Matt discusses his career path in medical device engineering and leadership insights. He shares how he developed a passion for understanding how things work from a young age and pursued biomedical engineering. Matt discusses developing grit and perseverance, managing stress and ambiguity in leadership roles, and balancing sustaining vs. new products.
Main Topics:
About the guest: Matt Zachek holds a Bachelor’s degree and PhD in biomedical engineering and is currently the Sr Director of R&D at Werfen, leaders in specialized diagnostics in the areas of Hemostasis, Acute Care Diagnostics, Transfusion, Autoimmunity, and Transplant. Skilled in product roadmapping, stakeholder management, and product delivery in the medical device, pharmaceutical and diagnostic device spaces, Matt is a strategic thinker with a passion for bringing new ideas to life and a talent for fostering a culture of collaboration and creativity.
Links:
Matt Zachek - 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
Matt discusses his career path in medical device engineering and leadership insights. He shares how he developed a passion for understanding how things work from a young age and pursued biomedical engineering. Matt discusses developing grit and perseverance, managing stress and ambiguity in leadership roles, and balancing sustaining vs. new products.
Main Topics:
About the guest: Matt Zachek holds a Bachelor’s degree and PhD in biomedical engineering and is currently the Sr Director of R&D at Werfen, leaders in specialized diagnostics in the areas of Hemostasis, Acute Care Diagnostics, Transfusion, Autoimmunity, and Transplant. Skilled in product roadmapping, stakeholder management, and product delivery in the medical device, pharmaceutical and diagnostic device spaces, Matt is a strategic thinker with a passion for bringing new ideas to life and a talent for fostering a culture of collaboration and creativity.
Links:
Matt Zachek - 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
Hi everyone, we've set up this being an engineer podcast as an industry knowledge repository, if you will, we hope it'll be a tool where engineers can learn about and connect with other companies, technologies, people, resources and opportunities. So make some connections and enjoy the show.
Matt Zachek:I've always felt I had kind of a different gear sometimes in terms of drives, and you can have all the talent you can have all the education but the application of that is something that really sets people apart.
Aaron Moncur:Hello, and welcome to the being an engineer Podcast. Today we're speaking with Matt Zachek who holds a bachelor's degree and PhD in Biomedical Engineering and is currently the senior director of R&D at Werfen. Leaders in specialized diagnostics in the areas of hemostasis, acute care, diagnostics, transfusion, auto immunity and transplant, skilled in product roadmapping stakeholder management and product delivery in the medical device, pharmaceutical and
Matt Zachek:Hey, thanks for having me on. diagnostic device spaces. Matt is a strategic thinker with a
Aaron Moncur:Well, can we start by telling us all how you passion for bringing new ideas to life, and a talent for decided to become an engineer? fostering a culture of collaboration and creativity.
Matt Zachek:Great question. I'm sure everyone has their own Matt, thanks so much for joining me on the show today. matriculation story as to how they ended up in the engineering field. But for me, it really started when I was a kid, much to my parents frustration, I was always taking apart things in the house, not always putting them back together the right way, but had a passion for understanding how things work. And then from a medical perspective, my entire family is in the medical field. So really being in and around that technology, and understanding from our patient perspective, how to improve the outcomes there, as well as seeing how that directly affected patients was really the reason I really wanted to get into the medical field as well. So I was always drawn to that. So formulated my educational background around that as well. And you know, I haven't looked back sounds
Aaron Moncur:Terrific. Thinking back to when you were a kid, can you remember what was one of the most fun things that you took apart? And hopefully put back together? Yeah,
Matt Zachek:no, it's it's a funny one. You know, I, this may be dating myself a little bit, but I couldn't for the life of me figure out how the VCR used to work. So I can recall, you know, thinking of the tape, how did the tape get on the screen, taking apart looking at it, seeing how the magnetic strips would be read and how that would be processed. I clearly didn't understand all that as a kid but wanted to understand how all the different electronics to gears etc, really drove, you know, the the mechanical aspects of taking the tape down and and pulling it apart and reading it. And how that ultimately ended up on the screen was just something I you know, can remember, I've taken apart, but I don't think that one got back together. I was gonna ask if it worked out why is probably memorable.
