Reprocessing And Sterilization Development Engineer

Reprocessing and Sterilization Development Engineer

It started with a simple idea: what if surgery could be less invasive and recovery less painful? Nearly 30 years later, that question still fuels everything we do at Intuitive. As a global leader in robotic-assisted surgery and minimally invasive care, our technologies—like the da Vinci surgical system and Ion—have transformed how care is delivered for millions of patients worldwide.

We're a team of engineers, clinicians, and innovators united by one purpose: to make surgery smarter, safer, and more human. Every day, our work helps care teams perform with greater precision and patients recover faster, improving outcomes around the world.

The problems we solve demand creativity, rigor, and collaboration. The work is challenging, but deeply meaningful—because every improvement we make has the potential to change a life.

If you're ready to contribute to something bigger than yourself and help transform the future of healthcare, you'll find your purpose here.

Job Description

Primary Function of Position: Intuitive designs and manufactures highly complex systems for use in robotic-assisted surgery and minimally invasive lung biopsy. These systems employ a combination of reusable and single-use devices for each procedure. The primary function of the Development Engineer is to act as a central company resource for cleaning, disinfection, and sterilization testing and validation of reusable devices. This person will work with cross-functional teams to provide design inputs that enable effective cleaning, disinfection, and sterilization of new reusable medical devices. The Development Engineer will conduct cleaning, disinfection, and sterilization validation testing on-site or in cooperation with external laboratories to support domestic and international regulatory submissions. This person must have a good working knowledge of domestic and international standards related to reprocessing. This role may include interaction with final users to understand central reprocessing procedures, help streamline workflows, and improve instructions for use. The successful candidate must excel in a high-energy, high capacity, and fast-paced environment working with multidisciplinary teams to drive solutions from early design requirements to product launch and support. Essential to this role is a high commitment to product quality and the ability to learn rapidly and create innovative solutions. A strong sense of shared responsibility and shared reward is required, as is the ability to make work fun and interesting. Supporting this role is a management team that is invested in what you do and wants you to succeed.

Roles and Responsibilities

• Lead multiple validation and verification studies including cleaning, disinfection, and sterilization involving rigorous data analysis with focus on the safety and efficacy of new robotic medical devices.
• Maintain reprocessing instructions for use (IFU) requirements including design control activities, harmonization of content across platforms, and continuous improvement.
• Concurrently oversee multiple projects requiring frequent communication and collaboration between internal departments and outside services (vendors and laboratories).
• Define reprocessing test approach and test plans to ensure safety and efficacy for new instrument and accessory products across the company's product platforms. Provide subject matter expert input for design, materials, and product requirements for optimized reprocessing output.
• Collaborate with Regulatory Affairs to support domestic and international regulatory submissions and approvals
• Collaborate with Product Management to integrate user needs into reprocessing instructions.
• Develop and maintain procedures and best practices to ensure compliance with applicable domestic and international cleaning, disinfection, and sterilization standards.
• Optimize cleaning, disinfection, and sterilization control processes, systems, and procedures.
• Support development of harmonized reprocessing manuals for end users, minimizing reprocessing complexity and ensuring compliance with AAMI and ISO standards for medical devices.
• Good working knowledge of medical device industry standards and guidance for medical device reprocessing.
• Support field teams and other global teams across the organization on technical inquiries related to reprocessing
• Support field visits to central reprocessing customer sites and make recommendations for improvements to streamline reprocessing workflows
• Participate in AAMI working groups in the development of new standards in this field
• Other duties as assigned

Qualifications

Skill/Job Requirements

Competency is based on: education, training, skills, and experience. To adequately perform the responsibilities of this position the individual must have:

• BS in Engineering, Life Science, Microbiology or technical equivalent; Masters is preferred

• Minimum of 5 years of experience in the medical device field

• Familiarity with US and international medical device cleaning, disinfection, and sterilization standards such as AAMI TIR 12, AAMI ST98, AAMI ST91, ISO 15883, ISO 17665, and ISO 17664

• Superior verbal/written communication, teamwork, and interpersonal skills to work across multiple constituents.

• Self-starter with ability to lead in a fast-paced environment.

• Able to prioritize and manage multiple projects and focus execution

• Hands-on experience with proven ability to work well in cross-functional team environment and meet project goals

• Attention to detail along with flexibility to support various projects

• Well versed in MS Office Suite including statistical analysis tools.

• Ability to travel to customer or laboratory sites (10%), including international travel.