OverviewThe R&D Engineering Manager leads the R&D engineering team in project planning, development, and implementation, managing cross-departmental collaboration, resource allocation, team growth, and customer communications. The team consists of engineers and technicians responsible for developing innovative manufacturing processes and technologies for precision medical device applications. The position combines engineering management, technical leadership, hands-on engineering contribution, and customer project oversight, with a strong emphasis on solving complex engineering challenges and developing new manufacturing capabilities. The manager oversees lab operations, ensuring key site metrics such as on-time project delivery, quality, and resource management are met.
The successful candidate will possess strong engineering fundamentals, creative problem-solving abilities, and the technical curiosity to investigate unfamiliar technologies and develop solutions where established manufacturing processes may not exist.
Responsibilities
Engineering Leadership and Personnel Management
- Lead, mentor, and develop the engineering team, establishing priorities and supporting professional growth.
- Allocate engineering resources and establish priorities, balancing team capacity with project demands and business objectives.
- Foster a culture of collaboration, accountability, and continuous improvement within the lab.
- Manage employee performance, conduct performance evaluations, address performance issues, and provide recommendations regarding compensation and career development.
- Lead recruiting and selection activities for interns and co-op engineers and participate in engineering staffing evaluations and hiring decisions.
- Encourage technical innovation and knowledge sharing across the team.
Technical Leadership and Innovation
- Serve as a technical resource for the engineering team, troubleshooting complex technical issues and supporting problem-solving.
- Collaborate cross-functionally to support process improvements and the development of new technologies or approaches.
- Support development activities involving technologies such as chemical processing, metal etching and forming, precision assembly, laser processing, automated inspection, automation, and other advanced manufacturing methods.
- Recognize opportunities where new technology, equipment, automation, inspection, or analytical methods can improve technical capability, and lead those initiatives from concept and feasibility through successful implementation.
- Coordinate internal technical resources, external suppliers, equipment manufacturers, and other subject matter experts necessary to develop and implement new capabilities.
- Encourage disciplined experimentation, technical documentation, knowledge sharing, and data-driven decision-making across development activities.
Project Management and Customer Engagement
- Oversee lab projects, ensuring effective planning, prioritization, resource allocation, execution, and communication of project progress.
- Communicate with customers and senior leadership on project status, key deliverables, and issues to meet customer and business objectives.
- Collaborate with other departments and coordinate cross-functional resources to accomplish project objectives.
- Lead technical discussions with customers and communicate development risks and technical findings.
- Provide technical and project leadership for complex customer development programs, including programs involving significant technical uncertainty or multidisciplinary engineering challenges.
- Oversee the preparation of customer development quotations, including technical feasibility evaluations, resource requirements, development approach, schedule, and project planning.
- Support Sales and senior leadership in evaluating new customer opportunities, defining technical approaches, and developing solutions to challenging customer requirements.
- Coordinate resources outside the manager's direct reporting organization to accomplish project objectives.
- Collaborate with NPI, Production Engineering, Quality, Operations, and other departments to support successful transition of developed products, processes, and technologies into manufacturing.
- Identify technical and schedule risks and communicate issues requiring customer or organizational decisions.
Business Performance and Department Management
- Monitor and track departmental performance against project schedules, resource requirements, and established metrics.
- Communicate performance updates to site and senior leadership.
- Support resource planning and workload prioritization.
- Drive continuous improvement in processes, project execution, and use of resources.
- Support staffing evaluations and longer-term capability planning.
- Identify capital equipment and technology needs and develop technical justification for investments supporting current and future business requirements.
- Manage departmental expenses within established authorization limits and provide input to departmental budgeting and capital planning activities.
- Balance customer commitments, engineering capacity, technical risk, and business priorities when establishing departmental priorities.
- Participate in cross-site engineering initiatives and support the development, adoption, and sharing of technical capabilities across the organization.
Required Qualifications
- 8+ years of relevant engineering experience, including significant involvement in new product development, manufacturing process development, advanced engineering, or related technical development activities.
- Proven track record of leading cross-functional or multidisciplinary teams and driving multiple complex projects to completion.
- Strong leadership and team management abilities, including mentoring others and establishing priorities.
- Ability to balance multiple projects, priorities, and leadership responsibilities.
- Demonstrated ability to develop innovative technical solutions to complex or unfamiliar engineering challenges.
- Strong engineering fundamentals with the ability to understand, evaluate, and contribute to technical discussions spanning multiple engineering disciplines.
- Strong experimental problem-solving, analytical, and data interpretation skills.
- Demonstrated ability to approach poorly defined technical problems, develop appropriate investigative strategies, and use engineering principles and experimental results to develop practical solutions.
- Ability to collaborate with Engineering, Quality, Operations, Sales, NPI, customers, suppliers, and other internal and external stakeholders.
- Excellent problem-solving skills, with the ability to troubleshoot complex technical issues.
- Excellent communication skills, including working with senior leadership, cross-functional teams, and external customers.
- Bachelor's degree in engineering or a related field. Preferred disciplines: Mechanical, Chemical, Materials, or Manufacturing Engineering. A science degree or equivalent experience is also acceptable.
Preferred Qualifications
- Experience in medical device or high-precision manufacturing.
- Previous engineering management or technical team leadership experience, including experience mentoring and developing engineering personnel.
- Experience with direct personnel supervision, performance management, recruiting, and employee development.
- Experience developing new manufacturing processes or technologies where established manufacturing methods were not readily available.
- Experience with one or more relevant manufacturing technologies such as chemical processing, metal etching, plating, metal forming, laser processing, precision assembly, adhesive processing, automated inspection, or manufacturing automation.
- Experience developing or implementing custom manufacturing equipment, automation systems, inspection systems, or other new manufacturing capabilities.
- Experience with design of experiments (DOE), statistical analysis, process characterization, engineering testing, and data-driven problem-solving.
- Experience identifying new technologies and coordinating internal resources, equipment suppliers, integrators, programmers, or other external technical resources to implement new capabilities.
- Experience preparing technical development quotations, estimating engineering resource requirements, managing project schedules, and supporting departmental business objectives.
- Experience leading technical discussions and development programs directly with customers.
- Advanced degree in engineering, science, business, or a related discipline, including an MBA.
Physical Demands
- Ability to work effectively in engineering laboratory, development, and manufacturing environments.
- Ability to support hands-on engineering development and evaluation activities as required.
- Ability to operate, evaluate, or work around manufacturing, test, and inspection equipment used for precision components.
- Ability to perform work requiring the use of microscopes and other precision inspection equipment as appropriate.
- Ability to stand and walk for periods of time while supporting engineering, laboratory, and manufacturing activities.
- Ability to work safely within established laboratory and manufacturing safety requirements.
- Occasional domestic travel may be required.
Compensation
The compensation for this role is competitive and will be based on experience and qualifications. The anticipated range is $125,000-$155,000.
Our company policy is that we are unable to provide visa sponsorship. Candidates must already be legally authorized to work in the United States without the need for sponsorship now or in the future.
