At Capstan Medical, we’re building one of the most exciting and innovative companies in medtech—developing a first-of-its-kind robotic platform for minimally invasive heart valve treatment. Our team combines surgical robotics, catheter-based delivery, and next-generation implants to transform complex procedures into safer, lower-stress solutions for patients and clinicians alike. As a highly collaborative, hands-on team, we move fast, wear multiple hats, and believe the best ideas can come from anyone.
Based in Santa Cruz, our unique workspace blends cutting-edge Bay Area innovation with a lifestyle-driven environment near trails, beaches, and open space—creating the perfect place to do meaningful, career-defining work.
What You’ll Do:
- Collaborate with Manufacturing and Clinical teams for feedback on designs, incorporating this feedback into quick and effective design iterations. Lead and set direction for mechanical design efforts, owning cross-functional mechanical deliverables and technical strategy
- Participate in building and bringing up prototype robotic systems and support all things mechanical in their pre-clinical lab use.
- Align individual work to best support company goals. Proactively identify cross-functional risks and lead resolution strategies in collaboration with key stakeholders
- Document and communicate learnings on design manufacturability and reliability to the broader hardware team, mentoring others in best practices and scalable design approaches
- Document and communicate your work through design reviews and as appropriate released documents as part of the product development process
- Identify gaps and pitch in as needed to ensure that the team meets their goals and objectives, driving alignment across teams when priorities conflict
- Provide mentorship to the team on best practices and design strategies, and be a valuable partner in design collaboration and reviews.
What You’ll Need:
- BS in Mechanical Engineering or related engineering discipline, or equivalent work experience
- Expecting 8+ years of relevant experience (medical device experience preferred)
- Comfort working with high levels of ambiguity and an ability to convert that into tangible outcomes
- Experience with designing, manufacturing transfer, and shipping of medical device capital equipment or equivalent complexity systems
- Understanding of sensor and actuator selection.
- Experience with medical device (or equivalent) development process, design control, design verification, and regulatory processes
- Ability to work in a hybrid work environment, working onsite in Santa Cruz on average 4 days a week
Ways To Stand Out:
- Experience with the full commercial lifecycle from concept through reacting to and addressing field issues with your designs.
- Skills with Python or Matlab for data analysis, simulation, and interacting with robotic equipment.
- Excessive nerdiness about manufacturing, mechanisms, robots, or any other adjacencies.
Why Join Us:
- We offer a fun, fast-paced, collaborative environment where you will be working on transformational technologies in the cardiac healthcare space.
- We offer outstanding benefits with medical, dental, and vision covered at 100% for you and your family, as well as flex time off.
- We thrive in our work-hard, play-hard environment. Bring your bike or running shoes if you’d like or just be ready to enjoy a fun office outing. We enjoy time inside the office and out!
Skills Required
- BS in Mechanical Engineering or related discipline, or equivalent work experience
- 8+ years of relevant experience (medical device experience preferred)
- Experience designing, transferring to manufacturing, and shipping medical device capital equipment or equivalent complexity systems
- Understanding of sensor and actuator selection
- Experience with medical device development processes, design control, design verification, and regulatory processes
- Comfort working with high levels of ambiguity and converting that into tangible outcomes
- Ability to work onsite in Santa Cruz on average 4 days per week (hybrid)
- Experience with full commercial lifecycle from concept through field issue resolution
- Skills with Python or Matlab for data analysis, simulation, and interacting with robotic equipment
What We Do
Capstan Medical is a developer of robotic-enabled, minimally invasive solutions for treating structural heart disease. By merging surgical robotics with catheter-based technology and next-generation implants, the company aims to provide a patient-optimized approach to repair and replace heart valves, offering a significantly less invasive alternative to traditional open-heart surgery to improve patient outcomes and reduce recovery times.
