Jobs – September, 2015

Please see below some of my immediate opportunities.  Post doc and contract opportunities are for candidates located in the United States.  But there are some new opportunities below that are located in India, for anyone wishing to do a stint in India, in very exciting, cutting edge multinational.  When sending your resume, please include details on your current compensation and compensation expectations.  Also, include in the email a short summary of your background and your key strengths. Please send resumes to wd_darshana at hot mail dot com.

VP of Engineering – Santa Clara, CA

There is an immediate opening for VP of Engineering for design services company, in Santa Clara, CA.

Requirements: Requirements include experience managing hardware and firmware projects including managing several teams of engineers, skill at interfacing with customers including outstanding communication skills & skill at quick understanding of the crux of a problem & solutions.  Although automated process is in place, candidate must have project management skills and experience.  Additionally, the candidate must have skill to understand the customer’s needs and desires, communicate them to engineers & to communicate back to the customer the opportunities & limitations in meeting their goals.

Sometimes, work starts early, before specifications are clear, as the company is called to do feasibility work to determine what can be done or how it can be done.  The company attempts to help customers become successful by requesting specifications or helping them write specifications that are clear and complete enough for senior engineers to complete the work with high quality, on time, and on budget.  It is highly desired to have design experience with hardware (analog or digital), firmware, or software.  It is desired to be skilled at writing proposals.  This is an opportunity to join a small team of high performing engineers and grow the staff as the company grows.

This is a rapidly growing product development company with a reputation for completing difficult projects on time and on budget.  The company designs devices, firmware, and software for other companies and has a track record to respond quickly, provide high quality work, and move on to other projects when done.  The company brings strong experience in working with sensors, wireless, and motion control.  Clients include companies making wearable devices, home health, products for the aging, medical devices, industrial devices, and others in fascinating and challenging fields.  

Post-docs – Engineering – ME, EE, Biochemistry, Pharmaceutical Sciences – CA & TX
Requires excellent and proven hands-on problem solving skills.

Senior Biochemistry Scientist – San Jose, CA
details to follow but feel free to send resume.

Immediate contract Engineering Opportunities – San Jose, CA

• Electrical Engineering & Software
• Analog Design
• PCB Layout (FR4, Flex etc.)
• ASIC Design
• Embedded Systems
• TI MSP430, ARM, Cypress
• Software (Windows, Linux, C++, Android, iOS)
• Sensors
• RF Communications
• Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, 3G, 4G, GPS
• Antenna Design
• RF Test Labs
• Test Engineering
• Test Hardware & Software

Opportunities in India are posted in August JOBS posting.

Healthcare Track Preview at TiEcon 2015

Healthcare industry is poised to go through impressive transformation, in the coming decade.  What some experts have dubbed a 3D transformation, changes in life sciences are happening through massive changes in Diagnostics, Digital Devices, and Data.

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Consider this.  TiEcon, the largest entrepreneurship conference, focused for several years on computing, storage, hardware, software, firmware, semi conductors, gaming and mobile technologies.  HealthTech was not the focus at TiEcon.  But HeathTech has recently emerged as one of the hottest areas to invest. Besides offering a special healthcare focused track, on day 2, May 16th, healthtech is integrally woven in most of the other tracks, at TiEcon 2015.  Technology has impacted all areas of our lives such that no entrepreneur could look at any industry as a silo.  To register go to https://www.123signup.com/register?id=ygszb&ref=4182698 to get a $100 discount on the two-day conference at the non-member rate.  When prompted, enter the promo code VOL500 at checkout:

In fact, most of the disruptive innovation is happening on the boundaries of disciplines.  This is most pertinent in life science, hospitals and healthcare, healthtech, biotech, pharma, drug development, medtech, digital health, mobile health, wearables space.  Every new intersection point between health and an emerging technology, brings its own terminology.  Collectively, the aim is to positively transform the quality of lives of healthy and sick people.  So how is life science focus woven across several tracks at TiEcon?

John Kapoor, a serial entrepreneur, who is number 577 on Forbes Billionaire List, is going to give a grand keynote address on day 2, Saturday.  Kapoor, whose net worth is estimated at $3.5B, has founded and guided two pharmaceutical companies, Insys Therapeutics and Akorn Pharmaceuticals and led them to exceptional success.  Pharmaceutical industry is slowly but surely changing to innovate faster, cheaper, more cost efficient process of drug development.  Here is link to my recent blog on novel approaches to drug development http://bit.ly/1xzpdFx .

