Research Engineer (Wearable Sensing & Digital Biomarkers for Heart Failure Monitoring)

About TUMCREATE

TUMCREATE is a multidisciplinary research platform of the Technical University of Munich (TUM) at the Singapore Campus for Research Excellence and Technological Enterprise (CREATE). We are partnering with universities, public agencies, and industry to advance future technologies.

Our public-private research partnership program, HEARTwise - Heart Failure Assessment with Reliable Technology using Wearables and In Vitro Diagnostics - is funded by Singapore’s National Research Foundation (NRF) and represents a collaborative effort between the Technical University of Munich (TUM), the National University Health System (NUHS), theNational Heart Centre Singapore (NHCS), and the National University ofSingapore (NUS).

As a member of the HEARTwise team, you will collaborate within an interdisciplinary consortium comprising leading experts in cardiology, telemedicine, biomedical engineering, acoustics, data privacy,and industry.

Please visit www.tum-create.edu.sg for more information about TUMCREATE.

The Role

Background & ScientificContext

Heart failure (HF) affects 2.5% of Singapore's population and is the leading cardiac cause of hospital admission — presenting a decade earlier and more aggressively than in Europe or North America. The 30% rehospitalization rate within 90 days of discharge is both a major clinical burden and a window of opportunity for early, data-driven intervention.

We are looking for a hands-on Research Engineer to build the sensing backbone of HEARTwise and bring it from the lab into the clinic and the patient's home. The role is centered on the actibelt® wearable platform — a body-worn inertial sensing system with a mature clinical track record, an established algorithm library, and a deep recorded-data ecosystem.

You will work across hardware and software — integrating sensors, building the pipelines that capture and move their data, and helping take a clinical study from setup to reliable real-world data. It is a role for someone who enjoys owning a system from end to end, from the sensor on the patient to the data the clinicians see, and who works well across a multidisciplinary, multi-site team.

This is a fixed term contract until March 2029.

What You Will Do

Bring multimodal monitoring into the clinic and the home.

• Evaluate and select one or two digital stethoscopes (clean interfacing, time stamped capture) and integrate them alongside actibelt.
• Build the software to capture synchronized mobility and auscultation data in two settings — in-clinic validation and daily at-home recordings(tablet/phone-based, with Bluetooth/USB upload from the devices) — in patient groups for whom the 6-minute walk test is an established assessment.
• Support the design and running of the clinical pilot (≈35 HF patients + a reference cohort, at NHCS/NUHCS): data capture, synchronization,quality control, and device usability.

Shape the integration approach.

• Weigh where to build in-house against where to integrate existing tooling — for example, working with established clinical-device-integration partners to bring actibelt, and potentially further signals such as wrist-worn heart rate or cuff blood pressure, into a shared clinical-trial toolbox. You will help drive this from concept through to a working system.

Coordinate and communicate across the project.

• Work closely with the clinical teams (CADENCE clinicians at NHCS/NUHCS), the engineering groups at TUM and TUMCREATE, and external technology partners —aligning on requirements, data, schedules, and study logistics.
• Serve as a clear link between the engineering and clinical sides, and across the Singapore–Munich axis, keeping the multimodal-monitoring work moving across a multi-partner consortium.

Support the wearable in the field.

• Contribute to usability and to adapting the wearable's form, fit, and comfort for the study's patient populations and settings.

Research and share.

• Pursue methodological questions within the project's scope; publish and present your results; and contribute to the CACOM lecture series (Clinical Applications of Computational Medicine, TUM).

Beyond the Core Project

The actibelt platform continues to evolve, and this role offers scope to help shape what it senses next. One direction of particular interest to HEARTwise is continuous, skin-worn cardiac and body-sound sensing — an always-on complement to the intermittent digital stethoscope, and a natural extension of the wearable. We would welcome a colleague who wants to explore new sensing modalities here and bring their own ideas to the platform's development.

Requirements

• Bachelor's degree (or equivalent) in Biomedical or Electrical Engineering, Materials Science, Computer Science, Data Science, Physics, or a closely related field.
• Hands-one xperience developing wearable or biomedical sensors/devices, from concept through working prototype.
• Solid programming and signal-processing skills (Python and/or MATLAB; time-series /sensor data), and comfort interfacing sensors with micro controllers.
• A practical, ownership-driven approach — resourceful, and able to take a system through to something that works reliably.
• Strong communication and coordination skills in English — comfortable working across engineering and clinical teams within an international, multi-site project.
• Experience with flexible / printed sensors, electrodes, or novel sensing materials.
• Entrepreneurial or translational experience — taking a device from idea to prototype (and beyond).
• Familiarity with clinical or physiological data, or with clinical-research settings.
• Interest in mobility, acoustic, or cardiovascular sensing.

What We Offer

• Deep access to the actibelt® platform, its algorithm library and data ecosystem, and to real-world clinical datasets.
• Real ownership of your work, and the opportunity to help shape how the platform develops.
• Joint mentorship across TUM Munich and TUMCREATE Singapore, engagement with CADENCE clinicians, and links to the Munich ecosystem (including Trium, the maker of actibelt).
• Support for conference participation, publication, and visits to Munich.

Application

Please submit: a CV; a short motivation letter, academic transcripts and contact details for two referees.