Day in the life of Johanna Baranda

Jo is a Hi-Level Mezzanines Structural Engineer. She studied at the University of Portsmouth until 2023, undertaking an integrated Bachelor and Masters degree in Civil Engineering. She was fascinated by structural engineering and her goal was to continue this as a career. After she graduated she took on an interim role as a student accommodation project lead connecting student accommodation with local businesses and charities, but her confidence was low because her dream was to become an engineer. “It was then that I found Hi-Level Mezzanines,” she says. “I am really grateful to the team around me who have made life so much better and are allowing me to do a job I enjoy so much.”

Devising solutions

Jo joined Hi-Level in December 2024 as a structural engineer. Her week is varied, from completing requests from project managers to poring over the calculations for
complex mezzanine requirements that go beyond the estimates that Hi-Level’s award-winning iQD software can produce.

She works on questions from clients, for example, if they want to change the use of a mezzanine to add another load, calculating if the platform will need reinforcing and devising solutions to make it possible. “I might be on a project involving the estimating team, the production team or contracts team,” she says. “We are often all working together, and the
collaboration is really fruitful.”

A job well done

Jo’s role is highly technical as she specialises in out-of-the-ordinary projects that are more complicated than usual. “I love working with numbers,” she says. “As every project at Hi-Level is bespoke, I have the pleasure of bringing my attention to detail to every design request to create a well-engineered product. There is always something new which makes the job challenging, but it gives me a real sense of reward. Whenever we complete a design request and meet a deadline, it’s a job well done.”

A fascinating task recently was to perform the calculations and check the design for a five-tier mezzanine project, a very unusual request with plenty of detail for Jo to consider and the chance to work with colleagues across Hi-Level’s teams, from sales director Chris Baxter to estimators and project managers. She is also very appreciative of the support of her colleague Ana David, who has more than 10 years’ of Structural Engineering experience to share.

Looking ahead

“I feel that the one year I have been at Hi-Level is a very short time but I have learned so much,” Jo says. “I have developed my knowledge of mezzanine floors, of the company itself and of our design software. I look forward to being trained to do more in the future and to lock in all the information I have gathered so we can provide the best possible service to our clients.”

In the longer term, Jo hopes to qualify as a chartered member of the Institute of Structural Engineers. “It will be difficult to do, but I want to be ambitious,” she says.

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Read more from our Day in the Life series here: Leeroy Reynolds,  Luis Puglisi, Sion Walton, Victoria Steel-Page, and Chris Baxter.