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.
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.
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.
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