Principal Design Quality Engineer

Job Description

Job Description

About Cleerly

We're Cleerly – a healthcare company that's revolutionizing how heart disease is diagnosed, treated, and tracked. We were founded in 2017 by one of the world's leading cardiologists and are a growing team of world-class engineering, operations, medical affairs, marketing, and sales leaders. We raised $223M in Series C funding in 2022 which has enabled rapid growth and continued support of our mission. In December 2024 we received an additional $106M in a Series C extension funding. Most of our teams work remotely and have access to our offices in Denver, Colorado, New, York, New York, Dallas, Texas, and Lisbon, Portugal with some roles requiring you to be on-site in a location.

Cleerly has created a new standard of care for heart disease through value-based, AI-driven precision diagnostic solutions with the goal of helping prevent heart attacks. Our technology goes beyond traditional measures of heart disease by enabling comprehensive quantification and characterization of atherosclerosis, or plaque buildup, in each of the heart arteries. Cleerly's solutions are supported by more than a decade of performing some of the world's largest clinical trials to identify important findings beyond symptoms that increase a person's risk of heart attacks.

At Cleerly, we collaborate digitally and use a wide variety of systems. Our people use Google Workspace (GMail, Drive, Docs, Sheets, Slides), Slack, Confluence/Jira, and Zoom Video, prior experience in these areas is a plus. Role or department specific technology needs may vary and will be listed as requirements in the job description.

While we are mostly a remote company, travel is required for some team meetings and cross function projects typically once per month or once per quarter, for some roles like sales or external facing roles travel could be up to 90% of the time.

Cleerly is committed to providing safe and effective medical software that meets customer needs and our intended use. The adherence to all applicable regulatory and statutory requirements establishes a clear framework for setting measurable quality objectives. Our commitment to continually improving our products and processes proactively manages risks, ensuring ongoing compliance throughout the entire software lifecycle. Understanding this role's relevance and importance is critical to achieving Cleerly's quality objectives.

About the Team

The Quality and Regulatory team at Cleerly has the mission to empower team members to bring new, safe, and effective products to market and implement a quality foundation to support a patient-focused, innovative heart care organization.

About the Opportunity

The Principal Design Quality Engineer will be expected to contribute to maintaining the safety and efficacy of Cleerly's software medical device products. You will be a key member of the product development team, ensuring that our software medical devices are developed in compliance with our ISO 13485 certified Quality Management System and applicable standards and regulations.

Responsibilities

• Act as the design quality engineering lead on software development project teams, providing guidance and oversight to ensure compliance with the Quality Management System (QMS) and external regulations.
• Review and approve design and development documentation, including user needs, requirements specifications, software architecture, and verification & validation (V&V) plans, protocols, and reports.
• Ensure all design control activities are compliant with ISO 13485, IEC 62304, and FDA 21 CFR Part 820.
• Facilitate, document, and maintain risk management activities according to ISO 14971 throughout the product lifecycle, from initial concept through post-market surveillance.
• Collaborate with engineering teams to ensure test methodologies are robust, effective, and well-documented for verifying and validating the software medical device.
• Maintain the Design History File (DHF) for assigned projects, ensuring they are complete, accurate, and ready for audits and regulatory inspections.
• Provide quality oversight for the software development lifecycle (SDLC) within an agile development environment, ensuring quality is built into the process.
• Participate in design reviews, technical reviews, and other project meetings to ensure quality considerations are addressed and integrated.
• Participate in software issue triage to determine risk of issues to the medical device and aid in development prioritization.
• Support the investigation of design-related complaints and contribute to Corrective and Preventive Action (CAPA) activities as required.
• Team leader who, in conjunction with management, designs and drives team-wide and company-wide training in the above areas.

Requirements

• Bachelor's degree in engineering, computer science, or a related engineering discipline.
• 12+ years of experience in a Design Quality or Quality Engineering role within the medical device industry, with a strong focus on software as a medical device (SaMD).
• Excellent analytical and problem-solving skills with a high degree of attention to detail.
• In-depth, practical knowledge of ISO 13485, with extensive experience in Product Realization processes.
• Proven experience applying IEC 62304 (Medical device software - software life cycle processes) and ISO 14971 (Application of risk management to medical devices).
• Strong understanding of FDA Quality System Regulation (21 CFR Part 820) and familiarity with other global medical device regulations (e.g., EU MDR).
• Hands-on experience with modern software development and testing tools such as GitHub for source control, TestRail for test case management, and CI/CD pipelines.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to work effectively in cross-functional, remote teams.
• ASQ certification (e.g., CSQE, CQE) is a plus.
• Travel to Cleerly's office locations is expected (Denver, New York) approximately twice per year.

The base salary range for this role varies by location and is aligned to market benchmarks.

• Candidates located in higher-cost labor markets , including California, Washington, New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Washington, DC represent the middle to high end of the range, while candidates located in all other U.S. locations represent the low to middle end of the range.
• Final compensation is determined based on location, experience, skills, and internal equity.

This role is eligible for a 15% target annual bonus , resulting in the following base salary and Total Target Compensation (TTC) ranges:

• Base Salary: $145,000 - $160,000
• TTC: $166,000 - $184,000

*Total Target Compensation (TTC): Total Cash Compensation (including base pay, variable pay, commission, bonuses, etc.) Additionally, stock options, paid benefits, and employee perks are part of your total rewards.

Working at Cleerly takes HEART. Discover our Core Values:

• H: Humility - be a servant leader
• E: Excellence - deliver world-changing results
• A: Accountability - do what you say; expect the same from others
• R: Remarkable - inspire & innovate with impact
• T: Teamwork - together we win

Don't meet 100 percent of the qualifications? Apply anyway and help us diversify our candidate pool and workforce. We value experience, whether gained formally or informally on the job or through other experiences. Job duties, activities and responsibilities are subject to change by our company.

OUR COMPANY IS AN EQUAL OPPORTUNITY EMPLOYER. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, color, national origin, ancestry, citizenship status, protected veteran status, religion, physical or mental disability, marital status, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, age, or any other basis protected by law, ordinance, or regulation.

For more information see our Privacy Policy (-policy). All official emails will come from @cleerlyhealth.com email accounts.

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