Summary
Mechanical Engineer Pavel Peshkovsky first joined Circle Optics as an RIT co-op and, after 18 months with the company, has now joined the engineering team full time. As the fourth Circle Optics intern or co-op to make that transition, Pavel’s journey reflects an engineering culture built around mentorship, meaningful responsibility and learning across disciplines. His work has taken him beyond traditional mechanical design into system-level challenges involving optics, software, manufacturing and product development. Along the way, mentorship from Senior Mechanical Systems Engineer Carlos Terrero has helped Pavel strengthen his technical judgment, communication and confidence in taking ownership of increasingly complex problems. His advice to the next generation of engineers is simple: “Push your comfort levels, grab a hold of some responsibilities and run.”
Pavel Peshkovsky first joined Circle Optics as a mechanical engineering co-op while pursuing his degree at Rochester Institute of Technology. After 18 months with Circle Optics, Pavel graduated from RIT with a degree in Mechanical Engineering Technology and has now joined the company full time. His path reflects a culture that brings emerging engineering talent and new ideas together with experienced engineers and years of patented technology development.
Peshkovsky is the fourth Circle Optics intern or co-op to become a full-time employee. For Circle Optics, bringing young engineers into the company has become an important way to introduce new thinking while giving them direct access to engineers with years of experience developing the company’s panoramic imaging technology. Interns work alongside the people responsible for the designs, engineering decisions and intellectual property behind Circle Optics’ systems. They are also expected to contribute their own ideas and take on real engineering problems.
Peshkovsky admits he was unsure what to expect when he arrived. He was concerned about fitting into the team and whether he could produce work at the level expected of him. What surprised him was the amount of mentorship and the willingness of experienced engineers to teach. Looking back, he describes his younger engineering self as “timid and unsure of my skill level.” Today, he still readily acknowledges what he does not know, but says he has “a better understanding of what skills are lacking and a visual of the path to improvement.” He identifies documentation, communication and agility around open-ended problems as areas where he has grown significantly.
Two early assignments helped Peshkovsky recognize how broad his experience at Circle Optics could become. He analyzed vibration data from Pegasus Pro and developed a preliminary Excel-based parallax calculator. Both took him outside conventional mechanical design and required him to consider how mechanical behavior affects a larger imaging system. Peshkovsky said those projects showed him that Circle had “much more to offer than just 3D design work.” He was given responsibility for the work and, with guidance from Senior Mechanical Engineer Carlos Terrero, was expected to complete the analysis and communicate the results.
That level of responsibility was one reason Peshkovsky ultimately chose Circle Optics over opportunities at larger companies. He wanted to work in R&D and on open-ended engineering problems rather than wait years for access to that type of work. After only 18 months, he has already been trusted with increasingly complex and system-critical design decisions. In his interview, he described his daily work simply: someone brings him a problem, and often the complete solution does not already exist.
Learning How Much Precision Is Enough
Working on panoramic imaging hardware has introduced Peshkovsky to a fundamental engineering question: how much precision does the system actually require?
He points to kinematic design as an example. Kinematic constraints can enable highly repeatable positioning when mechanical components must maintain precise relationships with optical elements. The technical challenge is not simply learning how to achieve greater precision,but developing the judgment to determine when that precision is necessary. “Sometimes you just don’t need that precision,” Peshkovsky said. “If you don’t need it, why spend time designing for it?” The harder question, he added, is determining what level of precision is required before the complete system has been built.
That decision has implications beyond an individual component. Additional precision can affect complexity, manufacturability, assembly and cost. For Peshkovsky, watching more experienced engineers make those tradeoffs has been an important part of learning how to move from designing a component that works to understanding how that component contributes to the performance of the complete imaging system.
The same systems perspective has changed how he works with engineers outside his own discipline. Circle Optics’ technology requires close interaction among mechanical engineering, optics and software, and Peshkovsky has learned that understanding those relationships is necessary even when the work falls outside his specialty. “I don’t need to be an optics or software engineer, but having a good understanding of what they have to do lets me work with a clearer goal in mind,” he said.
There have been situations where a mechanical constraint required a change to the optics, and others where neither mechanical nor optical changes provided the best solution and software became part of resolving the problem. Peshkovsky said the experience has taught him to understand where a compromise can best be managed across the system rather than automatically attempting to solve every issue mechanically.
