How this Company Is Revolutionising Engineering One Messy Home at a Time - A Special Feature on VAX

What if the hardest engineering problem in the room is also the one nobody wants to admit they'd be proud of?

In this episode of Why Design, Chris Whyte shares the belief that sits at the heart of Kodu's work with Vax: that some of the most demanding engineering jobs are hiding inside products nobody dreams of designing.

Rather than dress this up as a neutral interview, Chris chose to disclose the commercial relationship upfront and make the case anyway. That decision led to an unusually direct pitch for a very real, very live hiring mandate.

This conversation isn't about vacuum cleaners. It's about what it takes to rebuild an entire engineering function from a blank sheet, and who actually wants that job.

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What You'll Learn

🏭 Why Vax's 1977 origin story, a milk churn, a shower pump and a water heater, still shapes how the company thinks about engineering today🔧 Why a vacuum cleaner is a harder engineering problem than most products “with a badge on them”📈 How a fifteen billion dollar parent company with Milwaukee, Ryobi, AEG and Hoover under its roof ended up leaning on one site in Droitwich🌊 How Droitwich earned the group's global lead on fluid dynamics, not just the UK's🎯 Why Chris thinks a deliberately loose brief beats a secure, well-defined one🚪 Who should not apply, according to the person running the search

Memorable Quotes

"I've recruited for Vax for more than 10 years. Over 50 people, including a VP of engineering and a head of design."

"Nobody grows up wanting to design a vacuum cleaner."

"It's a harder engineering problem than most of the things with badges on them. It just does not look like one from the outside."

"You build the team rather than join it. People going in now set how this works. It does not come around twice at the same company."