Staff Engineer – Systems Engineering

Life Sciences & Diagnostics | Systems Engineering | Product Development

Our client is a leading organisation developing innovative life science and diagnostic technologies that support advances in research, laboratory science, and healthcare.

We are seeking an experienced Staff Engineer to provide senior technical leadership across the development of complex, multidisciplinary products from early concept and system architecture through to verification, validation, and commercialisation.

This is a highly collaborative role working across Systems Engineering, Hardware, Software, Firmware, Reagents, Marketing, and Verification & Validation. The successful candidate will translate customer needs and workflows into robust system requirements, architectures, and innovative product solutions while ensuring technical performance, quality, and regulatory expectations are met.

About the Role

As Staff Engineer, you will act as a senior technical authority, leading system-level engineering activities across the product development lifecycle.

You will be responsible for defining and managing product requirements, developing system architectures, guiding prototype integration and characterisation, and supporting verification and validation activities.

The role combines hands-on technical engineering with cross-functional leadership, requiring the ability to understand complex systems, identify technical risks, solve challenging problems, and drive projects forward in a regulated product-development environment.

You will also contribute to the development of engineering capability by mentoring engineers, promoting best practices, and providing technical direction across multidisciplinary teams.

Key Responsibilities

• Lead system engineering activities across the full product development lifecycle, from concept through commercialisation.
• Translate customer needs, workflows, and product objectives into clear and measurable system requirements.
• Develop, maintain, and manage system architectures, functional architectures, interfaces, and technical requirements.
• Work closely with Hardware, Software, Firmware, Reagents, Verification & Validation, and other engineering teams to ensure effective system integration.
• Lead technical design reviews and provide senior technical direction on complex engineering challenges.
• Develop and execute system integration, performance characterisation, and verification strategies.
• Define experimental protocols and test methods to evaluate system performance and identify technical risks.
• Analyse experimental and system performance data using appropriate scientific, engineering, and statistical methodologies.
• Lead troubleshooting and root-cause investigations for complex system-level problems.
• Support risk management, design control, requirements traceability, and product lifecycle activities within a regulated environment.
• Ensure system requirements and design outputs remain aligned with customer needs, product objectives, quality requirements, and applicable regulations.
• Support prototype development, integration, characterisation, and design verification and validation.
• Collaborate with internal teams and external contract design/manufacturing partners where required.
• Apply systems engineering principles including functional analysis, interface management, scenario generation, and design integrity.
• Provide technical leadership across multidisciplinary projects and influence engineering decisions without necessarily having direct line-management responsibility.
• Mentor and develop engineers while promoting engineering best practices and continuous improvement.
• Contribute to strengthening systems engineering capabilities, processes, tools, and methodologies across the organisation.

• Bachelor's degree or higher in Engineering or a related discipline such as Biomedical, Physics, Chemical, Electrical, or Mechanical Engineering.
• A Master's degree or PhD would be advantageous.
• 8+ years' experience in systems engineering, product development, product design, or a closely related discipline.
• Demonstrable experience providing tech