Interview Questions - ICU Medical

Describe your ideal manager.

A manager who can establish friendships with their team while also maintaining a sense of authority is ideal for me. I want an employer who understands that we are all humans and one I can build comradery with. I also am most motivated when continued feedback (I.e., performance reviews) is given or if I am held against some type of metric. I want to know that I am meeting their professional expectations as well as establishing a clear route for career development and progression that is concurrent with my day-to-day tasks. I also prefer a manager who has patience to answer questions if I am struggling with a particular task; In the past, I've performed best in an environment where I felt comfortable asking questions when I needed help.

One set back and how you handled it? Describe a time when you faced an unexpected challenge at work.

As a co-op for Medtronic, I was tasked with collecting and processing data for a preclinical study and just days before the team was to give a presentation of our work to a technical review committee, I noticed there was an error in tool I made to process months' worth of data from this study. I knew how important it was to present accurate data, even if that data portrayed negative results for our product. Therefore, I called a team meeting and fessed up to the mistake I made and committed to a plan to redo the data/work under a very tight deadline. I was pulling long days/nights to finish this up but felt much better entering a critical review with 100% confidence in our work.

Describe one situation where you pushed for an idea.

As a grad student, I was in a unique position leading a team of graduate students on a year long project funded by Medtronic. At this time, I was also a contracted employee of Medtronic working on projects within the same division as this grad school project. I discovered an opportunity to win grant money from a committee internal to the company to earn more funding for our project after the student team dissolves. I presented a rough draft of a project proposal, 10-year vision, plan of action to my project advisors, with the intention of submitting it to the committee after we reviewed it. Although I was proud of the vision I had for the future of the project, the advisors were quick to poke holes in it and request revisions to be made. This quickly led to a series of revisions made between the three of us to ensure the committee would receive our most convincing project proposal. I learned from this experince that you will very rarely pitch an idea that needs no further revision- the feedback from my experienced advisors greatly improved the chances of our proposal catching the eye of the committee, even if it wasn't exactly what I envisioned it in the first place. Moving forward, it will be important for me to accept feedback and critique on my ideas from more experienced engineers.

Tell me about an experience leading a team. Or... Describe a time you had to work on a team and something didn't go well. What would you do differently?

As a grad student, I was in a unique position leading a team of graduate students on a year long project funded by Medtronic. At this time, I was also a contracted employee of Medtronic working on projects within the same division as this grad school project. Therefore, I was more available to consult with fellow engineers on this project. This was difficult, as we were tasked to adapt preexisting remote monitoring hardware for more robust wildlife use conditions. As a leader, I quickly filtered through solution that were unfeasible due to highly regulated and secure MDT networks and pitched solutions back to the team that often lead to scope creep not initially intended by our project advisors. However, as a result, our team was still able to present a business pitch with our wildlife solution back to the company after months of rewriting our objectives. As a leader, I learned how to assess the feasibility of project objectives given strict and short deadlines and also pulling efforts from limited resources. Since we were a team of mechanical engineers working on a project needing hardware and software expertise, I needed to reach out and ask favors from hardware and software engineers familiar with the technology.

Describe how you approached an ambiguous/not well-defined task you were given? Or... Describe a time when you had to solve a problem but didn't have all the necessary information about it beforehand. What did you do?