Aaron Moncur:Well, that's awesome. That is a true engineer mentality right there. Right. Curiosity and mechanical aptitude. Love it. That's a great, great story. All right. Well, you are a leader right now in the medical device engineering space. And I'm sure there are people out there listening thinking to themselves, I would like to be in that type of role someday. And wondering, How did Matt get there? What are some things the most influential factors you can think of that allowed you to to climb to this position? Yeah,
Matt Zachek:another great question. So I think it starts first, with just having strong technical foundations, you know, as I mentioned, really pursued that purpose that I ultimately had in school where I really wanted to understand what what was my what was my core foundation, and for me, that ended up being more of a mechanical focus, as well as ultimately biosensors as well. And that allowed me to really have something to always go back to whenever I was faced with a challenge problem. I could have some core discipline that I can extract, a way of solving a problem from but I think also technically, it's something that you get a little bit in the in the biomedical engineering spaces around disciplines that ultimately allow you to solve the problem at hand. So I was able to not only do that from my educational background, Um, as I got into industry really had a lot of different types of experiences that allowed me to really get that breadth, and really not just personally but lead teams through solving problems and elegant ways that didn't rely too much on one particular discipline. And I think through those different opportunities, it's really, that foundation really opens up more doors to allow me to be ready when new opportunities came in. They, for example, even spent 1.6, or eight months doing a sales role. You know, I was reading a technical problem that ended up were a different technical solution that was more customer facing, ended up being something that was more desirable to the company, and took a took a pivot and to be able to do that, but had I not had the breadth of technical foundation to say, Yeah, I'm I can, I can think about how to download data from customers parse it, and use it, record it back in a way that is interpretable to them, wouldn't have been ready for that role to take that different track, which ultimately helps, because I think the second piece, if any r&d leadership position, is really understanding what I'll call the business of r&d, where you have to really understand how are you optimizing your investments in a portfolio? What is that? What is the outcome of every initiative that you're doing? So that you can you can maximize the return on investment for company yourself, and your department as well, in terms of investing in skills. So I think that's more on the technical skill set side, I you know, personal, I've always felt that I had kind of a different gear, sometimes in terms of drives. And I'll use maybe an overused term for now, but grit and perseverance. But I think it's really something that surely, you can have all the talent, you can have all the education, but the application of that is something that really sets people apart. It's the, you know, Michael Jordan's Kobe Bryant's of the world, waking up at 4am. And getting in the gym before everybody else, to really put in your 10,000 hours is, especially in the beginning of a career is extremely important to be able to put in that time and, and be able to migrate standpoint to overcome obstacles as they're coming up was something I tell the team, if it was, if it was easy, it'd be done already. So being able to possess that and have that that Northstar that, you know, you want to drive towards and continue to break barriers and push push boundaries to get there is really something that I think embodies how I've been able to get to my position. That's
Aaron Moncur:terrific. I love that you spend some time in sales. I think that's, I think that's a life skill that, you know, everyone should spend some time learning sales, it's so important. Yeah.
Matt Zachek:You know, and it's, it's often something that I would think that, you know, engineers may shy away from a, you know, I think it is, though really important to have empathy for whatever customer you're trying to solve for, and, and create solutions where it's not to say that engineers can't do it, in fact that I think, yeah, a lot of times customers, particularly the medical space, really appreciate seeing engineers that are trying to solve their problems and are really willing to work with you to be reach out mutual beneficial solution. Yeah,
Aaron Moncur:for sure. Going back to the the grit and perseverance, were there any habits or routines or rituals that you had over the years to develop that grit and perseverance?