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Here is another interesting keynote to watch out for.  After helping coin the term, “Data Scientist”, while still in the academia, D. J. Patil did some initial work on deciphering the complexity of the weather patterns and impact of bioweapons proliferation in Central Asia.  Here is link to my blog on Patil in 2013 http://bit.ly/YYyOxd .  After stints in eBay, PayPal and LinkedIn, Patil was appointed by President Obama, as Chief Data Scientist at the White House. Among other responsibilities, Patil will work on the Administration’s Precision Medicine Initiative, focusing on utilizing advances in data to enable clinicians select most effective treatments.  Here IBM’s Watson, an artificial intelligence system with access to millions and millions of pages of structured and unstructured data, to help in efficient diagnosis and suggest possible avenues for treatment, deserves special mention.  Here is my link to Dave Farucci’s keynote at TiEcon, several years ago http://bit.ly/JOZmwH .

Besides the keynotes and healthcare representation on panels in other tracks, Day 2 focused Healthcare track panels will address such varied topics as role of “Medical Devices in a Changing Landscape” and “Trials and Tribulations of Adopting Technology in Hospitals”.  Eminent speakers include, MD and CEO at Good Samaritan Hospital, Paul Beaupre;  Anupam Pathak, Founder & CEO of Lift Labs, acquired by Google X, Brett Knappe, Senior Director of Strategy at Medtronic; Satnam Alag, VP, Software, Illumina; and Darius Naigamwalla, President at Campbell Alliance.  Representation from technology rich companies such as IBM, GE, Google X, and Tibco, in discussions on healthcare, along with medtech and big pharma companies like Medtronic, J&J, 23&me, Illumina and Genentech AND representation from healthcare providers like Good Sam, will make for very rich dialogue.  Register for TiEcon at https://www.123signup.com/register?id=ygszb&ref=4182698 to get a $100 discount on the two-day conference at the non-member rate.  When prompted, enter the promo code VOL500 at checkout:

Wearable Technology (Focus in Healthcare track #TiEcon 2014)

Google and Apple have both fueled an ecosystem of apps for smartphones and tablets. Now Google has unveiled new software tools to help developers make apps for wearable devices.  So how big is the market potential for wearable devices?  According to Business Intelligence Research, wearables will transform the way we interact with our devices and they will become indispensable for monitoring body’s vital signs.  According to their conservative forecast, this may be a $12 Billion market.  Other estimates forecast the market for wearable computers to reach $20 billion in sales by 2016.

The vision of wearable sector is to interweave technology into everyday aspects of life.  Besides sports, athletics, and chronic disease monitoring, of particular interest is also the aging market.  Consider the US population demographics.  An American turns 50, every 7 seconds.  More people were 65+ in 2010 than in any previous censors.  As people age, there is greater likelihood of chronic diseases, falling, forgetting, medical adherence challenges and so on.  Also people prefer to live independently.  Wearable devices however, may not be panacea, if not designed and developed appropriately.  There are many challenges to developing these products.  Here is a link to my earlier post on “Challenges & Opportunities in Developing Products for Older Adults” – http://bit.ly/MqiC9E .

Healthcare system is undergoing a massive transformation.  Engaged consumers and better informed healthcare personnel will be an integral part of the new healthcare system.  Wearable computing devices will become absolutely necessary aspect of the changing healthcare landscape.  At Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, wearables was one of the hottest sector.  While Fitbit, Basis, Jawbone, Pebble smart watches and Google Glass have been in the news, there are many werable devices in various stages of commercialization.  Innovators are working on putting sensors in socks, on wrists, in jewelry, even in a bra.  A new bra from a Japanese company Ravijour unhooks when you are in love (the embedded sensor analyzes the heart rate and springs open at the right moment).  But more importantly, a healthtech company, First Warning Systems, is getting ready to go into clinical trials with its wearable bra, designed to spot early signs of breast cancer.   

Indeed the future of wearable technology is a wide open landscape right now and much will be painted on it.  Healthcare track at TiEcon 2014 on May, 17 will focus on the future of wearable devices.  Register at www.tiecon.org.  Early bird price is available till midnight of March 10.