As a grad student, I was in a unique position leading a team of graduate students on a year long project funded by Medtronic. At this time, I was also a contracted employee of Medtronic working on projects within the same division as this grad school project. We were tasked with adapting preexisting remote monitoring hardware developed by Medtronic to wildlife applications where the device and transmission beacon is to be worn by the animal. Normally, this technology is used for patient-doctor check-ups and therefore requires serious bulletproofing to be used in the elements. The first thing I did was vette out all the capabilities and design specifications of the hardware we were using and meet with expertise in the areas of this device to gauge what can and cannot be tweaked/adjusted within the hardware and software. So doing adequate background research is important for ambiguous tasks. Next, the team worked on drafting design requirements for the specific applications, and brainstormed designs, architecture needed to satisfy each specific application (Wolf vs Bear vs pet?). Then, we built prototypes and executed tests early on to see if our designs would be feasible - prior to fully committing to and down selecting on a specific design for a specific application. We quickly realized that we lacked support, time and resources to design a prototype to fit on small animals, last months in the wild, withstand all elements, so we split the scope to focus on pitching a business plan for only the veterinary market (the biggest market), and only prototyped with the goal of device transmission for 2 weeks on large wildlife. In addition, we turned in a proposal for future work to downsize the prototype, improve battery longevity, and other steps required to achieve our initial objectives. It's important to narrow the scope of a project as quick as possible when given an ambiguous task and to establish requirements prior to prototyping this way the team defines the tasks before working on the tasks. We also found the limits for what was possible in our given time frame by prototyping early and failing early.

What are some of your weaknesses? Or... One area you can improve?

As an analytical thinker, I tend to get caught up in the little details and forget about the high-level goals/ bigger picture. On contract with Medtronic, I would segment/reconstruct coronary artery images for use in statistical analysis. The methodology I developed was too cumbersome, as I was unfamiliar with the software and aimed to capture arteries at too high of resolution. This costed me weeks of busy work. For future biomedical imaging projects, I met with experts of the segmentation software, performed literature dives to ensure I was reconstructing the correct anatomy, and touched base with the project lead to ensure I was delivering adequate (minimal) analysis for the project team. From this, I learned that taking time to acclimate to a new problem before jumping in will pay off in the long haul.

What problems did you solve in your last position? Or... Tell me about the most challenging engineering project you've worked on. Describe a super complex problem and how you solved it? What's your most successful engineering project?

At my last position, my project team did not have an accurate or realistic means assessing cardiac device-artery interaction. Therefore, I developed a methodology for imaging (w/ micro-CT) how our device interacts with the tissue interface when implanted in a postmortem animal heart. It required careful implementation of pre and post implant registration techniques, and collaboration with mechanical designers to manufacture a radiopaque test fixture. After scanning, I reconstructed the images in software to analyze the differences in tissue in pre and post implant states. This offered both an accurate and realistic prediction of device artery interaction prior to first in human clinical trials.

Any questions for us?

Can you describe the culture of the company and the engineering team? What's the biggest opportunity facing the engineering team right now? What's the biggest challenge facing the engineering team right now? What's the typical career path for someone in this role? Are there opportunities for professional development in this role? What does success look like in this role? And how is that measured? What's one aspect of this role that has the steepest learning curve? What could I do to get up to speed quickly? If you're able to share, what are the most immediate projects in the pipeline for this position? What are the next steps in the interview process? After reviewing my resume and speaking with me today, is there anything else I can help you clarify? When will the offer be given and when does the position start? What does work look like 6months into this job? Verses 1 year vs 2 years? What kind of projects will you have me on? What phases of a typical project timeline will I be working in? What are some of the best traits a candidate for this job portrays?

What do you think makes a great engineer?

Curiosity and Passion. Refer to Yung Cho's advice.

What will be the biggest challenge for you in this position?

Familiarizing with validation workflows, documentation repositories,etc. Getting to know the whole team, who does what, and whos a good contact as a technical contributor.

How do you explain engineering ideas to an audience who's unfamiliar with the topic during a presentation or an important meeting?

First understand the audience's strengths and then paint the picture through that lense.

How do you weigh the pros and cons before making a decision?

For important work or life decisions, I use a decision matrix. This forces me to think about how important each pro and con is (by assigning a weight or multiplication factor to it) and allows me objectively to determine what the best decision would be as opposed to making an impulse decision based off of emotion.

Describe the steps you take when developing plans for a project.

Gannt chart allows visualization/understanding of slow/fast parts of the project so you can allocate FTE correctly. Also creating a workstream progress list (diving into lower-level objectives) is helpful to use in weekly meetings to assess progress made and exchange updates, give feedback, etc. Lastly, develop or instill a means of communication between cross-functional collegues that allows them to exchange design requirements, technical information that may be concurrent on multiple workstreams, I've found it's important to practice proactive communication (rather than reactive)-- to make sure all desciplines are aligned.

