Senior Mechanical Engineer in Cambridge

As a global leader in life sciences research support, STEMCELL Technologies is looking for a Senior Mechanical Engineer to join our Instrumentation UK engineering team. In this role, you will play a pivotal part in the continuous improvement and sustaining engineering of our innovative cell-sorting instruments, working closely with Engineering, Manufacturing, Quality, and Supply Chain.

Our cell-sorting instruments combine precision mechanics, optics, electronics, and microfluidics. As a Senior Mechanical Engineer, you will provide critical technical leadership in the development and design for manufacture (DFM) of complex mechanical, opto-mechanical, and electro-mechanical assemblies. You will optimize our current manufacturing and assembly processes, manage strategic partnerships with specialist suppliers, and ensure that advanced DFM principles are embedded into the architecture of future instrument developments from day one.

Duties and Responsibilities:

• Lead mechanical sustaining engineering activities for current instruments, managing lifecycle design updates and continuous improvement initiatives, ensuring all changes are rigorously verified and seamlessly transferred to production and scaled appropriately.
• Scope and manage technical partnerships with specialist suppliers acting as the primary engineering lead for supplier evaluation, design transfer, and quality verification.
• Collaborate closely with internal optical physicists and electronics engineers to ensure mechanical designs seamlessly support sensitive optical alignments, vibrational stiffness, tolerance stack-ups, and thermal stability.
• Support quality initiatives within our regulated environment, leading mechanical root-cause investigations and implementing corrective and preventive actions to ensure ongoing product reliability and manufacturing excellence.
• Provide technical guidance and DFM input for future instrument developments, ensuring manufacturability, serviceability, and cost-efficiency are designed into the architecture from the start.
• Design, develop, and test precision mechanical, opto-mechanical, and electro-mechanical systems using SolidWorks.

Knowledge and Qualifications:

• Bachelor's degree in Mechanical Engineering (or a related discipline) with 6–10 years of relevant experience, Master's degree with 4–8 years of relevant experience, or PhD with 2–5 years of relevant experience.
• Strong track record of applying Design for Manufacture and Assembly (DFM/DFA) principles to transition complex instrument designs into stable, scalable production with experience leading engineering risk assessments (e.g. dFMEAs).
• Experience operating within a regulated environment or controlled Quality Management System (e.g. ISO 13485), with proficiency in engineering change control, root-cause investigations, and design verification.
• Deep proficiency with CAD (ideally SolidWorks) for 3D mechanical design and engineering drawings.
• Advanced working knowledge of dimensional tolerancing, GD&T, and tolerance stack-up analysis.
• Strong technical communication and collaboration skills, with the ability to translate complex optical requirements into practical mechanical and manufacturing realities.

STEMCELL Technologies is a privately owned, Vancouver-based biotechnology company that helps power leading-edge life science research around the world. Driven by our love of science and passion for quality, we are a company of Scientists Helping Scientists—standing by our customers to provide the outstanding products, technical support, and training they need to advance their research.

As an equal opportunity employer, STEMCELL is dedicated to ensuring that every employee feels safe, valued, and respected for who they are. We know that scientific progress and innovation occur when diverse, creative minds come together and we are committed to nurturing a culture of inclusivity and belonging. STEMCELL enforces a zero-tolerance policy for any form of discrimination. Selection decisions are solely based on job-related factors.