When Carolin Horst finished her studies in Optical Systems Engineering, she started her career at ams OSRAM. As someone who studied light and is fascinated by it, Carolin finds numerous opportunities to deepen her expertise in color quality, light quality and horticulture. Working on the development of LEDs in the field of horticulture means that Carolin needs to understand what plants need and connect the manufacturing side with the end-grower to find the best light for plants. She is responsible for helping customers solve technical problems they may be having with their systems.

“I’m trying to listen to customers to see where the market will go,” she says, “And then moving on from the customer to our development team to give them the insight into what is happening with the product once it’s out in the world.”

Carolin enjoys having the chance to see the products out in the field and observe how they perform and what kinds of challenges arise in practical situations. She is also motivated by the sheer variety of professional experts and areas within ams OSRAM. In a company of this size, there are plenty of avenues of expertise to explore. “We have everything from semiconductors to the whole application, so I can learn a lot here.” Being part of a strong team also helps Carolin do her best work and feel confident. “I get support from all directions – from my team leader, my colleagues and people from other business units,” she says.

Working in horticulture, Carolin is directly involved in a very future-oriented part of OSRAM: creating the best light for plants. With every new situation and customer who uses ams OSRAM LED solutions for growing, Carolin learns to understand plants and their needs better.

Carolin describes her job like this: “What I do is understand the plant and what the plant needs in terms of light intensity, wavelengths, etc.” But the result of the work she does goes far beyond understanding plants. It touches on the very survival of humankind.