How would your boss/coworkers/friends describe you?

I am confident that my last boss would say I am a very hard worker. My boss was comfortable assigning me 40 hours/week of work in addition to my thesis commitment in graduate school. He described that he knew he wouldn't have any problems managing me during this process because he would see me come into the office on weekends to finish up work. I am also confident that my coworkers would describe me as reliable and dependable. I was in a unique position on one of my projects in Medtronic, as I was the only one in the company that could process, troubleshoot, and deliver data from a clinical measurement tool in development. I was often sent data from 50+ clinics around the country and expected to translate it and process it so more senior scientists and physicians could analyze it. Despite the different bumps and quirks the system had, the team relied on 1) identify/troubleshoot errors and 2) deliver the data in a timely matter.

What motivates you?

I am highly motivated by innovation and improving on the current standard of care for patients. In my previous work experience, this took the form of pushing to expand the companies' technology to under-represented patient populations. Specifically, I truly believed Medtronic technology could expand to not only all humans on earth, but all species on earth - and worked passionately on a wildlife project to pitch a monitoring product back to the BU. Furthermore, I thrive in identifying gaps or shortcomings in current products on the market and am motivated to capitalize on them with next generation projects. For example, I co-authored two patents that are being currently filed for that same wildlife project that the team and I saw as a weakness in current data transmission platforms. Also, I found the purpose of my thesis highly motivating - which was to assess an alternative pacing location within the heart that could improve patient quality of life.

What is your most proud accomplishment?

I am most proud of completing my thesis project. I worked on the project for about a year, and it took a lot of resilience to complete with lab and specimen restrictions due to the COVID pandemic. Also, since the project was funded by Medtronic and performed to satisfy Medtronic objectives but executed with UMN lab resources, I demonstrated excellent cross-functional communication skills to ensure both parties were aligned. As a result of the work, I presented concise and valuable learnings to the Medtronic pacemaker project team essential for preclinical risk assessment and became highly knowledgeable in cardiac and coronary anatomy. The biggest take away from this accomplishment was that I learned how much preparation, organization, and iteration it takes to drive progress in early phase R&D med device projects. I feel confident to translate this learning correctly in the test dev space with this company.

What engineering skills have you learned or improved upon in the past six months?

I didn't have any industry experience testing and developing prototypes until last spring. When my New Product Design and Business Development team entered an ambiguous prototyping phase, I learned the difference between good CAD designs and good physical prototypes. Specifically, I became more familiar with the importance of building for the ease of assembly and manufacturability. Our design was 3D printable, and I learned that certain features in our CAD were not easily printable. I also was forced to think about how our designs significantly impact ease of use and assembly in the field by scientists/researchers not familiar with our product. I also became familiar (but not hands on experience) with weather/corrasion proofing techniques (gasket,epoxy,etc.) for our product through this prototyping phase.

Describe a written technical report or presentation you had to complete?

I had to write a technical report and present my thesis work - device- anatomy interaction. It consisted of a background of past work done by the company in this area, its shortcomings, anatomical/technical review, methodologies, results of an N=8 animal heart preclinical study, and a discussion to validate the importance/limitations of the results. It was challenging because I needed to write for two different audiences. 1) I wrote a report and presented my thesis to my lab's PI (external use only) to make it presentable to a defense committee which included physician that's an expert in the field of coronary pathologies; therefore, I needed to make I was 100% confident in the anatomy I was studying. Moreover, I also presented the same work in an internal R&T seminar. My colleagues were more interested in what my work meant for the project I was supporting, so I tailored it around functional-level objectives it was addressing and the level of risk associated with anatomy interaction. Also, as the internal audience was much more diverse, I scrubbed my internal presentation and report of low-level detail that was irrelevant to their positions.

Do you have any patents? If so, tell me about them. If not, is that something that you see yourself pursuing? Why or why not?

