing, definitely helped point me in the right direction. I think what's also important is taking things that kind of point you in the wrong direction, make you challenge your own thoughts of being like, oh, do I actually like this field? What does this actually look like day to day? Let me get more information. 

[00:22:28,360] TRACI NATHANS-KELLY: I agree with you that even if people have like a less than perfect internship experience, they've learned now, maybe that's not what they want to do. So they always think it's a failure. But I'm like, no, no, no, you saved yourself a lot of time now in the coming decades, let's not do that. 

[00:22:46,380] EMILIE CAMERA: So yeah, that's exactly what internships are for. To give you a little taste of just what working in this field, or this company or this experience is like. And then you can decide, okay, do I want to go back there? Do I want to do something different? 

[00:23:01,620] CHRISTA DOWNEY: So what do you do now for fun? 

[00:23:03,240] EMILIE CAMERA: Yeah, I still play violin and piano. I mentioned earlier, but I play violin in an orchestra in New York. It's like a volunteer group. It's fun to use that side of my brain and exercise those muscles every so often. I play piano sometimes, I think it's easier to play violin because more people in the city need violinists for things. I've done some chamber music, I've had a gig here and there. I do that for fun. I don't think I'll ever stop doing it for fun. 

[00:23:35,480] TRACI NATHANS-KELLY: When you are at work, what are some of the ways or places that you go to stay current in what's going on in your field? 

[00:23:42,080] EMILIE CAMERA: I work in a factory and it's important to know just manufacturing processes and different ones and how they work and which pieces of manufacturing processes can we potentially take or which ones can I use to get this custom piano or a limited edition piano through the line? You know, I like to read about just like lean manufacturing processes and best practices just to understand what has worked in the past for other people and what maybe could work for us. When I'm actually designing parts, I think it's good to have a pretty strong knowledge of design for manufacturing because you don't want to design a part that can't be made. So yeah, a lot of job shops will have DFM tips on their websites and this is like a Proto Labs or Xometry and it's good to check in on those every so often and just, you know, when I'm working on a new part, I just check in and be like, am I doing this the right way if I give this design to someone on the floor? If I give this design to like an external vendor, will this be impossible to make? So I think keeping up to date on all the latest design for manufacturing procedures is good to know. And then just for Steinway and for pianos in general, there's piano specific blogs that just give information on what's new, what's going on, what are people into? 

[00:24:53,920] TRACI NATHANS-KELLY: I find it so fascinating. Because I always consider just like the piano is a thing and everybody knows, right? So talking about the bespoke and the limited runs. And I'm just like, this whole world is in my head now and now I'm going to spend the afternoon exploring it, I'm pretty sure. Of course there's innovation. But we do new things with music all the time, right? 

[00:25:18,630] EMILIE CAMERA: Yeah, there's some crazy pianos out there. I think a long time ago Steinway used to have an art department, and so they've been doing one of a kinds forever. I don't know how often they've done limited editions, but I think since the company started, they've been making custom bespoke pianos. So there's a whole just like file cabinet at the factory that's just sketches of different pianos that they've done throughout. It's very cool because it goes back all the way to the 1800s and pianos that they did then. And you really see like how the design world changed too. Like what the trends were, what people were into. But the process back then was definitely one person would sketch the piano, that same person would design it and build it, and it was like always some craftsman. Now that process has changed a little bit so that we can utilize the production line in a more efficient way, but still the same idea of an artistically made one of a kind piano. 

[00:26:20,900] CHRISTA DOWNEY: Okay, so we had one more question that we love to ask for fun. And that is, if you were not doing this work right now, what would you be doing , which is closest to what you dreamed of when you were a child? 

[00:26:31,740] EMILIE CAMERA: If I were still in the field of engineering, I would still be doing product development. I really think I found a good career path here that really fulfills me. And I think I would just be working on a different product somewhere. But, you know, my childhood dream was music performance, so to play an instrument full time was really my childhood dream, which now I don't think that is quite what I would want. Now that I know what a musician lifestyle is and like truly how much grueling work it takes to maintain, I don't think it's an option I really would be interested in right now. But I do think I found a job that kind of fulfills that part of me that wanted to be somewhat in the music industry. 

[00:27:12,290] TRACI NATHANS-KELLY: Yeah, I think you found one of these rare intersections. 

[00:27:15,590] EMILIE CAMERA: Yeah. They're out there. I know there's, there's people who are really into sports and there's a ton of companies that develop sports equipment. And again, everything has to be designed by somebody. An engineer is needed on every product. So why can't that be you? 

[00:27:33,410] TRACI NATHANS-KELLY: I love it. Well, we thank you so much for being with us today. You have opened up some thoughtful doors for us about the possibilities of the kinds of work that engineers can end up doing. And so we really appreciate your time. Thank you, Emilie. 

[00:27:47,670] EMILIE CAMERA: Yeah, thank you guys. It was great chatting. 

[00:27:49,770] CHRISTA DOWNEY: Thank you for listening. If you are enjoying these conversations, please follow, rate, and review on your favorite platform. Join us for the next episode where we will be celebrating excellence and innovation among engineers whose impact contributes to a healthier, more equitable, and more sustainable world.