Matt Zachek:It's a good question. I, you know, I think developing the I don't want to call it a robotic methodology. But I think we all are creatures of habit to a certain degree. You know, I have my my very specific morning routine, I get up all will exercise and get a little sunlight. And if it's that time of year, get to get to work roughly around the same time kind of get into my morning routine. And I think just having that that discipline kind of takes out the the the mental bandwidth of how you what decisions you have to make, because that routine is already part of part of your DNA. And that allows you to expand that a mental bandwidth on things that need to be more job critical. So it may be a boring answer, but it definitely has helped me in terms of getting getting disciplined and really ensure that I can focus on overcoming those obstacles from Maritza.
Aaron Moncur:Now, I'm the same way I have my routine and I do not enjoy departing from it. Do you listen to the Huberman lab podcast ever
Matt Zachek:It's just interesting that you brought that up. I have started to get that in into my morning routine and starting to use that to a certain degree. I tried the cold shower thing for a little bit.
Aaron Moncur:No, I haven't done that myself more than once or twice. But you mentioned the sunlight thing. Andrew Huberman, he talks about the sunlight all the time. That's like his go to thing.
Matt Zachek:Yeah, it's from that perspective. My dad's sleep medicine doctor. And so circadian rhythm, understanding how you can reset your biological clock has always been something that's been preached as staying around the home. So there is some truth to that. And I'm sure everybody's been able to kind of experience that in the morning. And throughout the day, it's really helpful to get you going to seven, eight hours a night.
Aaron Moncur:Terrific. All right. Well, as you've kind of climbed the ladder, so to speak, moved into more leadership positions, have you ever felt a sense of imposter syndrome? Or has it always been not? I got this 100% confident in my ability to get the job done?
Matt Zachek:Yeah. You know, and I know, that's an another interesting topic that's gets floated around, particularly as of late and, you know, I would I hope it's, it doesn't sound like I'm an egomaniac. If I say no, but I think in general, the, in a leadership role in your organization, having anxiety is just means that you care about your job, it means that that anxiety will always be present. But in terms of feeling like, I don't deserve a role, or I don't, don't feel like I'm able to perform. I haven't had that there's probably a few reasons why. I think from an early stage, when I got into the industry, and even I spent a little bit of time in startup in Germany, with with a pretty small company, seeing senior leaders and having personal conversations with them. It really lets you know that not everything, nobody knows everything. And, you know, I was a little frustrated by that, to be honest, early in my career and say, I know the secret senior leaders, they have high level positions, they should know all the answers to everything. And that you talk to people and people are human, they they don't know everything. And it's good to know that even at senior levels, that that there's still going to be ambiguity, there's still going to be things that you have to figure out and knowing that that's part of the job is okay. And I think that lowers the, the anxiety level about, particularly with engineers who wants to feel like there's a right answer that there's perfection to be sought in every level. It's it's, it's good to know that, you know, when you're in and around good leadership that that's it's really about, can you manage that ambiguity in front of you? Are you able to, to lead teams through through those things, to get to the end goal, rather than to have all the right answers, I think, lowers that the imposter, say anxiety, because they're seeking perfection in terms of perfect problem solve solution, or product or organizational structure, perfect, doesn't really exist, and managing how to how to optimize that situation. And managing teams through that is, I think, the hallmark of getting to good leadership, but without having to feel like you have all the answers.