I have co-authored two patents that are being filed by Medtronic IP personnel. Unfortunately, since these patents are property of Medtronic and are still in the process of approval, I can't share any more information on them. However, they are related to the wildlife monitoring project that I worked on.

What did you learn from your last work experience?

I learned how to concisely and efficiently present material in a manner that addresses team-level and functional-level objectives. I also became familiar with and adapted to working in an iterative lab and testing environment and feel comfortable self-starting and organizing my own experiments. Since Medtronic was a matrix company, I also learned how to collaborate and communicate with cross-functional partners and acquired a commercial awareness important for navigating the corporate realm. I was not familiar with cardaic & coronary anatomy prior to this last position, but after several projects, short courses, and my thesis work funded my Medtronic, I feel I know enough to work on medical device products in other spaces, such as IV therapy products. The biggest thing I learned, however, was how critical it is to be able to work in a team effectively. I worked on a lot of teams at Medtronic and outperformed on objectives when on the teams I was completely in sync with, or on a team where everyone could communicate their thoughts and ideas safely. I fully intended on translating this learning to be the most cohesive team member I can be at my next position.

If hired, what is the first contribution you will make to the company?

I pride myself on being a cohesive teammate and being able to inspire people around me to work harder. At my last job, I had realigned two teammates who were often butting heads on project deadlines and assignments. I did so by mediating arguments with positive energy and silver linings to capitalize on. Specifically, I provided solutions to hit a prototyping deadline and a plan of action to accomplish them, which included offering my support on any individual workstreams to ensure they are finished prior to the deadline.

What are some of your strengths?

I think my greatest strength is my creative problem solving. With 2 years working in an innovative research and technology space, I've honed the ability to assess a problem, whether it's prototype and design requirement related or results from a preclinical study, from every angle and weigh all the trade-offs. I am very familiar with navigating in the compromise. I am also a very effective communicator and presenter; often, my biomedical imaging analysis served to burndown risk on high profile pacemaker projects within Medtronic, so it was essential that my work was both clearly and concisely relayed to all members of the team. Lastly, another strength of mine is persistence and perseverance which is necessary in an iterative "trial and error" type position like this one. I've often found myself working late hours during my thesis to deliver quality study analysis that took many attempts to achieve.

Do you have any last statements?

I understand I do not have any industry experience as a R&D test engineer; However, I worked closely with mechanical engineers on all the projects I previously mentioned and often collaborated directly on the testing and development of their designs. I also learned all preclinical experimentation, imaging, cardiac electrophysiology, on the job so I am confident I will be able to quickly learn the tools needed for this R&D engineer role. I am grateful for interviewing with you today. You have given me a clear overview of the position and I truly believe I have unique experiences and accomplishments on a variety of teams that can provide value to this organization. I am also very passionate about this role because it would provide me ownership and responsibilities I did not have at my previous position- as Is there anything else you need to confirm if I am the right candidate for this position?

Why are you leaving your last position?

I want to acquire more hands-on mechanical engineering experience and I am also looking for a company that values me, my skills, and my experiences more. I was passionate about the work I did but neglected to learn more about the in's and out's of the division I was working in. It didn't take long for me to realize that the work environment and the values of the company didn't match well with my own. Since then I've been seeking a role at a company that values transparency where I can work in a more cohesive team.

What is a challenge you've overcome?

I was hired into contract by my last research roll to lead and finish validation efforts for a measurement tool used in clinical trials. This required me to learn a new skill to stay effective in my role; as I had to familiarize myself with the tool and Medtronic's complex regulatory validation process since I had no previous experience with either. Also, I had no resources who were familiar with this process within the division I was hired into. Therefore, I had to find contacts in systems engineers that were familiar with the process and would be willing to offer guidance. I also pulled previous validation work in the company's repository to ensure I was following good documentation practices, testing the tool adequately, etc. The whole process took me several months; throughout which I demonstrated persistence work ethic to produce quality validation results. I learned that no matter how much time you spend on a project, or what pressures you are experiencing from deadlines, it's important not to rush because in this field - in this example - that tool is being used in first-in-human clinical trials.

