Biomedical Engineering Career Advice

[Kristina Agius]

Hi all,

I have just graduated in Mechanical engineering with honours and am highly interested in pursuing a biomedical engineering career.

However I have uncertainties as to what opportunities are available after reaching the masters or PhD level. Are opportunities only present in the academic and research field? Or are more hands-on opportunities, in collaboration with industry, also possible? I am asking this as what I aspire for is designing new prosthetic limbs and other implants, improving performance of athletes through biomechanics analysis and findings in tissue engineering or anything closely related. I would like to know whether the only option to perform such jobs would be to become a researcher or an academic.

As you can see I am quite confused about the matter. Clarification and explanations from experience would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

[Matthew Chua]

Re: Biomedical Engineering Career Advice

There are plenty of job opportunities in the biomed industry in the areas you mentioned. Just anecdotally based on my previous experience doing job searches, for industry positions, I would say that there is a fairly large sector in prosthetics and tissue engineering/biomaterials, and a relatively smaller sector looking at human performance. If you include research/academic positions, then a lot more opportunities in human performance opens up.
Also, in industry, there are a lot more positions looking to hire someone with a bachelor's or masters, whereas a PhD would funnel you towards positions with a research side.
I believe that a mechanical engineering background is very relevant in the biomedical industry areas you mentioned, so you could get probably try to get work for a couple of years in that area and see how you like it, then pursue further education if it will help get you to where you want to be.

[Kristina Agius]

Re: Biomedical Engineering Career Advice

Thanks for your post. It was of great help. I have a couple more questions regarding the bio career:

- What other biomedical engineering sectors exist besides the ones I mentioned?

- Would you be able to provide me with the links or website names which are most used for searching for such industry related jobs?

- Where are these kind of industry related opportunities mostly prominent? America? Europe?

Thanks again!

[Matthew Chua]

Re: Biomedical Engineering Career Advice

There's a lot of other different areas in biomedical engineering. There's imaging, computing, materials, electronics, tissue etc.

I think this biomch l list is probably the most helpful resource for biomechanics and post doc related openings at least. Monster, Linkedin, Indeed, etc are also good places to look.

I'm not certain where these industry related opportunities are most prominent, but there are a good amount of openings posted for positions in America, UK, and other parts of Europe in that order on biomch l at least.