Staff Engineer

Abbott • Lake Forest, IL

10d • $86,700 - $173,300 • Onsite

About The Position

The Staff Engineer works at Abbott’s Lake Forest, Illinois location in the Core Lab Division. The role is responsible for molding activities that support strategic engineering objectives for the Abbott Diagnostics Division while ensuring compliance with safety regulations, policies, and procedures. Working with little supervision, the engineer applies scientific and engineering knowledge, mathematics, and ingenuity to assignments involving molded and assembled consumables, often supporting multiple concurrent projects and department deadlines.

The position implements and provides ongoing support for molded plastic parts, serving as a subject matter expert in mold design and process within the regional engineering team. The Staff Engineer works closely with molding suppliers to ensure reliable parts supply and performs capacity analyses for molds, presses, and assembly automation, recommending future investments as needed. The role also provides technical process support and mentorship to other engineers and junior team members.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree in Engineering or a technical discipline desired.
• At least 6 years of technical work experience with molding design and process support experience.
• Knowledge of plastics processes, resins, and tooling.

Nice To Haves

• Bachelor’s degree in a technical engineering discipline such as Plastics Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, or Industrial Engineering.
• Knowledge of mold-making and design fundamentals, molding process development, plastic resin behavior, and required tooling and equipment.
• At least 6 years of technical work experience, including 1 or more years of plastic injection and/or blow molding design and process support experience, preferably in the diagnostics or medical device industry.
• Knowledge of Scientific Molding Practices; certification preferred.
• Knowledge of FDA QSRs and ISO requirements preferred.
• Knowledge of PFMEA and DFMEA.

Responsibilities

• Work within the Quality System to maintain its effectiveness.
• Interact regularly with molding suppliers to meet quality and cost objectives.
• Coordinate mold design activities with suppliers, including Factory Acceptance Testing (FAT) and validation of molding manufacturing cells in accordance with division engineering best practices and procedures.
• Drive Design for Manufacture and Assembly (DFMA) for assigned projects.
• Lead and assist cross-functional activities to meet program objectives, including transferring molds to new suppliers and starting up new suppliers.
• Maintain project controls and reporting for cost, scope, and schedule; develop execution strategies, support procurement, balance competing demands, and execute contingency plans to recover schedule slippage or financial overruns.
• Interface with internal organizations and external customers, representing the organization in resolving difficult technical project issues.
• Assess the potential consequences, including defects and failure modes, of design changes to established processes.
• Participate in cross-functional teams to investigate and resolve molding issues.
• Develop and maintain understanding of relationships between molding key process input variables (KPIVs) and key process output variables (KPOVs) for plastic components throughout the value stream.
• Provide technical process support to engineers and mentor and develop junior team members.
• Read, challenge, develop, and maintain working knowledge of Quality Procedures and Work Instructions, applying them to mold qualification.
• Assist with capacity planning in alignment with long-term plans and short-term changes in demand.
• Work with operations, supply chain, quality, and suppliers; analyze capacity for molds and injection molding machines and recommend future investments.
• Manage measurement system analysis, design control, equipment selection and execution, process development, validation, FMEA, and Design of Experiments (DOEs).

Benefits

• Career development opportunities with an international company.
• Employees may qualify for free medical coverage in the Health Investment Plan (HIP) PPO medical plan in the next calendar year.
• Retirement savings plan with a high employer contribution.
• Tuition reimbursement.
• Freedom 2 Save student debt program.
• FreeU education benefit, providing an affordable and convenient path to a bachelor’s degree.
• Health and wellness benefits.

What This Job Offers

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