How did you apply skills to this job from your previous job?

I was in the lab a lot for my last job and usually tested devices built and designed by cross functional teams including electrical engineers and mechanical designers, hardware specialists, etc. So I am familiar with speaking the lingo and understand the basic componentry of small implantable devices which I assume will be translatable to vital care products within the temperature management BU. I also expanded my knowledge of cardiac anatomy and physiology drastically with my role in research which will provide a good base for the products I will be working on.

Tell me about a time you got negative feedback on your work. How did you respond? How do you handle failure? How do you feel about constructive criticism?

I was leading a Medtronic funded project within the UMN Visible Heart Lab where I was attempting to collect pacing data on series of reanimated animal hearts. The pacing methodology we needed to execute was fairly complex and actually utilized electrodes that damaged cardiac tissue in my early trials. The PI of the lab suggested simplifying the implant and data collection procedures prior to continuing the studies. In response, I organized a meeting between the PI and my project lead to ensure study deviations would not interfere with objectives of the study. After which I redesigned the electrode array and practiced the new methods on postmortem tissue to ensure I could collect data safely and efficiently enough in the next studies. Throughout this process I frequently check-in with PI to ensure I was addressing his feedback correctly to avoid making the same mistake twice. Due to my background as a D1 athlete, I welcome constructive criticism. I delt with a lot of constructive feedback at my last role as a research scientist. I think it is valuable to consider all criticism as an early career engineer because it often comes from a place of experience. For example, my device-anatomy interaction project involved weeks of iteration and fine tuning on the methodology to collect quality data and most of the progress I made came from constructive criticism from more experienced scientists. Without their input, I wouldn't have acquired the tools or the training to complete my work. Moreover, criticism in my last role saved me time and my team's money because it sped up the "practice/ trial and error" phase of this workstream.

If offered this job, would you accept?

I would appreciate an opportunity to take some time to review the offer before accepting, as well as close out the interview process for several other jobs. However, I can assure you I am very interested in this position.

Where do you see yourself in 5 years?

I've found that the most rewarding part of working in the Medical Device Industry is delivering innovative solutions for life saving technology. So, in 5 years from now I'd like to have developed a strong knowledge of mechanical engineering to 1) advance the patients' standard of care and 2) serve as project lead while doing so. By working as an R&D engineer, I will have hands-on experience testing and developing products where I will gain a sense for design and concept feasibility. I will also be able to combine my previous knowledge in research to iterate on better solutions and provide valuable expertise in the design down-selection process. Beyond 5 years, I would like to get into management, as another unique trait I pride myself on is being able to communicate not only technically, but also personably, which can be partially accredited to years of experience as a teammate on the UMN D1 track team.

One thing you liked/one thing you didn't like about your last job?

It was a great early career position because it allowed me to learn more about the medical device field and learn a ton about human anatomy and pathologies. Since it was a research position, I also loved the hands-on trial and error aspects of my work and got a lot of experience learning how to properly document and validate my own work which I liked because it's good prep for an R&D engineering position. I'm excited to take the combinations of those later experiences and apply them to a R&D engineering position. However, as a contractor, there wasn't much room to grow my career in addition to my skills. After spending three years with the organization, there were multiple occasions where I wanted to work on different tasks and take more ownership when it comes to the company's performance. Yet, it did not seem possible based on my lack of experience. I'm excited to be interviewing for an opportunity where the potential for new professional challenges and more ownership is higher.

What's something new you learned recently? Or... Explain a time you had to use logic to solve an engineering problem. Describe a time you used problem-solving skills to figure out a design problem.