From Prototype to Product
Peshkovsky is joining Circle Optics full time at a point when his own interests are increasingly focused on Design for Manufacturing, or DFM. He has begun to see how decisions made during development affect whether a design can ultimately be manufactured, assembled and reproduced reliably.
He describes prototype development and product development as “two very different approaches.” A prototype is intended to prove the concept, identify what does and does not work and expose design decisions that create limitations. Developing a reliable product requires engineers to use everything learned from the prototype while also addressing manufacturability, cost, functionality and reliability across the mechanical, optical and software disciplines.
For a young mechanical engineer, that has meant learning to think beyond whether a part can be modeled or whether a prototype can be made. Manufacturing processes introduce their own constraints. Tolerances have consequences. Assembly matters. Material choices matter. Features that can be created in CAD may not be practical to manufacture repeatedly. Peshkovsky is particularly interested in developing the judgment to recognize those issues earlier in the design process.
His exposure to those questions began while he was still at RIT. As part of an engineering team, Peshkovsky worked on an Imaging System Ruggedization & Testing project involving an existing Circle Optics 360-degree imaging system. The project examined ways to improve weatherproofing and included the development of a system for simulating environmental conditions associated with specific ingress protection ratings.
The work included protective structures, sealing concepts, environmental testing, structural analysis and tolerance considerations. For Peshkovsky, it provided another opportunity to see that the mechanical architecture surrounding an imaging system directly affects its ability to operate outside a controlled laboratory environment.
Experience, Mentorship and New Ideas
Peshkovsky credits much of his development to Senior Mechanical Engineer Carlos Terrero, who first knew him through RIT and later helped bring him into Circle Optics. Their relationship has continued as Peshkovsky moved from student to co-op and now to professional engineer.
Peshkovsky describes Terrero as patient, precise and unusually willing to make his engineering thought process visible. “Carlos has always been a fantastic mentor,” he said. “He is incredibly patient, communicates very clearly, documents precisely and is more focused on improving your understanding and capabilities rather than focusing on the immediate quality of the work.” Peshkovsky describes that approach as an investment in what an engineer will be capable of doing in the future, not simply whether the immediate assignment is correct.
That relationship also reflects a broader part of Circle Optics’ engineering culture. The company has years of accumulated experience developing its patented imaging technology. Bringing interns and co-ops into that environment creates an opportunity to transfer that experience while also introducing engineers who have different questions, different experiences and fewer assumptions about how a problem should be solved. Pavel is now the fourth person to move from that environment into a full-time position with the company.
One lesson Peshkovsky says he will carry forward is the importance of documentation. He has seen how technical documentation allows mechanical, optical and software engineers to understand decisions being made elsewhere in a system. He also credits the broader engineering team with changing the way he communicates technical ideas. Being close to the complete product-development process, he said, has reinforced the importance of “visibility between disciplines” and establishing common terminology when engineers from different backgrounds are working on the same problem.
Carlos Terrero, Senior Mechanical Systems Engineer at Circle Optics, has worked closely with Peshkovsky and has seen that growth firsthand.
“Pavel has grown significantly in his ability to take ownership of complex technical challenges. He has developed stronger critical thinking and design judgment, becoming more confident in making decisions, identifying risks early, and exploring creative solutions to problems we have not encountered before. He has also made impressive progress in communicating and documenting his work, using clear diagrams and design concepts to engage manufacturing partners and capture lessons learned for future projects.
I’m excited to see Pavel take on increasing ownership of major aspects of our product and system designs. He has developed a strong understanding of how the different parts of a system interact, along with a thoughtful perspective on how we can improve our development process. I’m looking forward to seeing him apply his creativity and growing technical judgment to lead challenging design efforts and help shape the next generation of our products.”
As Peshkovsky begins his full-time role, he is already carrying some of what he has learned into the way he works with other students and early-career engineers. His belief is that responsibility often needs to come before complete confidence. Engineers learn by taking on work that stretches their current capabilities, then developing the knowledge required to solve it.
His advice to incoming interns is direct: “Push your comfort levels, grab a hold of some responsibilities and run. Bite off what you can and figure out how to chew it later. There is a lot to learn.”
