Principal R&D Engineer: NPD for Cranial, Spinal Technologies

We anticipate the application window for this opening will close on - 8 Sep 2026   Careers that change lives start here. Medtronic is a global leader in healthcare technology with a Mission to alleviate pain, restore health, and extend life. Our 95,000 employees work across more than 150 countries to put patients first — developing innovative medical technologies that improve the lives of 72+ million patients each year. Your unique talents will help shape the future of healthcare while building a career grounded in purpose, growth, and impact. A Day in the Life At Medtronic Neuroscience, we are redefining what's possible in neurological and spinal care, bringing together innovation, expertise, and partnership to improve lives around the world. At Medtronic CST, we bring together innovative technologies that empower surgeons and improve outcomes in complex spine and cranial procedures. Check us out on LinkedIn: Medtronic CST                     This position takes a leading role in design and development of new products and product improvements. Responsibilities will also include development, implementation and improvement of Quality Management System (QMS) procedures. Leads or supports project planning and project management. Provides engineering and technical support to other functional areas of the company as required.

Technical leadership within cross-functional product development teams and help drive engineering decisions that align with customer needs, business objectives, product strategy, and system-level design goals. Lead the development of system architectures, interface definitions, functional decompositions, and technical specifications to enable successful product realization. Collaborate with Marketing, Clinical, Regulatory, Quality, Manufacturing, Service, R&D teams to translate stakeholder inputs into clear product requirements and technical solutions. Lead the synthesis of user needs, clinical needs, business requirements, regulatory requirements, and technical constraints into measurable and verifiable product, system, and subsystem requirements. Perform engineering analyses, technical trade studies, and feasibility assessments to evaluate alternative concepts and optimize product performance, usability, reliability, manufacturability, and cost. Develop, maintain, and communicate requirements traceability from user needs through design inputs, verification activities, risk controls, and design outputs.  Develop and test prototypes, evaluate system performance, and troubleshoot complex technical and integration issues across hardware, software, firmware, disposables, accessories, and manufacturing processes. Analyze engineering and test data to determine whether product designs satisfy functional, performance, reliability, and safety requirements and recommend design improvements when necessary. Support updates and improvements to QMS procedures. Evaluate the impact of external standard changes on products and their DHFs. Lead or support risk management activities including hazard analyses, Failure Mode and Effects Analyses (FMEA), risk assessments, and implementation of risk control strategies throughout the product lifecycle. Provide test reports, drawings, and other requirements to RA necessary for preparing regulatory notifications and submissions 510(k)s and PMAs for domestic and international approvals as required. Define realistic start and finish dates for project-critical action items, submit them to the project team leader, and update the project schedule as needed. Serve as a technical leader with a broad range of duties including determining resource needs, availability or limitations, in advance of issues, to minimize schedule deviations.  Identify areas for improvement of manufacturing and lab tooling and technical processes in all project phases and recommend changes to appropriate management.  Provides production line support when