Last year, my project team lead tasked me with designing both a preclinical study pacing study and an electrode array (w/ multiple pacing locations) to use during the study. I had a couple of early prototype ideas for the electrode array that I thought were plausible, but after several consultations with my colleagues - I realized the designs weren't robust enough and wouldn't collect data efficiently enough when integrated into out lab systems. Therefore, I started looking elsewhere within the company for electrode lead designs that may be useful. I learned the Neuro division manufactures deep brain stimulation leads with plunge electrodes that were perfect for our study's needs. I also learned about other neuro leads that may be useful for cardiac-related studies and made valuable connections within the department as well. In hindsight, I learned to reach out and explore avenues like this before reinventing the wheel to avoid unnecessary amounts of time and money spent.

What checks and balances do you use to make sure that you don't make mistakes? What kind of safety procedures do you have in place for when you check your engineering work for mistakes? Do the procedures ensure that you don't overlook any mistakes?

Method Validation for tools used to deliver results that may impact a clinical trial or final decision. This usually involves writing and executing a series of tests to ensure the tool is operating as intended. For work produced with method validated tools, equipment - I often set aside time prior to presenting the work or moving forward to double, triple check my work.

What are your interests and hobbies outside of work?

Music, traveling, exercise, sports. I need to maintain an active lifestyle.

Describe one situation where you persuaded or convinced someone into companionship or partnership?

My coworker and I were tasked with designing a preclinical study to burn down risks associated with implanting a cardiac device in a new anatomical location. Being a more inferior new hire with less than a year of experience, it was difficult to convince my fellow scientist of an expensive animal study that would allow us to evaluate chronic effects of the device, as opposed to my coworkers ideas that were 1) strictly acute, or 2) pulled previous data of losely related pathologies gathered from consulting with physicans. While persuading with my idea, I made sure to preface that the movitation behind my idea aligns with the orgs mission of "quality" and striving for "diversity and inclusivity of thought". I also made sure to address the value of both positive and negative outcomes of the study and polietly emphasize that this idea is accredited to both myself and my coworker, and mention the obvious weaknesses of "our" other ideas. I learned from this experience that it is important to remember that most work-related disagreements or conflicts are initiated because both parties have the best interests in mind for the project, company, and patients. Therefore, its often best to remind each other of that when you experience disagreements.

What's your leadership style? Or... Describe a time you demonstrated leadership skills at work. What leadership skills do you find most useful? Can you describe a leadership challenge you overcame?

My natural leadership style is collaborative, I also believe this can be very effective because I've worked side-by-side teammates and it helped reengage and motivate us in struggling scenarios. One example is During my wildlife monitoring team's project, we were approaching a deadline and not making the progress we needed to meet our goal. Several team members were feeling overwhelmed, and the pressure was affecting their work quality and lead a couple individuals to get pretty emotionally heated at some points. I took on a number of tasks and worked alongside them to ease tension and meet the deadline. My team felt supported knowing I was taking on additional responsibilities and offered a helping hand on their workstreams, so they did not have to compromise the quality of their work. We completed the project on time, and the client was pleased with our results. After reviewing the project's initial planning process, I realized that our timeline and workload were not realistic and lead to continued scope creep. In the future, I pushed to spend more time analyzing the initial planning process, discussing realistic expectations, and planning check-ins to ensure everyone has the resources and support to finish their tasks on time. That way, teammate morale stays high early on, and helps build confidence and motivation to face adversity against stressful situations (like a tight deadline).

What do you do to manage your time and stay on schedule and have your time management skills improved since starting your career?

Onenote notebook of task lists and reminders, block of times on my work ecalendar that I dedicate to lab work, tasks that I need to complete. I've also learned to multitask (when appropriate of course) through online employee meetings,seminars,etc. For example, My wildlife monitoring team was overwhelmed in the early research phase of our project and I noticed we lacked direction in group meetings because so. I created a team OneNote online notebook to track all internal contacts, lessons learned, individual workstreams, helpful documents,etc. This made it easier to weigh design ideas, delagate tasks and consildate learnings and made our meetings more efficient.

What is your least favorite thing about engineering?

Regulatory, but now how to handle with it and won't interfere with my passion for the industry.

How do you motivate a team of engineers when a project is floundering?

