Working during the week and tourist abroad at weekends

This article is part of a series called “Twente Leeft!” (Twente Lives!). You can read personal stories here about living and working in Twente. Twente is a nice place to be, according to the talents we meet. The beautiful nature, space, the down-to-earth mentality; they all characterise Twente. There are also plenty of career opportunities! Twente has many innovative, international and future-proof companies that are desperate for staff. Want to know what Twente has to offer? You can find Harald Koets’s story below.

Pentair, based at Marssteden, supplies installations worldwide that filter beer so that the cloudiness disappears and you get a glass of clear golden lager in front of you. In addition, Ensschede works on installations that purify water, from drinking water to waste water. Harald Koets works as a 'process and commissioning engineer' at Pentair and regularly spends several weeks abroad to install the Enschedean filtration systems in breweries and familiarise employees there with their operation.

He has been working there for a year and four months and had the opportunity to travel to Cambodia, Austria and Nigeria. At the time this story is published, he is in Accruna, Spain for his employer. "I like being abroad about 30 to 40 per cent of the time. Working during the week and being a tourist on weekends, you see quite a lot of the world that way," he says.

But this aspect of his work is not the only thing that attracts Harald to it. The preparatory work when setting up a project, the calculations, taking care of the necessary documents, the testing of the installations in the workshop combined with the installation and instructions on site makes it nice for the engineer to work for Pentair. "Plus the atmosphere here among colleagues," he says. "As a native of Groningen, I recognise a lot of the mentality of the people of Twente. I come from Wedde, from the Groningen countryside. Both my grandfathers are farmers, we lived near the forest and were outside a lot as children. The nature there, I also recognise here. You're in the forest in no time."

The terraces in Enschede where he lives are also a nice place for him to be. "And I've also been to FC Twente sometimes. A good atmosphere in the stadium, but of course, as a Groningen supporter, I can't say that too loudly; I prefer sitting in the stadium there."

Harald regularly returns to Groningen to visit family and friends, but has also found his niche in Twente. "I went to study Chemical and Process Engineering at the University of Twente because there was a more technical interpretation of the study here than in Groningen at the Rijksuniversiteit, where I could also have followed the study. I have always been interested in engineering; from childhood I always wanted to know how something worked.

I did my graduation internship at Friesland Campina, where I worked on process optimalisation. That was fun, but because here at Pentair I don't spend every day at the office but experience a lot of variety, this job really suits me. In terms of subject matter, but also because the people here are always willing to help you, there is an open culture and nobody feels better than the rest, this employer suits me well and I don't think I will be going back to the North very soon."

According to the talents we speak to, Twente is the ideal place to live and work. Want to know why? Read all the personal stories about living and making a career in Twente at twente.com/twente-leeft. Looking for a job straight away? Then take a look at our extensive vacancy database.