R&D Manager, Systems Engineering

Job Summary

The R&D Manager, Systems Engineering is a hands-on technical and people leader within Neogen's Instrumentation and Software R&D organization. This role leads a multidisciplinary team of approximately 3-6 mechanical and electrical engineers while directly applying systems engineering principles across new product development, portfolio modernization, and sustaining engineering.

Essential Duties and Responsibilities

Systems Engineering Leadership

• Serve as the hands-on systems engineering leader for instrumentation development programs and sustaining initiatives.
• Define system, subsystem, and component architectures for complex multidisciplinary products.
• Lead functional decomposition and allocation across mechanical, electrical, software, and firmware domains.
• Develop and maintain system and subsystem requirements with clear acceptance criteria, bidirectional traceability, and disciplined change control.
• Define and manage interfaces across engineering disciplines, subsystems, external partners, manufacturing environments, and connected software systems.
• Lead system-level technical decision-making, including evaluation of design trade-offs, risks, dependencies, and implementation options.
• Communicate technical decisions, risks, assumptions, and recommendations clearly to engineering teams and senior stakeholders.

System Integration, Verification, and Validation

• Plan and lead system integration across hardware, software, firmware, electrical, and mechanical elements.
• Establish integration sequencing, test readiness, issue triage, and cross-functional resolution processes.
• Develop system-level verification and validation strategies that demonstrate requirements coverage, product performance, robustness, reliability, and intended use.
• Partner with engineering teams to ensure subsystem and component verification supports overall system-level objectives.
• Lead or support investigation of complex system-level failures, integration issues, and performance gaps.
• Ensure technical evidence and documentation support applicable design reviews and product-development requirements.

Systems Engineering Process and Capability Development

• Establish and scale practical systems engineering methodologies, tools, templates, and design-review practices.
• Develop consistent approaches for requirements management, traceability, interface definition, architecture development, integration, and verification.
• Identify opportunities to improve engineering rigor, efficiency, and consistency across product-development programs.
• Support implementation and adoption of requirements-management and traceability tools.
• Advance the use of modeling, simulation, model-based systems engineering, and digital-twin approaches where appropriate.
• Promote systems thinking and cross-disciplinary engineering practices throughout the organization.

Design Risk Management

• Integrate technical and design risk management into architecture and product-development decisions.
• Lead or support risk analyses, design reviews, mitigation planning, and technical risk tracking.
• Identify potential system-level failure modes, interface risks, and integration dependencies early in the development process.
• Partner with Quality, Regulatory, and Engineering teams to ensure appropriate risk controls are identified, implemented, and verified.

New Product Development and Sustaining Engineering

• Support new product development from concept and architecture through integration, verification, validation, and commercialization.
• Provide systems engineering leadership for portfolio modernization and sustaining engineering initiatives.
• Lead or support root-cause investigations related to field, manufacturing, product, or system-level issues.
• Evaluate architecture improvements to address performance, reliability, serviceability, cost, or lifecycle needs.
• Support component obsolescence response, alternate technology evaluation, and product lifecycle planning.
• Partner with Manufacturing, Service, and Quality teams to resolve complex technical issues and improve product performance.
• Support manufacturing transfer, configuration management, and product-development lifecycle governance activities.

People Leadership

• Lead, coach, and develop a multidisciplinary team of approximately 3-6 mechanical and electrical engineers.
• Establish clear goals, priorities, responsibilities, and performance expectations.
• Support recruiting, onboarding, development planning, and retention of engineering talent.
• Provide technical guidance and regular coaching to direct reports.
• Build mechanical and electrical engineering capability through mentoring, development opportunities, and structured feedback.
• Coordinate team resources and engineering priorities to support project and portfolio objectives.
• Foster accountability, collaboration, technical excellence, and continuous improvement within the team.

Cross-Functional Collaboration

• Partner with Product Management and Portfolio Management to translate customer and business needs into system-level requirements and technical strategies.
• Collaborate closely with Software, Firmware, Mechanical, Electrical, Quality, Regulatory, Manufacturing, and Service teams throughout the product lifecycle.
• Align technical architecture and engineering execution with product objectives, customer needs, and business priorities.
• Participate in cross-functional design reviews, project reviews, portfolio discussions, and technical planning activities.
• Support alignment between engineering teams and external development or manufacturing partners when applicable.

Basic Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Systems Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Software Engineering, or a related technical field.
• Progressive professional engineering experience developing complex multidisciplinary products.
• Experience working with products that integrate hardware, software, firmware, electrical, and mechanical systems.
• Hands-on experience with system architecture and system-level technical design.
• Experience developing and managing system or subsystem requirements.
• Experience with requirements traceability and change control.
• Experience defining and managing interfaces across multiple engineering disciplines.
• Experience supporting or leading system integration activities.
• Experience with design risk management and technical risk mitigation.
• Experience developing or executing verification and validation strategies.
• Previous people-leadership or technical-leadership experience, including coaching engineers or coordinating multidisciplinary engineering work.
• Demonstrated ability to translate customer or business needs into technical requirements and executable engineering plans.
• Strong analytical, problem-solving, decision-making, and communication skills.
• Ability to work effectively within a cross-functional, matrixed product-development environment.

Preferred Qualifications

• Master's degree in Systems Engineering or a related engineering discipline.
• Experience developing scientific instrumentation, diagnostics, laboratory equipment, medical technology, or other regulated products.
• Experience leading systems engineering activities for products integrating hardware, firmware, and software.
• Systems engineering experience within healthcare, automotive, aerospace, or another complex product-development environment.
• Experience with model-based systems engineering.
• Experience with SysML.
• Experience with system modeling, simulation, or digital-twin methods and tools.
• Experience implementing requirements-management or traceability tools and processes.
• Knowledge of product-development lifecycle governance and configuration management.
• Knowledge of reliability engineering principles and practices.
• Experience supporting manufacturing transfer.
• Experience establishing or scaling systems engineering practices within a multidisciplinary engineering organization.
• Experience leading organizational or engineering-process change.
• Experience supporting both new product development and sustaining engineering.