Aaron Moncur:Yeah, that's a really healthy way to think about it. I'm going to share something tangentially here, I, I felt maybe a little bit of impostor syndrome from time to time, during my career, I don't think it's been a big thing or like debilitating to that level. But I felt it here. And there. More than that, though, what I have experienced is stress, I feel stress. I think that's one of my like, that's my big challenges managing stress. And in recently, I had this epiphany that maybe everyone else knows this already. And I'm just late to the party that could very well be. But the epiphany I had was that for me anyway. Having a positive attitude is not necessarily the right way to get through stress, right? People tell you well just think positively. And don't get me wrong. I think it's important to be positive, it's certainly a lot better to be positive than to have a negative attitude for sure. But personally, I have always felt like having a positive attitude was almost fake, in a way, right? It wasn't action oriented. And it was almost like I was telling myself a lie. And so the epiphany I had is that instead of being instead of having a positive attitude for me, anyway, and I think this is true for most action oriented people. It's more important to have a productive attitude to when you start to feel that stress. Think to yourself, Okay, this is not just an emotion that I need to like, allow to dwell in my My body in my mind and feel, you know, anxiety and, and negative emotions about this is an indication to me that there's a problem and some action needs to be taken. And I just need to figure out what that action is and take the action. It's just a notification system. That's what stress. And so anyway, lately, I've been thinking about that. And instead of just having a positive attitude, I think to myself, Okay, here's an opportunity to have a productive attitude. So
Matt Zachek:it's a great add on site, because I find that not only do people have anxiety organizations have anxiety as well. And the same, the same philosophy and apply to an organization where, you know, when, in the absence of a plan, people will act, and they act in a cloud like fashion. And it really can, can spiral and create more anxiety, because as people go off on tangents, they find new things, and they all are pulling in different directions. But as soon as someone's able to pull that together, create an action plan to say this is how we lower the ambiguity in that the anxiety level, not just people individually, but as an organization decreases, and they say, yes, okay, I understand how we're going to get from point A to point B. And I can manage the large chunks by breaking it up into very small, manageable bites that we can achieve. And I think once people do see that, the, like I said, the stress level goes, that doesn't always go away, because sometimes that plan can be very aggressive. But at least from a ingenuity perspective, it can really lower the anxiety.
Aaron Moncur:I had not thought about that from an organizational standpoint. So I love that you brought that up. That's a really interesting way to think about it as well. And I think you're right about that. Let's talk about trends in medical device manufacturing. What kind of trends are you seeing these days, whether it's some type of new process or cost of materials, or anything else that comes to mind? But what kind of trends are you seeing in medical device manufacturing?
Matt Zachek:Yeah, from a manufacturing standpoint, and I'll be I'm in r&d, so I'll buy us a little bit towards how it how it, how it plays into overall product development. But, you know, in terms of, of manufacturing, I think the continued evolution of robotics and 3d printing for some industries, is really opens up design freedom. I saw a presentation not too long ago, with 3d metal printing, and what how that affords the engineers a little bit more design flexibility, because of your not hampered by, let's say, traditional process and tools in that way, too. And ultimately, that's always with the eye towards what outcome can be improved by that. I think from a product development process standpoint, another trend that I see. And it may not be new for many industries, but in the medical device industry, which sometimes can lag behind in terms of process, getting in getting manufacturing personnel earlier and engaged much earlier in the design process, to avoid iterations and inefficiency and, and complexity as you try to develop manufacturing processes for the design that's developed. Getting those folks in much earlier and doing design for manufacturability assessments. And really driving that in an earlier stage can really help accelerate projects and goals, I find that the old throw it over the wall, that not only is not affected from a project perspective, but can really heighten tension between groups and create a culture of people feeling like there's not a good understanding or empathy for what they do on both sides of that. So having the team all integrated from an early stage marching towards single objectives with the overall let's say, key business objectives, work or customer in mind, can really help frame from a overall design perspective and project costs, as well. Yeah,
Aaron Moncur:definitely getting all those stakeholders involved early on. That's great. Thinking about the the engineering teams and the individual engineers that you've worked with to date, what are some of the traits or behaviors or habits that you see in the most successful engineers or engineering teams? Yeah.
