Associate Principal R&D Engineer

Job description

We are the people who give possibilities purpose BD is one of the largest global medical technology companies in the world. Advancing the world of health™ is our Purpose, and it’s no small feat. It takes the imagination and passion of all of us—from design and engineering to the manufacturing and marketing of our billions of MedTech products per year—to look at the impossible and find transformative solutions that turn dreams into possibilities. Job DescriptionSummary As an Associate Principal Engineer, the chosen candidate will serve as the Platform Technology Architect for the Pump & Fluid Platform across the UCC urine evacuation product portfolio. In this role assignment, the individual guides the organization’s multi-generation technology strategy for pump-enabled urine evacuation systems and related platform capabilities. The selected candidate will own the architectural direction and capability roadmap across pump/fluid evacuation performance, battery/power/charging, patient/device/canister interfaces, liquid level detection, leak and fault detection, odor/smell reduction, sound/noise reduction, reliability, serviceability, and platform-level verification methods. The individual in this position partners with engineering, quality, regulatory, operations, marketing, human factors, manufacturing, service, supply chain, and program teams to ensure pump and fluid platform improvements are prioritized, measured, reusable, and consistently deployed from product to product. This role assignment is not the day-to-day detailed design owner for product components; it establishes the technical vision, standards, interfaces, capability targets, and decision framework that product teams execute. Core Responsibilities Own the UCC pump and fluid platform capability roadmap across pump/fluid evacuation, battery/power/charging, patient/device/canister interfaces, liquid level detection, leak and fault detection, odor mitigation, acoustic performance, reliability, serviceability, and platform test methods. Define “crawl/walk/run” maturity steps for each pump and fluid platform domain and align them to product release trains across the urine evacuation portfolio. Ensure the roadmap integrates inputs from VOC, complaints, service data, usability findings, manufacturing yield, reliability trends, cost targets, supplier constraints, component obsolescence, regulatory needs, and latest technological advancements. Lead periodic pump and fluid platform strategy reviews and publish the roadmap with clear deliverables, decision points, investment needs, and success metrics. Establish system-level architecture principles, modularity strategy, interface expectations, performance guardrails, and reuse models so improvements can be leveraged across multiple products instead of recreated program-by-program. Serve as Pump & Fluid Platform technical authority for technology-impacting changes, including participation in CCB, architecture reviews, and pre-PGR technical assessments. Create and maintain reference architectures, design decision records, platform standards, preferred technologies, supplier strategy recommendations, reusable design patterns, and test method expectations. Provide go/no-go guidance on major platform architecture choices, including pump mechanism strategy, motor/control architecture, fluid path design, battery/power approach, charging strategy, connection interfaces, sensing architecture, and acoustic/odor mitigation approaches. Establish expectations for pump and fluid evacuation performance, including vacuum/pressure targets, flow performance, canister and tubing compatibility, filtration considerations, dry/wet operating conditions, and consumable interface requirements. Define power and charging architecture principles that support runtime, charge time, battery life, safety, reliability, serviceability, regulatory expectations, and user experience across product releases. Guide sensing and detection architecture, including liquid level detection, occlusion detection, leak/fault detection, wet/dirty environment robustness, alarm behavior, and nuisance alarm reduction. Establish odor mitigation and acoustic performance principles, including design guardrails, measurement methods, capability targets, and release-over-release improvement scorecards. Partner with manufacturing, supplier quality, operations, and supply chain to align platform choices with manufacturability, scalability, yield, cost, reliability, component availability, and supply continuity. Influence verification, validation, and reliability strategy, including representative use conditions, accelerated life testing, environmental stress considerations, cleaning/service assumptions, and release readiness criteria. Drive platform-level decisions that improve performance, robustness, serviceability, maintainability, user experience, sustaining efficiency, and long-term platform evolution. Translate the pump and fluid platform roadmap for product design teams; ensure clear ownership by systems, mechanical, electrical, software, verification, operations, service, supplier, and program teams. Partner with PDLs, CTLs, Tech Leads, Marketing, Innovation, Quality, Regulatory, Human Factors, Operations, Service, and Supply Chain to bring the best technical solution to governance forums and product programs. Support risk posture, verification approach, design control expectations, human factors considerations, manufacturing readiness, and regulatory submission readiness. Promote reuse by ensuring teams adopt platform modules, interface standards, reference architectures, test methods, supplier strategies, and common design patterns unless a program-specific exception is justified and documented. Use field data, complaints, service returns, user feedback, manufacturing trends, supplier performance, and reliability data to prioritize the next platform improvements. Qualifications BS/MS in Mechanical Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Systems Engineering, Biomedical Engineering, or related technical discipline. 10+ years of experience in electromechanical medical devices, portable pump systems, fluid management systems, regulated product development, or platform-based product development with reuse across releases. Demonstrated success leading cross-functional technical strategy, not only subsystem design or program execution. Strong background in systems thinking, platform architecture, trade studies, risk management, design controls, verification strategy, reliability engineering, and supplier/technology evaluation. Ability to influence without direct authority across systems, mechanical, electrical, software, quality, regulatory, marketing, operations, human factors, service, supply chain, and program teams. Preferred Experience with portable pumps/fluid management, battery-powered consumer or clinical devices, vacuum/pressure/flow systems, sensors in wet/dirty environments, acoustics/odor control, and consumables ecosystems. Experience with pump mechanism selection, motor/control strategy, power management, battery/charging systems, liquid level sensing, occlusion detection, leak detection, fault detection, alarm behavior, and nuisance alarm reduction. Experience with FDA-regulated medical devices, design controls, risk management, verification and validation, usability/human factors, complaint trending, sustaining engineering, and regulated product release processes. Experience establishing platform governance, architecture review boards, capability scorecards, reusable modules, interface standards, reference architectures, and technology roadmaps across multiple product releases. Experience with manufacturing scale-up, supplier strategy, component technology evaluation, reliability engineering, serviceability, cost reduction, and lifecycle management for electromechanical platforms. At BD, we prioritize on-site collaboration because we bel