Felix graduated from the Swiss Federal Institute with a masters degree in electrical and electronic engineering. He worked as a software engineer for two years and then joined GEC Traction of Manchester as a locomotive control engineer. After three and a half years he became a research assistant at UMIST and then Salford University. From 1985 he was a lecturer in control engineering at Brunel University, where he also completed his part-time doctoral studies in the area of engineering education. He joined the University of Sheffield in 1994 and created the MSc programme in Railway Systems Engineering and undertook research into railway control systems (signalling). In 2005 he moved to The University of Birmingham as a full professor in railway systems engineering and integration.