Senior product engineer

Introduce your research background and previous role(s).

My background prior to joining the University of Edinburgh was in electrochemistry, specifically biosensors and glucose sensing. I completed my PhD at the University of Galway and then took up a position as a research fellow in Prof. Andy Mount’s group.

What does your current role entail, and what are your responsibilities?

My current role involves ensuring the overall quality and reliability of our biosensor product. This involves a mixture of lab testing as well as desk-based report writing and risk analysis.

How did you gain the skills, experience and CV that you needed?

I was quite lucky that our area of research prepared me well for the technical aspects of my current role as well as more general skills like teamwork, time management and communicating results effectively. In preparation for sending off my CV and interview prep, Eleanor Hennige in the IAD was extremely helpful. This really focused my CV and my interview preparations.

Looking back would you do anything differently?

I think my time in Edinburgh prepared me well for the transition into industry. I probably could have taken on more specific training based on lean and six sigma principles and specific industry standards for medical device manufacturing as industry tends to value these quite highly. Also doing an industrial based placement would have been beneficial during my fellowship.

What is the main piece of advice that you would give anyone looking to move out of an academic research role?

Look at what sort of roles are out there that you would be interested in applying for on any jobs site like LinkedIn etc. and work back from there. They will have a list of experiences that would make you a good fit for the job so try and tick as many of these off as possible in advance of applying for that job.

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