Senior R&D Electrical Engineer

Johnson & Johnson Innovative Medicine • Boston, MA

6d • $109,000 - $174,800 • Hybrid

About The Position

The Senior Electrical Engineer will develop embedded firmware tightly coupled to electrical hardware for next-generation surgical power tools, batteries, chargers, motor controllers, handpieces, accessories, and related electromechanical equipment. This is primarily an electrical engineering and embedded hardware role, with significant responsibility for low-level embedded firmware written in C and C++. The engineer will participate in electrical designs from early feasibility and architecture through schematic development, PCB implementation, board bring-up, firmware integration, design verification, regulatory support, manufacturing transfer, and product lifecycle support. The role requires strong hands-on capability in circuit design, embedded microcontroller systems, power electronics, battery-powered products, motor control, and laboratory troubleshooting. The Senior Electrical Engineer will collaborate closely with systems, mechanical, software, quality, regulatory, manufacturing, clinical, and supplier teams to deliver safe, reliable, manufacturable, and compliant medical devices.

Requirements

• Bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering or Computer Engineering.
• Eight or more years of relevant experience in architecture development for embedded hardware and firmware platforms.
• Strong electrical engineering foundation, including analog circuits, digital circuits, mixed-signal design, power electronics, control systems, component selection, and schematic development.
• Significant hands-on experience developing embedded firmware in C for microcontroller-based systems.
• Experience with low-level firmware, hardware peripheral control, interrupt-driven applications, real-time behavior, and direct hardware interfaces.
• Experience with embedded communication interfaces such as SPI, I2C, UART, LIN, and CAN.
• Experience with PCB development, including schematic capture, design reviews, board bring-up, debugging, and hardware/firmware integration.
• Experience using oscilloscopes, digital multimeters, logic analyzers, power supplies, electronic loads, data-acquisition equipment, debuggers, and other laboratory test equipment.
• Experience developing and executing design-verification testing.
• Demonstrated ability to troubleshoot complex electrical and embedded system problems using structured, data-driven methods.
• Experience delivering products within a regulated design-control or quality-system environment.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills and the ability to collaborate across multidisciplinary teams.

Nice To Haves

• Master's degree in Electrical Engineering or Computer Engineering.
• Experience developing FDA-regulated medical devices or other safety-critical products.
• Experience with surgical power tools, electromechanical medical devices, robotics, or surgical capital equipment.
• Experience with brushless DC motors, three-phase inverters, gate drivers, MOSFET power stages, current sensing, commutation, or field-oriented control.
• Experience with Texas Instruments C2000,Cortex M, or comparable embedded microcontroller platforms.
• Experience with lithium-ion batteries, battery-management ICs, fuel gauges, battery chargers, pack-protection electronics, and battery safety standards.
• Knowledge of IEC 60601-1, IEC 62133, ISO 13485, ISO 14971, FDA design controls, and IEC 62304 concepts applicable to embedded medical-device firmware.
• Experience with Altium Designer, Cadence, OrCAD, LTspice, LTpowerCAD, or similar electrical design and simulation tools.
• Familiarity with source control, configuration management, static analysis, code reviews, and controlled embedded firmware releases.
• Willingness to work in medical environments, including cadaver laboratories and operating-room settings, when required.
• Ability to travel domestically or internationally as required by the role.

