Principal Engineer, Early Innovation R&D

Principal Engineer

Johnson & Johnson Med Tech Surgery is currently seeking a Principal Engineer to join our R&D Innovation & Partnerships team located onsite at our Raritan, NJ location.

About Surgery

Fueled by innovation at the intersection of biology and technology, we're developing the next generation of smarter, less invasive, more personalized treatments.

Are you passionate about improving and expanding the possibilities of surgery? Ready to join a team that's reimagining how we heal? Our Surgery team will give you the chance to deliver surgical technologies and solutions to surgeons and healthcare professionals around the world. Your contributions will help effectively treat some of the world's most prevalent conditions such as obesity, cardiovascular disease and cancer.

Patients are waiting.

Your unique talents will help patients on their journey to wellness.

Job Summary

This role will help shape the next generation of surgical, healing, and digitally enabled solutions by identifying and assessing external innovation, translating clinical unmet needs into technical requirements, and advancing high-potential technologies through structured due diligence, feasibility planning, and early development. The Principal Engineer will partner across R&D, Global Strategic Marketing, Business Development, Clinical, Medical Affairs, Regulatory, Quality, Supply Chain, and external partners to support portfolio decisions and accelerate meaningful innovation for patients and customers.

Duties & Responsibilities

• Identify, assess, and recommend external technologies, platforms, and partnership opportunities aligned to J&J Med Tech Surgery's Wound Closure & Healing strategy and innovation pipeline.
• Conduct technical due diligence on startups, academic innovations, licensing opportunities, and strategic collaborations, including evaluation of clinical need, technical feasibility, intellectual property, regulatory pathway, quality considerations, scalability, and strategic fit.
• Develop technology landscapes, target scans, competitive intelligence, and evidence summaries across priority surgical, healing, regenerative medicine, and digital solution spaces.
• Translate customer, clinical, and technology insights into problem statements, user needs, system requirements, risk profiles, and evidence-based recommendations.
• Engage clinicians, key opinion leaders, academic collaborators, suppliers, incubators, accelerators, and external innovation partners to maintain a robust innovation pipeline.
• Lead front-end innovation activities, including customer discovery, unmet need definition, opportunity framing, concept generation, feasibility planning, prototype evaluation, and proof-of-concept execution.
• Partner cross-functionally to advance opportunities from assessment through technology de-risking and transition to formal product development, as appropriate.
• Prepare and communicate technical assessments, business cases, risk profiles, and recommendations to senior leaders and governance forums to support portfolio prioritization and investment decisions.
• Follow all applicable laws and regulations, J&J policies and procedures, design control expectations, quality system requirements, and health, safety, and environmental practices.
• Up to 20% travel may be required.

Experience and Education

• A minimum of a Bachelor's degree in Systems Engineering, Biomedical Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Materials Science, or a related technical discipline is required.
• A minimum of 8 years of progressive experience in medical device R&D, product development, advanced engineering, external innovation, digital health, or related technical roles is required.
• Experience leading front-end innovation activities, including customer discovery, unmet need definition, concept development, feasibility testing, technical de-risking, and transition to development programs is required.
• Experience evaluating external technologies and partners, conducting technical due diligence, and making evidence-based recommendations is required.
• Working knowledge of medical device design controls, risk management, verification and validation, quality…