Prin R&D Product Engineer

A Day in the Life

As part of the Surgical Released Product Engineering (RPE) Team, we drive best in class clinical outcomes, customer satisfaction and business value for all commercialized Surgical products by ensuring consistent quality, supply continuity and market competitiveness while elevating the technical careers of employees.

The Principal R&D Product Engineer will report into the Wound Management (WM) RPE Team within the WM Center of Excellence (COE) group of R&D. They will focus on supporting changes to existing products to meet customer needs and maintain our wound closure product lines. They will serve as the design owner and technical expert, supporting released product engineering teams by planning, developing, and executing testing and analysis activities during product change implementation. This role focuses on driving improvements in product performance and manufacturability, reducing cost, improving quality and ensuring supply continuity while maintaining design intent.

Responsibilities

• Designs, develops, analyzes, troubleshoots, and provides technical support during product development and manufacturing.
• Recognized expert, managing large projects or processes.
• Exercises considerable latitude in determining deliverables of assignments, with limited oversight from manager.
• Coaches, reviews and delegates work to lower level specialists.
• Designs studies to investigate root cause or identify process parameters; applying statistical methods and science-based decision making.
• Defining and supporting product development, improvements to existing products and pre-clinical studies.
• Defines and performs verification and validation activities ensuring products meet user needs and intended use.
• Investigation and evaluation of existing technologies.
• Guides the conceptualization of new methodologies, materials, machines, or processes related to existing product manufacturing and design.
• Coordinates activities with outside suppliers and consultants to ensure timely delivery.
• Writes engineering reports and creates presentations as required to document and communicate results.
• Supports technical evaluations for OEM, BD&L, and commercial driven evaluations with a focus on design ownership.

Must Have: Minimum Requirements

• Bachelor's Degree in Mechanical Engineering, Materials Science & Engineering, or Biomedical Engineering.
• Minimum of 7 years of relevant experience, or advanced degree with a minimum of 5 years relevant experience.

Nice to Have

• Specialization in absorbable polymers, surgical needles, or sutures.
• Experience in the medical device industry.
• Practical experience and theoretical knowledge in one or more of the following areas: Polymer development and manufacturing, Fiber extrusion, Textile manufacturing, Design for high volume manufacturing assembly processes, Absorbable materials and devices.
• Must be team oriented, with the ability to work well on common deliverables with diverse cross-functional teams and to interact at the highest professional manner with all organizational levels.
• Participation in pre-clinical in vivo labs, observing cases in hospitals and through customer interactions.
• Demonstrated ability to manage and prioritize multiple tasks/projects with a strong problem-solving ability.
• Demonstrates strong initiative and ownership.
• Experience with DRM / DFSS, Lean Sigma, or Green/Black Belt Lean Sigma certification.
• Proficiency in Minitab and Microsoft Office – Outlook, Word, Power Point, Excel, and MS Teams.

Work will be performed in R&D laboratories and in manufacturing facilities.