Responsibilities

• Design and develop surgical power tools, motor controllers, battery systems, chargers, handpieces, accessories, and supporting equipment.
• Define electrical system and subsystem architectures, including power distribution, motor drive circuitry, safety circuits, sensing, communications, and embedded control hardware.
• Design and develop electronics and embedded controls for three-phase brushless DC motor systems.
• Translate product and system requirements into electrical requirements, interface definitions, component specifications, schematics, PCB designs, and verification strategies.
• Perform design calculations, simulations, component derating analyses, tolerance analyses, power budgets, timing analyses, and technical trade studies.
• Conduct and support architecture reviews, schematic reviews, PCB layout reviews, component reviews, and cross-disciplinary design reviews.
• Maintain ownership of electrical systems from initial concept and prototype development through verification, regulatory approval, manufacturing release, and post-market support.
• Develop embedded firmware interfaces to battery-management ICs, charging circuits, temperature sensors, current sensors, pack identification, authentication, and communication devices.
• Support battery safety, reliability, verification, transportation, and regulatory compliance activities.
• Perform system power measurements and characterize battery, charger, load, and motor-controller interactions under normal and fault conditions.
• Plan and execute board bring-up for prototype and production-intent electronic assemblies.
• Develop bring-up procedures, test firmware, diagnostic routines, and engineering fixtures to validate power rails, clocks, reset circuits, communication interfaces, sensors, memory, motor-control peripherals, and protection functions.
• Perform low-level debugging using oscilloscopes, digital multimeters, logic analyzers, power supplies, electronic loads, data-acquisition equipment, programmers, and in-circuit debugging tools.
• Design, implement, test, and maintain embedded firmware in C and C++ for microcontroller-based medical devices and power-tool systems.
• Develop low-level firmware that directly interfaces with electrical hardware, including device drivers, peripheral initialization, interrupt service routines, timers, analog-to-digital converters, PWM modules, communication peripherals, and hardware protection features.
• Develop firmware for motor control, battery management, power sequencing, sensor acquisition, fault detection, diagnostics, state-machine control, and real-time system behavior.
• Support bare-metal and real-time embedded implementations where appropriate to the product architecture.
• Configure and integrate microcontroller peripherals including SPI, I2C, UART, LIN, CAN, GPIO, ADC, PWM, timers, comparators, and hardware fault inputs.
• Develop and maintain boot, startup, calibration, diagnostic, and firmware-update functionality when required by the product.
• Implement firmware with an emphasis on deterministic execution, safe-state behavior, resource efficiency, hardware protection, testability, and maintainability.
• Participate in firmware design reviews, peer code reviews, static analysis, unit testing, integration testing, configuration management, and controlled release activities.
• Create firmware requirements, architecture descriptions, detailed designs, interface documentation, test evidence, and traceability records appropriate for regulated medical-device development.
• Use C++ or Python selectively for test automation, engineering tools, prototypes, or development support when beneficial. Production embedded firmware will be primarily developed in C.
• Work closely with electrical engineers during component selection, schematic development, and PCB design to ensure that hardware and firmware architectures are developed as an integrated system.
• Support compliance with applicable standards and regulations, including IEC 60601-1, applicable EMC requirements, IEC 62133, ISO 13485, ISO 14971, FDA design controls, and medical-device software lifecycle requirements applicable to embedded firmware.
• Serve as a senior technical contributor for electrical hardware and embedded control development.
• Provide hands-on technical contributions during architecture definition, design implementation, integration, troubleshooting, and verification.
• Share technical knowledge and established practices in circuit design, PCB development, embedded C, laboratory methods, motor control, battery systems, root-cause analysis, and regulated product development.
• Collaborate effectively with mechanical, systems, quality, regulatory, clinical, manufacturing, and software engineering teams.
• Communicate technical decisions, design risks, test results, tradeoffs, and recommendations clearly to technical and non-technical stakeholders.
• Participate in project planning, feasibility assessments, resource estimation, technical risk management, and schedule development.
• Identify technical risks and critical-path issues early and contribute to cross-functional problem solving.
• Contribute to technology roadmaps, platform architectures, product improvements, engineering processes, and future product development.

Benefits

• Vacation –120 hours per calendar year
• Sick time - 40 hours per calendar year; for employees who reside in the State of Colorado –48 hours per calendar year; for employees who reside in the State of Washington –56 hours per calendar year
• Holiday pay, including Floating Holidays –13 days per calendar year
• Work, Personal and Family Time - up to 40 hours per calendar year
• Parental Leave – 480 hours within one year of the birth/adoption/foster care of a child
• Bereavement Leave – 240 hours for an immediate family member: 40 hours for an extended family member per calendar year
• Caregiver Leave – 80 hours in a 52-week rolling period10 days
• Volunteer Leave – 32 hours per calendar year
• Military Spouse Time-Off – 80 hours per calendar year

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Senior