Senior Systems Engineer: Ophthalmic Diagnostics

Alcon; Lake Forest (CA); On-site; USD 103,000 - 133,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Health insurance

Flexible time off

Retirement plan

Job summary

Alcon in Lake Forest, CA is hiring a Senior Systems Engineer to contribute to next-generation ophthalmic diagnostic, visualization, and vision science products from concept to commercialization. You will work across optical, hardware, software, and clinical domains and grow into leadership roles.

You will collaborate with diverse teams, develop requirements, verification protocols, and technical documentation, and stay current with AI/ML and imaging trends to impact product platforms.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s Degree or equivalent years of directly related experience (or high school +8 yrs. Assoc.+4 yrs.)
• The ability to fluently read, write, understand, and communicate in English
• Relocation Assistance: Not Available
• Sponsorship Available: Not Available
• MS or Ph.D. in Physics, Optical Engineering, Photonics, Electrical Engineering, or a related field.
• Experience with complex system integration, such as robotics, automation, integrated medical devices, imaging systems, semiconductor tools, or aerospace systems.
• Broad technical understanding of software, hardware, optics, imaging technologies, and integrated product architectures.
• Experience with lasers, machine vision, computational imaging, image processing, AI/machine learning, or related technologies.
• Programming or scripting experience in Python, MATLAB, C/C++, or similar tools.
• Experience with requirements development, system-level testing, verification and validation, and technical documentation.
• Familiarity with risk management, design control, and regulated medical device development.
• Systems engineering experience supporting late-stage medical device development, launch, or lifecycle support.
• Experience with systems engineering tools, analysis methods, trade-off studies, or performance modeling.

Responsibilities

• Work alongside experts across scientific, clinical, optical, software, hardware, manufacturing, and engineering disciplines.
• Support software and hardware solutions for connected diagnostic and visualization product platforms.
• Execute engineering tasks related to medical device development from concept through commercialization.
• Support system integration, troubleshooting, performance characterization, and system-level tradeoff analysis.
• Generate requirements, specifications, verification and validation protocols, technical reports, and design decision documentation.
• Analyze engineering and clinical data to evaluate product performance.
• Monitor relevant technology trends in ophthalmic diagnostics, imaging, AI/ML, and connected product platforms.
• Understand existing clinical technologies and identify potential improvements.
• Generate product and technology concepts, evaluate feasibility, and support development of current and future products.
• Collaborate with globally distributed teams and develop communication skills needed to influence cross-functional technical decisions.
• Develop increasing ownership of subsystem and system-level technical workstreams, with opportunities to grow into project lead or systems lead responsibilities.

Skills

Systems engineering

Medical device development

Cross-functional collaboration

Programming (Python/ MATLAB/ C/C++)

Requirements development

Verification & validation

Data analysis

Regulatory knowledge

Education

MS/PhD in Physics/ Optical Eng/ Photonics/ Electrical Eng

Bachelor’s degree or equivalent

Tools

Systems engineering tools

Job description

Alcon in Lake Forest, CA is hiring a Senior Systems Engineer to contribute to next-generation ophthalmic diagnostic, visualization, and vision science products from concept to commercialization. You will work across optical, hardware, software, and clinical domains and grow into leadership roles.

You will collaborate with diverse teams, develop requirements, verification protocols, and technical documentation, and stay current with AI/ML and imaging trends to impact product platforms.