Principal Materials Engineer

About this role

We anticipate the application window for this opening will close on - 18 Aug 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 The Principal Materials Engineer will work in a team environment representing Materials Science and Engineering with a focus on metallic, magnetic, and ceramic materials. Duties include materials selection, processing, problem-solving, biostability, and materials regulations. This position will focus on supporting released product reliability and improvement teams in the identification and mitigation of product-related risks, knowledge gaps and the communication of such issues to project and functional leadership teams.

The individual will serve as a materials expert with an emphasis on metallic, magnetic, and ceramic materials and interfaces by participating in technical activities for materials selection, processing, characterization, analysis, material stability, biostability, as well as understanding of process-property-performance relationships for medical devices.

This position will also support scoping/planning of product strategy and identification of technologies and initiatives needed to develop innovative, reliable and cost-effective therapies. The candidate will develop and execute strategies to address those needs.

At Medtronic, we bring bold ideas forward with speed and decisiveness to put patients first in everything we do. In-person exchanges are invaluable to our work. We are working onsite a minimum of 4 days per week as part of our commitment to fostering a culture of professional growth and cross-functional collaboration as we work together to engineer the extraordinary. This role will require less than 10% of travel to enhance collaboration and ensure successful completion of projects.                     Responsibilities may include the following and other duties may be assigned: • Develop and deploy curiosity and critical thinking to a range of projects in the hard materials space

• Bring focus and technical depth to subsystems and components within a broader project scope to address challenging and complex problems and enable project success

• Conduct laboratory work and data analysis to drive data-driven technical decisions

• Act as a technical contributor within functional and project teams, driving a focus on quality and technical rigor while mentoring less experienced personnel

• Possess the necessary drive and determination to promote the highest level of customer satisfaction, quality, reliability, performance, cost, and development predictability

• Contribute to the design of products or processes based on business strategy

• Contribute to and develop strategies and prepare evaluation plans in consideration of gaps in materials, design and process to achieve optimal solutions that satisfy timeline, cost and technical requirements as they relate to patient safety and product reliability

Preferred Qualifications • Experience working in a regulated environment on medical devices

• Possesses proven expertise in the following business critical skill sets with focus on metallurgical science: • Metals Physics, Chemistry, Processing and Characterization

• Magnetic physics

• Electrochemistry, corrosion and stability

• Expertise in materials, with the ability to identify and develop testing methods, correlate material properties with product performance, and predict various failure modes

• Experience working with multiple classes of engineering materials: metals, polycrystalline, and single crystal ceramics, and glasses as well as their interface to the product as a whole

• Experience performing failure analysis

• Knowledge of external standards, e.g., ASTM and ISO and their use, limitations, and applications

• Demonstrated ability to apply skills and knowledge of technical/operational theories and principles to resolve real-world biomaterials challenges

• Demonstrated ability to deliver quality technical work within project schedules and timelines

• Knowledge of Design, Reliability & Manufacturability (DRM), and Six Sigma improvement methodology; Knowledge of statistical methods and Design of Experiments (DoE)

• Knowledge of Microsoft applications (Excel, Word, Outlook)

Requirements: Requires a Baccalaureate degree AND minimum of 7 years of relevant experience OR Master's degree with a minimum of 5 years relevant experience OR PhD with 3 years relevant experience

For Baccalaureate degrees earned outside of the United States, a degree that satisfies the requirements of 8 C.F.R. § 214.2(h)(4)(iii)(A) is required.

Physical Job Requirements

The above statements are intended to describe the general nature and level of work being performed by employees assigned to this position, but they are not an exhaustive list of all the required responsibilities and skills of this position. 

The physical demands described within the Responsibilities section of this job description are representative of those that must be met by an employee to successfully perform the essential functions of this job. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions. For Office Roles: While performing the duties of this job, the employee is regularly required to be independently mobile. The employee is also required to interact with a computer, and communicate with peers and co-workers. Contact your manager or local HR to understand the Work Conditions and Physical requirements that may be specific to each role.

U.S. Work Authorization & Sponsorship At M

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