Matt Zachek:Great, great question. I think from a from an engineering standpoint, I think I mentioned before that, you know, I had a really good foundational experience. And I think, within every technical discipline, that's something that I really appreciate is an engineers ability to Take a problem or, or device performance or unneeded, unneeded customer divider, and really break it down not just conceptually but into the specific first principles of engineering to really understand deeply how to affect the performance or was or solve the problem. I think really being able to derive it in terms of the actual engineering is something I really look for folks that can get from the I understand that this may solve the problem, too, I actually have empirically derived exactly the, the, the specific lever to pull in order to affect that device. And I think being able to dive really deep in that way, and also, from an engineering perspective, be able to communicate it to the relevant folks that can take action on it back to the action plan is something that I think is, is really impactful, the faster and more efficient communication can happen, the more efficient the organization can become a small, but it really starts with that core technical foundation, depending on each discipline that that's what whether that's software engineering, or whether it's electrical and mechanical, it really being able to to kind of dive deep, assess it at that empirical level and come back out and be able to communicate is something I really value.
Aaron Moncur:Terrific. Yeah. Beyond the technical skills, any non technical skills that that come to mind. I mean, you talked a little bit already about communicating it in a way that makes sense to others. Anything else beyond that? Yeah,
Matt Zachek:I mean, I think in general, the recognition that we talked a little bit about it as well, that there isn't a right answer, there's not a right way to do things being open to different disciplines and the approaches to doing that. Something that find the best engineers, they're able to beg, borrow and steal from the different areas that may not be in their core. But having the still the ability to take it into the engineering speak the technical terms, to be able to really get at the specifics, I think is really important. But utilizing that breadth, and being willing to go into those different disciplines is really important. And you mentioned team as well, I think it is a little bit different than the individual. In terms of the what makes us successful team, I think from an engineering perspective, in the medical device space, it's a little different than in some other fields where the say you're in a consumer electronics space, where you yourself are a user of the things that you are building for or solving a problem for you. And they understand the uses use cases associated with that in the medical space, that may not always be the case, where you have something that you're designing for, that may be used by one person, or purchased by somebody completely different use by a person, and then having that be used on a person that's completely different. having empathy for that, and really understanding it truly what the product has to do both from from a user perspective, but also how it will be purchased, distributed, etc, rates, I think, different levels for teams to truly get engaged in and make them successful, because I've seen great products, not go places because of some of those other aspects that weren't associated with the end user.
Aaron Moncur:I really like everything you just said there, I'd like to comment on a couple of those points. One you talked about, there's never just one answer, right? Typically, there are a variety of ways that a problem can be solved. We have I don't know, nine or 10 something principles that are hanging on the wall, a pipeline, and one of them is the absolute certainty principle, which which states that Be careful about being absolutely certain that you have found, quote unquote, the answer, right? Because you start to think that okay, I've got the answer. This is it, this is the only way to do it. And it becomes to the exclusion of other potentially better solutions. So there's a balance, right? Because you can't keep like continuously over and over looking for a better answer and a better answer and a better answer at some point, you're gonna have something that's good enough and just, you know, Done is better than perfect. But I think it's an important balance to keep in mind the the absolute certainty principle. And then the other thing, you mentioned empathy. And this was a few years ago that I heard this, but I thought it was so interesting, and I've remembered it ever since. I a coach that I used to work with, showed me a video in which the speaker talked about empathy and said that empathy rarely begins with at least So for example, Matt, if you said to me, Oh, I broke my arm yesterday, and I said, well, at least you didn't break both of your arms, you still broke your arm, right? Like, that's not me showing empathy. And I just thought it was a really interesting way to think about it especially so specific with those two words, engineers, we love specificity. Right? Empathy rarely begins with at least.
Matt Zachek:Yeah, that's a great comment. And, and having that deep feeling as to what is ultimately necessary to get the job done, can lead to even improved solutions. And I think I've actually I've seen multiple times where getting into the in situ with the devices, you find things that, you know, your your, your certainty principle, your perfect solution, didn't perfectly take into account, you know, and I think the more you can iterate early enough, in that, in that environment, the better off you know, your your design your device.
