Principal R&D Engineer – Software

Life Unlimited. At Smith+Nephew we design and manufacture technology that takes the limits off living.

Smith & Nephew’s Advanced Wound Management (AWM) division is on a journey to design and develop new innovative digital products that shape and redefine what is possible in wound care.

We are seeking a Principal level Software Engineer, to lead software research, design, and development efforts for complex software systems within Advance Wound Management (AWM) Digital Products team working on New Product Development (NPD).

This role will function as the technical lead on critical projects, and will be consulted for other programs within the business.

The role will work with the R&D Director of AWM Software Development and Digitally Enabled Products. The successful candidate will bring a demonstrated track record and experience delivering cloud and web-based software products to the market, as well as a team player mentality to help the team deliver complex digital product solutions.

What will you be doing?

• Software technical lead on critical projects responsible for complex software system and subsystems design. Responsible for translating system design inputs into robust software system requirements and architectures.
• Leads software development planning, design, documentation, implementation, testing and maintenance activities.
• Drives concept definition, analysis, and selection activities in partnership with Systems Engineering, Human Factors engineering, Marketing and other functions.
• Mentors, and may supervise, more junior software engineers by developing and coaching as appropriate.
• Leads team of software engineers in efforts with internal and external resources, possibly in remote locations.
• Ensure proper documentation throughout all phases of development.
• Work effectively cross-functionally with Technical Delivery Leader, Design & Usability, Marketing, R&D, Quality, and Regulatory and others to ensure inputs are considered and accounted for in software system architecture.
• Informs product and development strategies by working closely with upper-level management to guide the understanding of organizational capabilities.
• Acts independently to determine methods and procedures on new or special assignments.
• Report progress regularly to software engineering management and upper-level executives to inform and influence as appropriate.
• Comfortable working as part of a cross-functional team and with code written by others, including bug fixing, and refactoring legacy code.
• Perform design control functions to ensure compliance with FDA, ISO, and other industry standards.
• Take responsibility for writing product specifications, draft design documents, and develop test protocols as needed. Conduct technical peer reviews of software designs by other team members.
• Full product life cycle experience, preferably having contributed to products released to market.

What will you need to be successful?

• Education:
  • BS in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Software Engineering, or Computer Science or
  • MS or PhD in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Software Engineering, or Computer Science preferred.
• Experience:
  • 10+ years of related experience with a BS degree, or
  • 8+ Years of related experience with an MS or PhD degree.
• Consistent track record of delivering innovative software products to the market.
• Experience working with agile development methodologies and exposure to working within CI/CD.
• Experienced with SDLC best practices and processes including development infrastructure and tools like Azure DevOps, Gitlab, JIRA, Jenkins or similar.
• Extensive experience with public cloud environments, specifically AWS.
• Proficiency with multiple programming and scripting languages like C#, C++, Java, Angular, API, SQL, Microsoft .NET Development.
• Skilled in writing software requirements and strategizing software verification and validation plans.
• Detailed understanding of IEC 62304, ISO 14971, FDA and MDR design control requirements for medical devices.
• Experience using requirements management tools like Cognition Cockpit or similar.
• Travel Requirement: 10%.