Senior Systems Engineer

Cambridge Design Partnership is looking for a Senior Systems Engineer to operate as Technical Lead on a range of complex Electromechanical products for our clients. Working alongside a Project Manager to manage a multidisciplinary team, you will bring mechanical, electrical, firmware, and software elements together to ensure the complete product works as intended. This is a practical, delivery-focused role. You will shape requirements and architecture, assess risks and technical options, plan integration and testing, and help resolve issues as ideas become working prototypes and production-ready designs. You should be just as comfortable discussing a design with a client as you are investigating a problem in the lab. We are particularly interested in engineers with an electrical or mechatronics background who enjoy thinking beyond their own discipline. You will work with talented specialists across a variety of product development projects and take on technical responsibility appropriate to your experience. Job Duties and Responsibilities Systems Engineering and Product Ownership - Take a whole-product view of development, from initial feasibility and concept selection through detailed design, integration and verification. - Turn stakeholder needs into practical requirements and trace them through to verification - Manage Technical Risk and develop effective Risk Control Measures to ensure products are safe to use and meet regulatory constraints - Comfortable managing mechanical, electronics, firmware, software and other specialists together so that individual subsystems work as one coherent product. - Spot technical gaps and risks early, agree priorities with the team and drive engineering issues through to resolution. Requirements, Architecture and Interfaces - Take the lead on defining, reviewing and maintaining system requirements, making sure they are clear, testable and linked to the needs they address. - Shape system architecture, data flow, and long-term technical roadmaps across multiple teams. - Develop functional architectures, break products into manageable subsystems and agree technical responsibilities across engineering disciplines. - Define interfaces between hardware, embedded software, controls and mechanical systems, including signals, power, communications and physical connections. - Establish and assess key performance budgets, such as power, timing, accuracy or throughput, using analysis and test data to guide decisions. Technical Problem Solving and Risk - Take a hands-on approach to technical challenges, working with engineers to investigate unexpected behavior and find the root cause of problems. - Plan and carry out focused feasibility work, experiments and prototype tests to answer important engineering questions early. - Manage design reviews and risk assessments, helping the team make sound decisions on performance, reliability, safety and design maturity. - Manage DFMEA and Risk Registers, assessing risk acceptability and tracing risks through Risk Control Measures to implementation Integration, Test and Verification - Plan how subsystems will be brought together and tested, with clear methods and acceptance criteria for demonstrating product performance. - Support the build and integration of electromechanical prototypes, helping diagnose issues across electronics, controls, firmware, software and mechanisms. - Prepare test methods and plans, participate in testing, interpret results and follow through on failures and design changes. - Maintain clear evidence that the product meets its requirements through traceability documentation, and support design handover and transfer with the necessary technical information. Working with Clients and Project Teams - Act as a technical lead point of contact, giving project teams a clear view of the overall design and the implications of technical decisions. - Explain technical options, trade-offs and recommendations clearly to clients and colleagues, using the right level of detail for the audience. - Work with project managers and technical leads to plan engineering activities, estimate effort and manage technical dependencies and priorities. - Collaborate with suppliers and external partners to agree specifications, resolve interface issues and integrate their work into the product. - Support writing proposals, costing and planning work, technical workshops and design reviews, and help colleagues use systems engineering methods in a practical, proportionate way. Requirements - Track record of at least 10 years' experience designing products in a highly regulated industry, preferably medical devices. - Hands-on and practical engineering skills, willing and able to get stuck in to designing solutions and able to demonstrate a passion for engineering in and out of work. - Able to see the complete product while still understanding enough technical detail to make informed engineering decisions at all levels and engineering disciplines. - Strong problem-solving skills, with the curiosity and judgement to challenge assumptions and work through unfamiliar technical problems. - Pragmatic and organized, able to bring structure to an ambiguous brief without creating unnecessary complexity or paperwork. - Confident working across disciplines, with technical strengths in mechanical and electrical engineering or mechatronics. - A clear communicator who can build strong relationships with clients, explain technical issues and influence decisions constructively. - Able to balance performance, usability, cost, risk and development timescales when recommending engineering solutions. - Proactive, collaborative and accountable, with the drive to take ownership and see technical issues through to completion. - Bachelor's or Master’s degree in electrical engineering, mechanical/mechatronics, systems engineering or a closely related engineering discipline, or equivalent practical experience. - Experience developing physical products that combine electronics, software or firmware, and mechanical components, ideally through more than one stage of development. - Practical experience defining system requirements, developing architectures and managing interfaces between engineering disciplines. - Hands-on experience building, integrating, testing or troubleshooting electromechanical systems and resolving issues that span hardware and software. - A good grounding in sensors, actuators, embedded controls, power and communications, and confidence interpreting schematics and technical test results. - Experience planning and carrying out system-level tests, assessing performance against requirements and documenting engineering findings. - Familiarity with requirements tools, simulation, modelling, scripting or model-based systems engineering (including SysML) would be beneficial. - Strong AI skills and experience in applying tools to streamline technical activities, including requirements management - Experience in a product development consultancy, medical devices, diagnostics, scientific instruments, robotics, automation or other regulated industries would be advantageous. Benefits We’re an employee‑owned innovation partner with a growing US team. We bring ideas to life-from insight to engineering to pilot manufacture—across consumer and healthcare.