Aaron Moncur:Absolutely. Well, let me take a very short break here and share with the listeners that our company pipeline design and engineering develops new and innovative manufacturing processes for complex products, then implement them into manual fixtures or fully automated machines to dramatically reduce production costs and improve production yields for OEMs. Today, we have the pleasure of speaking with Matt Zachek, Matt, what are a few of your biggest challenges as an engineering leader. Yeah,
Matt Zachek:another one another good one. From a from a engineering leader, I think a lot of people can likely empathize with the need to be ambidextrous within an engineering role. What I mean by that is audio for all the current products that are currently on market, while simultaneously developing new and unique and difficult things that ultimately delight your customers even further. And I think it can be very easy. And a lot of people do focus and fall into the trap of saying, I'm going to support everything that brings in sales today. And that's it's a good thing to do. But figuring out how to balance that within our constrained environment. We all everybody has constraints, whether it's a fixed number of people fixed budget, whatever, that figuring out how to balance that, and that in a way that can support your current growth. But look for new areas as well. Is it's something that I think every engineering leader can, can can.
Aaron Moncur:Are there any strategies that you've come across or developed in being able to define where that line is between sustaining existing products, but also developing new r&d efforts?
Matt Zachek:Yeah, I think, first understanding just like your personal investment portfolio, you wouldn't, maybe you would put everything in crypto and and let it ride or other anyone wants a more traditionally risky investments, right? You'd want to have strike that balance. And I you know, I'm looking at data from the industry. And I think the golden ratio typically is with it's a 7010 10. Right? So 70% would be kind of in your core. And percent would be maybe, where you have existing technical competency, but in a new market 10% would be where you have new same market, but maybe a new technical competency, and then would be your your moonshot. And I think, not to say that every every company in every, every industry needs to adhere to that. But I find that to be a good balancing and rule of separating your technical competencies and the market serve and understanding the balance new portfolio. Yeah.
Aaron Moncur:How about for medical device companies in general these days? What are some of the challenges that the companies are seeing? Not just the individual leaders? Yeah,
Matt Zachek:great, great insight there, because I think in the medical device industry, I read a book not too long ago, I think it's called innovators method, and they read it medical equipment manufacturing as the number of number one most ambiguous and complicated industry. And there's a variety of reasons why not only the technical complexity, you have the regulatory complexity of a lot of different different things that hit you. Right. And I think that's very true in terms of medical devices as well. You have ever changing random regulatory landscape, five years, five, six years ago, now, you're completely changed the way that they accept medical devices became more like the FDA. And that came with it a kind of a shift in the in the industry, right? And you had to kind of adapt to that. Well, lot of strategies changed to accommodate that. And so that's ever changing, I think, as a function of devices getting more integrated and cool. And, and let's say software centric as well, you have a whole cybersecurity. Really industry that's spun up to support, make sure that the things that are really safe, that are safe and effective, still stayed safe and effective from that perspective. And, and, and being able to ramp up and support that complexity is really important. Another thing we touched on manufacturing earlier, going through the pandemic, I think a lot of folks felt that obtaining raw materials or I continuity was, was also something to think continue to think about I was a no big theme, but even before the endemic that kind of drove a focus on that and ensuring that evening in that supply continuity. Throughout the built devices life span is continuously something that is brought up in ways on development themes as well. So I'd say just that that amount of complexity that continues to evolve, is something that, you know, from a medical device perspective, it's one of the biggest challenges that we face.
Aaron Moncur:Yeah, I've heard that that same thought echoed by quite a few medical device leaders, just the the degree to which the FDA is enforcing different regulations on medical device manufacturers is really a challenging and complicated field to navigate. Thinking about the teams that you work with and have worked with in the past, can you think of a tool that that doesn't exist, but if it did, would allow your teams to be dramatically more productive, you know, 10 times more effective than they are today. And it doesn't need to be something within the realms of known physics, right? I've heard teleportation was an answer that someone gave, which I thought was a great one. But I've also heard much simpler answers, like a community for engineers, you know, but what what thoughts do you have about that? What tool do you wish existed? That that doesn't?
