Cochlear’s mission is to help people hear and be heard. As the global leader in implantable hearing solutions, Cochlear is dedicated to helping people with moderate to profound hearing loss experience a world full of sound. We aim to transform the way people understand and treat hearing loss and innovate to connect people with future technologies. Our employees tell us that the number one reason they enjoy working for Cochlear is the opportunity to make a difference to people’s lives. Learn and grow with us as we tackle the most complex challenges in helping more people to experience a lifetime of hearing.
Lead application-level systems engineering for complex, regulated medical devices
Provide technical authority and people leadership across cross-functional teams
Drive systems thinking, product family engineering and long-term architectural alignment
The Opportunity
The Principal Systems Engineer, Applications is a senior technical leadership role responsible for providing end-to-end systems engineering oversight across Cochlear’s application-level systems. You will lead and grow a team of systems engineers while acting as a technical authority, shaping system design decisions that span software, firmware, hardware and clinical applications within a highly regulated medical device environment.
This role partners closely with project managers, engineering leaders and senior stakeholders to ensure system architectures, requirements and verification approaches support both current programs and future product roadmaps. It is a balance of people leadership, deep technical contribution, and strategic influence.
Responsibilities include:
Lead and develop a team of systems engineers, building capability, engagement and accountability through performance management and coaching
Provide technical leadership across application‑level systems, ensuring robust system decomposition, requirements management and traceability
Lead system‑level design decisions, issue resolution and technical trade‑offs in complex and ambiguous environments
Ensure systems engineering activities comply with regulatory and quality requirements including ISO 13485, ISO 14971, IEC 60601 and Cochlear QMS
Drive alignment of application‑level systems with broader product architectures, ensuring interoperability across system boundaries
Champion systems thinking and best practices across the product lifecycle, influencing cross‑functional teams and senior leaders
Support product family engineering by guiding system configuration, variant management and architectural reuse where appropriate
Act as a trusted technical advisor and escalation point for complex system challenges
About You. As we grow our operations, we are looking for people who share our passion delivering safe, effective, and high-quality hearing solutions. To add value to Cochlear in this role, you'll be able to demonstrate the following skills and experience:
Extensive experience in systems engineering across complex, multi‑component products in regulated environments
Proven people leadership capability, including performance management, capability development and team building
Strong knowledge of systems engineering methodologies, requirements management, and verification frameworks
Experience working within medical device regulatory and quality standards (ISO 13485, ISO 14971, IEC 60601 or equivalent)
Ability to lead technical decision‑making under ambiguity, balancing detailed analysis with strategic perspective
Strong influencing and communication skills, with experience partnering across engineering, project and leadership teams
What Would Make You Stand Out
Exposure to application‑level architectures within embedded or medical device ecosystems, combined with experience driving product family engineering or architectural reuse strategies across complex product portfolios.
Why this role is for you?
This role is for a systems engineering leader who wants to shape technical direction at scale. You’ll build and mentor teams, influence long‑term product architecture, and solve complex problems that directly enable life‑changing hearing solutions for recipients around the world.
If you feel that you have the skills and experience to be successful in this role and take on new challenges to build your career with Cochlear, please start your application by clicking the apply button below.
#CochlearCareers
How we recognise your contribution
At Cochlear we value and welcome the unique contributions, perspectives, experiences, and backgrounds of our employees and aim to build a culture that celebrates and leverages these differences, creating a sense of belonging and enabling our people to realise their full potential. Through our internal programs and employee benefits, we aim to create an environment where our people will feel value and supported. Whether your focus is on continuous learning, professional development or simply finding an environment which enables you to thrive whilst balancing family or personal life commitments, then we have several programs in place to support you.
For more information about Life at Cochlear, visit www.cochlearcareers.com
Hear now. And always
As the global leader in implantable hearing solutions, at Cochlear (ASX: COH) we are committed to our mission to help people hear and be heard. Our story started more than four decades ago when Professor Graeme Clark pioneered the world's first multi-channel cochlear implant and created an entirely new treatment for hearing loss.
Since our formation in 1981, we continue Professor Clark’s work to help people with moderate to profound hearing loss experience a life full of hearing.
We have provided more than 650,000 implantable devices. Each recipient helps form a global community of millions, through families, friends, colleagues, teachers and more. And they’re not just connected to their own community — each shares a link with each other and to Professor Clark’s childhood desire to help people hear.
We aim to give people the best lifelong hearing experience and access to innovative future technologies. We understand the privilege of connecting people to a life lived with hearing. And we listen, respond and move with the times – to continue to bring hearing within reach of all those who need it.
That's how we live our mission every day. Our global workforce of more than 4,000 people shares a collective determination to give more people the opportunity to enjoy a life of hearing.
Cochlear’s global headquarters are on the campus of Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia with regional headquarters in Asia Pacific, Europe and the Americas. Through our offices in over 180 countries we help people of all ages to hear.
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