For a while, hardware engineering felt almost invisible in the broader tech conversation. Software dominated everything – investment, hiring, media attention, startup culture. But manufacturing is back in focus now. So is automation. So is industrial infrastructure. And companies are realizing they need a different kind of engineer than they did ten years ago.
Not just specialists. Builders.
Mikhail Ignatyev belongs to that newer category of technical talent that moves comfortably between production environments, research projects, and startup-style product development.
His background is unusually broad. Born in Russia, educated in Singapore and Canada, Ignatyev worked on Tesla’s Model Y General Assembly line in Austin, contributed to electric Formula SAE vehicle development, co-founded a cleantech startup, and build a low-cost automated microscopy platform during his engineering capstone project at the University of British Columbia.
On paper, those projects sound unrelated. In practice, they all point toward the same thing: engineering is becoming far more interdisciplinary.
At Tesla, Ignatyev worked on equipment tied to windshield and roof-glass installation. One recurring problem involved glass cracking during production, an expensive issue on a high-volume manufacturing line where even small disruptions quickly compound into downtime and scrap costs.
Resolving the issue required pinpointing the source of the cracking failures and implementing targeted changes to the roller geometry and material selection. By addressing the underlying failure mechanism, the redesign improved line efficiency and eliminated recurring defects. The changes contributed to an estimated 2% improvement in Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE), reduced monthly downtime by approximately 90 minutes, lowered maintenance costs by about $1,400 per month, and generated an estimated $4,000 in monthly production savings.
That kind of hands-on systems thinking is becoming more valuable across manufacturing industries that are trying to modernize without massively increasing operational costs.
The same mentality carried into Eledigm, a startup Ignatyev co-founded while studying at UBC. The company focused on contamination risks in above-ground cistern systems used in rural and Indigenous communities across Canada.
After speaking with hundreds of stakeholders, the team developed WaterSafe, a retrofittable attachment designed to seal cistern openings while adding remote monitoring through ultrasonic and temperature sensors connected to a mobile app.
What stands out about the project is how overlooked the actual problem was. A lot of climate-tech startups chase massive infrastructure ideas. This one focused on a very specific issue affecting communities that large water technology companies never prioritized.
The startup secured $25,000 in competitive funding through UBC’s Innovation, Entrepreneurship & Impact Fund and the AquaHacking Challenge. Both awards were granted through competitive evaluation processes involving entrepreneurship judges, industry experts, and water-sector stakeholders, providing external validation of both the technology and its potential impact. The venture also advanced through cleantech entrepreneurship programs, further validating its commercial potential beyond the university environment.
That external validation confirmed the concept had merit, but hardware distribution in geographically isolated communities presented a different order of challenge entirely. Eventually the company paused commercialization, not because the technology fell short, but because reliably reaching and supporting remote communities proved far harder to solve than the technical problem ever was.
At the same time, Ignatyev’s capstone research project explored something completely different: low-cost scientific hardware.
Comparable systems such as the Keyence IM-X1000 carry price tags exceeding $50,000, making accessibility a persistent barrier for a smaller research environment. His team built a functioning automated alternative for roughly CA$1,600 using off-the-shelf electronics, custom mechanical assemblies, Raspberry Pi systems, and Arduino controllers.
The platform automated imaging, autofocus, and defect detection at sub-2 micrometer precision. The project later received the 2025 UBC Design & Innovation Day Faculty Award, where engineering projects were reviewed by faculty members and industry representatives.
Beyond the classroom, the work is forthcoming in HardwareX, an international peer-reviewed open-hardware journal. The project’s modular design and use of readily available components make it readily replicable for research laboratories and university teams seeking lower-cost scientific instrumentation. More importantly, it reflected a broader shift happening across engineering and research environments: advanced hardware is becoming cheaper, modular, and far more accessible than it used to be.
That trend matters. Lower-cost automation tools are starting to change who can realistically build, test, and experiment with sophisticated systems – especially smaller labs, startups, and university teams working without major budgets.
Industry observers have increasingly pointed to growing demand for engineers who can bridge manufacturing, software, automation, rapid prototyping, and product development rather than working within narrow technical specializations. That shift is probably only accelerating.
Ignatyev’s path – from factory optimization and cleantech entrepreneurship to open-hardware instrumentation and Formula SAE development – feels less like an unusual career trajectory and more like an early example of where engineering careers are heading next. His Formula SAE experience is particularly illustrative: in June 2023, UBC Formula Electric competed at Formula SAE Michigan, held at Michigan International Speedway. The event brought together 68 university teams whose vehicles were evaluated by judges drawn from the automotive and motorsport industries across a series of design, performance, and efficiency assessments. The team ultimately placed second in the Efficiency category, providing another example of engineering work validated through independent expert assessment rather than classroom evaluation alone.
