S5E15 Derek Harper | The Benefits of Working At A Small Company, & How to Motivate Your Engineering Team

Being an Engineer

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Derek Harper shares his experiences in engineering innovation in the medical field, including insights on career development and effective leadership strategies.

Main Topics:

• Engineering career paths
• Medical device development
• Leading engineering teams
• Leadership styles
• Emerging trends in biomedical engineering like biologics and brain chips.

About the guest: Derek Harper is a seasoned professional in the biomedical engineering field with a rich history of innovation and leadership. Derek's career has spanned various roles and has been instrumental in developing and introducing groundbreaking medical devices and technologies. Engineers listening to this episode will gain invaluable insights from Derek's experiences, learning about the challenges and triumphs of engineering in the medical field, leadership, and the intersection of engineering innovation and market needs.

Links:
Derek Harper - LinkedIn

About Being An Engineer

The Being An Engineer podcast is a repository for industry knowledge and a tool through which engineers learn about and connect with relevant companies, technologies, people resources, and opportunities. We feature successful mechanical engineers and interview engineers who are passionate about their work and who made a great impact on the engineering community.

The Being An Engineer podcast is brought to you by Pipeline Design & Engineering. Pipeline partners with medical & other device engineering teams who need turnkey equipment such as cycle test machines, custom test fixtures, automation equipment, assembly jigs, inspection stations and more. You can find us on the web at www.teampipeline.us

Capitoli

1. S5E15 Derek Harper | The Benefits of Working At A Small Company, & How to Motivate Your Engineering Team (00:00:00)

2. Introduction to the podcast guest Derek Harper and his biomedical engineering background (00:00:05)

3. What initially drew Derek to become an engineer due to curiosity about how things work (00:02:28)

4. Valuable experience gained from working at a small startup company where Derek had to wear many hats (00:10:05)

5. Lesson learned from a product failure where surgeons' opinions did not align with market needs, requiring a redesign (00:16:59)

6. Effective leadership strategies like involving team members, communicating vision, and treating people with respect (00:22:21)

7. Emerging trends in biomedical engineering like brain chips and the interface between devices and the human body (00:28:34)

8. Project Derek is most proud of involving a nanofiber scaffold for tendon repair and regeneration (00:32:56)