Senior Mechanical R&D Engineer

Boston Scientific•Maple Grove, MN

2d•$85,000 - $161,500

About The Position

Boston Scientific is seeking a highly motivated, experienced Senior Mechanical R&D Engineer to help develop a novel Joule-Thomson (JT) cryoablation platform within the Interventional Oncology and Embolization (IO&E) division. This role provides technical leadership and hands-on engineering support across the mechanical, thermal-fluid, cryogenic, and device elements of a complex medical device system. The successful candidate will apply first-principles engineering to understand and optimize the relationships among gas-supply conditions, fluid-path architecture, pressure drop and expansion, thermodynamic state, mass flow, available refrigeration, device heat transfer, tissue heat extraction, and ablation performance. The role requires an engineer who can move fluidly among analytical modeling, benchtop experimentation, mechanical design, system-level problem-solving, and design-control documentation. This platform-development role involves significant technical ambiguity. Success requires identifying governing physics, developing testable hypotheses, designing efficient experiments, correlating models with physical data, and translating technical insights into robust product requirements, system architecture, risk controls, and design decisions.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering or a related technical discipline.
At least 5 years of engineering experience with a bachelor’s degree, 3 years with a master’s degree, or 2 years with a doctoral degree.
Experience developing complex medical devices, electromechanical systems, thermal-fluid systems, pressure systems, or other highly regulated products.
Experience developing analytical engineering models and using experimental data to validate, refine, or challenge their assumptions.
Strong experimental problem-solving skills, including hypothesis development, test-method design, instrumentation, data analysis, and root-cause investigation.
Strong mechanical design fundamentals, including materials selection, tolerance analysis, assembly design, and design for manufacturability and reliability.
Proficiency with SolidWorks or equivalent CAD software.
Ability to navigate technical ambiguity, identify high-impact parameters, communicate technical rationale clearly, and drive data-based decisions across cross-functional teams.
Strong analytical, communication, and technical leadership skills.

Nice To Haves

Advanced degree in mechanical, aerospace, biomedical, or chemical engineering, or a related discipline, with an emphasis on thermodynamics, fluid mechanics, heat transfer, or cryogenic systems.
Hands-on experience with Joule-Thomson refrigeration, cryogenic systems, real-gas thermodynamics, refrigeration cycles, or high-pressure gas systems.
Experience with compressible or two-phase flow, throttling devices, capillaries or orifices, valves, regulators, or fluid-control architectures.
Experience with cryogenic materials, seals, polymers, adhesives, coatings, insulation, condensation/icing mitigation, and repeated thermal cycling.
Experience with thermal-fluid simulation, computational fluid dynamics (CFD), and finite element analysis (FEA).
Experience with precision pressure, temperature, and flow instrumentation, measurement uncertainty, sensor dynamics, and calibration.
Experience with catheter-based medical devices, including shafts, lumens, braid/coil reinforcement, torqueability, pushability, kink resistance, joints, and distal assemblies.
Experience designing high-pressure systems with appropriate safety margins, pressure-relief provisions, proof and burst testing, and failure-mode considerations.
Experience applying statistical methods and design of experiments to complex, multivariable development problems.
Experience working within design controls and quality management systems that comply with FDA regulations and ISO 13485.
Demonstrated proficiency with SolidWorks and EPDM.
Demonstrated proficiency in geometric dimensioning and tolerancing (GD&T).

Responsibilities

Lead mechanical and thermal-fluid engineering for the development and commercialization of a novel JT cryoablation platform, including capital equipment, gas-delivery and pressure-control subsystems, disposable devices, and patient-contacting components.
Design and optimize fluid-path architectures—including regulators, valves, tubing, fittings, manifolds, restrictions, capillaries or orifices, treatment regions, and exhaust or return paths—while balancing pressure, flow, cooling capacity, size, manufacturability, reliability, and safety.
Partner with systems, electrical, software, clinical, quality, manufacturing, sustaining, supply-chain, and supplier teams to manage the integrated cryoablation platform, including the console, gas source, controls, sensors, disposable device, patient interface, and tissue interaction.
Define instrumentation and experimental methods for accurate pressure, temperature, and flow measurement, including sensor selection and placement, dynamic response, calibration, uncertainty, sampling, and measurement-system effects.
Apply design-of-experiments and parameter-sensitivity methods to characterize efficiently the relationships among inlet conditions, restrictions, flow, geometry, cooling capacity, device temperature, and ablation performance.
Support design for manufacturability, assembly, serviceability, and reliability, as well as manufacturing transfer, supplier development, and sustained production.
Lead structured root-cause investigations into insufficient or inconsistent cooling, unstable flow, excessive pressure drop, blockages, leaks, icing, material or seal failures, and variable ablation performance.
Translate technical uncertainty and platform insights into system and subsystem requirements, risk analyses, design controls, verification strategies, and traceable engineering evidence.
Design mechanical components and assemblies for high-pressure and cryogenic service, accounting for stored energy; proof and burst margins; relief strategies; sealing; temperature-dependent material behavior; differential thermal expansion; embrittlement; condensation and icing; and thermal cycling.
For catheter-based architectures, support the design of shafts, lumens, reinforced structures, joints, distal assemblies, and interfaces to meet dimensional, mechanical, fluidic, and thermal performance requirements.