Matt Zachek:Oh, yeah, if you're opening up to superpowers, so yeah, you know, go crazy and fly or teleport that would be, I'll probably fall somewhere in the middle. You know, I recently saw the I don't know if you saw this, but the the recent Google Gemini release for AI, it's a is a big eye opener. For me. I mean, specifically, there was a segment where I highlighted how the health Gemini could take a research paper that was generated, I think, three or four years ago, and over a lunch break it read extracted relevant data from over 200,000 papers, that then it used to really impressively to be, take the figures in the graph, and expand upon that, to now incorporate the recent data from 200,000 new papers, all in the course of like I said, a quick lunch break, that probably would have taken three or four months for, you know, scientist or engineer to do. And you can imagine that, that, you know, that's that's one application. But you can imagine how that could be applied to so many different disciplines within engineering. I mean, I think, you know, one example, even in the mechanical space is just understanding once you have the relationship built between your device performance and the various features associated with that, having artificial intelligence, iterate, all the different solid models that could possibly fill that space would be something and that does exist today by could be really enhanced with the use of more powerful artificial intelligence, you know, thinking about how it could impact everything from the design process, even the test automation, and documentation associated with that, and help with the complexity we just talked about, too. So I think engineers that are able to really harness those tools can really multi fold. Can can really expand their impact multi fold, I'd say, similar to probably when computers were first introduced in I think that in that in that same vein, yeah.
Aaron Moncur:AI is incredible. Just amazing. What is happening these days? I'm sure you do as well, but I use chat GPT pretty much every day, you know, if you had no limitations on time, resources, money, what what is the one thing that you would do for your company that would have the most significant impact on achieving its business goals?
Matt Zachek:It's funny, they phrase it that way. I like to tell the team we can do anything With time, people and money, so it thinking of kind of the the Golden Triangle of project management. Right. But, you know, I talked a little bit about that ambidexterity earlier, how to manage everything in a portfolio. And, you know, I think if there were no limitations in that way, I'd probably be able to support everything. 100%. Right. And yeah. And I think you'd be able to enable all the markets or with all the all the moonshots that you could, that you could take out here. Yeah. So I think that would be, you know, the where the constraint was the problem that that the be good application for it. But I think that figuring out a way to expand the impact through new projects, as well as current supporting grant would be the best use of that.
Aaron Moncur:Yeah, instead of 7010 1010 100 100 100 100. That would be a lot of fun. All we need is unlimited resources. Yeah. Right. Right. Come on AI help us get there. All right. Well, how do you see the future of medical devices in the US changing over the next, say, five years? Sure.
Matt Zachek:Yeah. I mean, I mentioned the AIP. So I think the OSI, a little bit of that, not just focused internally, but also externally as well, I can see how that would get into helping clinicians make better decisions. And, you know, I think a lot of the mental bandwidth in the medical field is residing within medical training and doctors, clinicians, and I think they'll see a little bit more assistance in the future in that way. Another trend that I can I can see is the further integration of consumer electronics with medical devices. It's something that has existed in different spaces. I mean, I don't know if you're wearing your Apple Watch right now. But there's a few things in there that would be formally classified as, as medical devices that have really made its way into the consumer space. I can see I continued evolution along that. But if you think about things like Apple recently announcing that they were working on a continuous glucose monitor for their within their watch, that the the, it'll be very interesting to see from a regulated regulation perspective, how the FDA and other regulatory bodies globally will, will start to manage things in that way where you wouldn't necessarily have to hold it to the same degree of scrutiny, but they may want to for foreseeable misuse purposes. So it'd be interesting to see how that goes.