Remind team of growth made so far and how motivating it is/ how each failure is one step closer to success. Also, remind team that even if work is temporarily defunded the learnings brought to the company from that project is still value added back, and there is a chance in the future that the similar work is picked back up with new technology.

Tell me about yourself.

Sure! I'm graduating with my master's degree in biomedical engineering at UMN this May. In this program, I had the opportunity to work on two different Medtronic R&D projects. My thesis in the Visible Heart Lab was actually on a next generation pacemaker for Medtronic. Also, with a team of fellow graduate students, I collaborated with Medtronic to develop a wildlife monitoring product and business pitch for a new patient population. In addition to these more recent accomplishments, I have three years of industry experience within Medtronic as a systems engineer and a contracted research scientist. However, I haven't had the opportunity with Medtronic to utilize my undergraduate degree in Mechanical engineering for real hands-on testing and development experience; as this is my skillset that I am most passionate about. I realized this is where my passion lies through capstone projects in school where we developed/ prototyped products for companies with prescribed design requirements. Therefore, I want to look for a role that allows me to start my career as a mechanical engineer, and when I saw this position posted, it sounded like a great opportunity to do so.

Why did you decide to apply for this position? Or.... Why is this a good opportunity?

The first thing I noticed about this company is that you are soley focused on IV therapy. This piqued my interests because I've learned; through Medtronic; that I want the next company I work for to have a focused domain expertise that's advantageous for cross functional collaboration. Specifically, I believe working in a team that is focused on one goal and only one goal is more effective- especially if that goal is to improve the safety and efficiency of IV therapy. I also noticed - specifically to this role - that you are looking for a candidate that is capable of conducting work independently, which I have experience doing for my thesis and for Medtronic on preclinical studies used for risk burndown on several projects. Furthermore, the position is also looking for effective communication cross-functionally, I assume via presentations, reports, face-to-face, etc. I pride myself most on my ability to communicate essentials, efficiently, and in a way that is comprehendible to less technical audiences. I am excited for this role because it would be my first full-time employment as an engineer, and therefore, would allow me to see projects start-to-finish over longer periods of time. I have not had a chance to do this yet, contracted to research projects or as an intern. This position offers experience in the product development process and the post market activities.

If you could go back five years in time, would you do anything differently?

There are a lot of things that I could have done differently, but I wouldn't go back and change them, because my experiences have made me who I am and have led me to where I am today. I've learned more from my mistakes than my successes and view them as challenges to overcome or opportunities to do better the next time.

Difficult work experience and how you delt with it? Or... Describe one situation in which you experienced conflict and resolved it? Tell me about a time when you had to change your planned course of action at the last moment. How did you handle this situation?

Within my last position I was working a team contracted by Medtronic with a teammate who often would get very frustrated about problems with our project that weren't getting solved, just days before we had to meet our end-of-contract deadline. They would often come to me with unconstructive feedback (backtalk) about why we are where we are (I.e., lack of contribution of the other teammates). The first thing I did was listen and let them know that I understand and support how they feel about the situation. I also reestablished unity within our team by helping them initiate a plan of action to address the problems we could solve within our realistic time frame, and then also took full ownership of documenting a knowledge transfer plan including work that needs to be done by Medtronic with a list of suggested contacts to carry on the work when our team dissolves. I learned how to remain constructive to work through issues with coworkers when emotions are at a high. Also, I showed the ability to adapt quickly to implement a plan of action and put in OT to see it through prior to a quickly approaching deadline. I selflessly took on more assignments to resolve this conflict and ensure we could make progress, instead of pointing fingers.

Are you able to multi-task? Can you give me some examples?

Yes, throughout my last position, I was working on at least three projects at any given time. Specifically, I split time between a wildlife monitoring project, my thesis, and a project involving process data and building out a database for a clinical research tool. All three worksteams reported to separate project leads/teams, so it was important to communicate in advance how much work I was able to take on and strategically plan deadlines that would work with my schedule.

What did we not ask that you have an answer for?

Yes... What makes you unique?