Aaron Moncur:Yeah, I can't wait for that all of the different bio metrics, sensors that are being incorporated into consumer products, and wearables and clothing even very interesting. One of the things that I have found running my own business in terms of developing new strategies and insight into the future, and how we should prepare for it is finding different ways to expose myself to new ideas, ideas that I may not come up with on my own. And this has been through a wide variety of different mediums such as books, podcasts, attending lectures or trade shows, you know, all those kinds of things. What what what have you done to expose yourself to to new ideas? What are the the avenues that that you like, for those kinds of sources?
Matt Zachek:Yeah, I mean, I think a lot of the things that you mentioned, I mean, there's a lot of different types of media that you can consume. I think, personally, beyond that, I mean, trade shows are another good way of seeing what's out there. But I also mentioned, and I really don't think that there's a substitute for kind of being in the in the practice that you intend to serve, or in the population environment. Being in situ, understanding the problems people are facing, really, from an ethnographic perspective can really give you that understanding of how best to solve that problem. It's kind of, you know, if you're, if you're surely consuming the data that's coming back, you may trick yourself into a faster or scenario in the old, you know, if I asked customers what they wanted, they would have said a faster horse. And, you know, Henry Ford gave him a car. I don't know if that was actually attributed to him correctly, but that that's, you know, kind of the danger and purely relying on one form, but then I really don't think there's a substitute for being embedded and and really understanding deeply the needs people deserve.
Aaron Moncur:Yeah. Terrific. Well, Matt, last question for you specifically within the context of your role as an engineer, what is one thing that frustrates you. And conversely, one thing that brings you joy.
Matt Zachek:Okay? You know, over the course of my career, I don't think there's a better feeling for when you launch a new product. And you should really feel like it's the mark, and you are able to see the people that it serves being delighted and excited about the product. I've been fortunate enough to experience that a number of times in my career and I in something, I desperately want to have everyone on my team experience on a routine basis. So, you know, I think getting to those those endpoints are sometimes it's years of blood, sweat, and tears to get into it. Yeah, is really an enjoyable thing. Being able to create the high performing teams to do that, too, is also something that, for me is extremely fulfilling, whether that be training opportunities, or putting people in the right positions to be successful. Setting up the organizations and the right way to do that, or teams is something that, like so for me, it's really fulfilling. From a from a frustration standpoint, I mean, I think the only thing that I that I could say is, you know, if if organizations don't, once they have a really strong strategic Northstar conviction about where they want to head, and that there's not if there's not an all in mentality, let's say, within the senior leadership of the company, that can really create a cultural barrier, and a divide between different groups, whether that be an engineering groups or across functionally. I think, you know, leaders, senior leaders, like myself, I just need to be mindful about how do we hold tension at the top. And whether that be we have really constructive conversations, or, you know, we disagree and commit or whatever the, whatever the tactic would be, that happens and hold that tension there and then presenting as a united front would be something that that would be a frustration. So it's, you know, like I said, that's something I'm currently experiencing, but I can see where that would be a challenge. Now.
Aaron Moncur:Well, thank goodness. That's good to hear. All right, man. Well, thank you so much for being on the show today. It's been great getting to know you and hearing some about your experiences and insights into the industry and about engineering. Before we we head out. Is there anything else that you think we should talk about that we haven't hit on yet?
Matt Zachek:No, I think we covered it. Thanks. Okay. Awesome.
Aaron Moncur:Well, Matt, how can people find you? Yeah,
Matt Zachek:I'm pretty active on LinkedIn. So it's probably the best place for that to get in contact.
Aaron Moncur:Excellent. All right. Well, Matt, thank you so much again. Thanks, sir. I'm Aaron Moncur, founder of pipeline design, and engineering. If you liked what you heard today, please share the episode. To learn how your team can leverage our team's expertise developing turnkey equipment, custom fixtures and automated machines and with product design, visit us at Team pipeline.us. Thanks for listening