# S7E25 Yesenia Avellaneda | Engineering, Medicine, and Manufacturing Leadership

- Show: [Being an Engineer](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/being-an-engineer)
- Published: 2026-06-12
- Length: 30m
- Episode: 25
- Page: https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/being-an-engineer/2026-06-12-s7e25-yesenia-avellaneda-engineering-medicine-and-manufacturing-leadership

## Summary

Yesenia Avellaneda, a Senior Project Engineer at Abbott, discusses her career path from pre-med to biomedical engineering and her work in New Product Introduction (NPI) for diabetes care devices. She details the challenges of scaling production from 20 to 5,000 units a month for cardiac rhythm management devices and the importance of structured planning and capacity analysis. Avellaneda also shares a specific failure analysis story involving receiving inspection line validation, emphasizing the need for calm troubleshooting and cross-functional collaboration to overcome morale and technical hurdles.

## Chapters

- [0:00](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/being-an-engineer/2026-06-12-s7e25-yesenia-avellaneda-engineering-medicine-and-manufacturing-leadership#t=0) Introduction and Career Path
- [2:36](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/being-an-engineer/2026-06-12-s7e25-yesenia-avellaneda-engineering-medicine-and-manufacturing-leadership#t=156) Transitioning from Pre-Med to Biomedical Engineering
- [10:19](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/being-an-engineer/2026-06-12-s7e25-yesenia-avellaneda-engineering-medicine-and-manufacturing-leadership#t=619) Daily Work in NPI and Project Management Tools
- [16:21](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/being-an-engineer/2026-06-12-s7e25-yesenia-avellaneda-engineering-medicine-and-manufacturing-leadership#t=981) Scaling Manufacturing for Cardiac Devices
- [21:48](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/being-an-engineer/2026-06-12-s7e25-yesenia-avellaneda-engineering-medicine-and-manufacturing-leadership#t=1308) Troubleshooting Validation Failures and Team Morale
- [25:08](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/being-an-engineer/2026-06-12-s7e25-yesenia-avellaneda-engineering-medicine-and-manufacturing-leadership#t=1508) The Design Transfer Process and Documentation

## Topics

- [Scaling production](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/topic/scaling-production)
- [Design for manufacturing & NPI](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/topic/design-for-manufacturing)
- [Debugging & failure analysis](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/topic/debugging-and-failure-analysis)
- [Careers & education](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/topic/engineering-careers-and-education)
- [EDA & CAD tools](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/topic/eda-and-cad-tools)

## Most relevant to

companies scaling up

## Mentioned

- Abbott (company)
- Smartsheets (tool)
- Office Timeline Pro (tool)
- OneNote (tool)
- PDX (other)

## Related episodes from other shows

- [305: Humans Have a Terrible Spec Sheet](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/embedded-fm/2019-10-03-305-humans-have-a-terrible-spec-sheet) (Embedded.fm)
- [DeepDive: Notable Interview Recaps - NPI TACTICS & TEAMWORK (19m35s)](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/npi-sherpa/2026-02-17-deepdive-notable-interview-recaps-npi-tactics-teamwork-19m35s) (NPI Sherpa)
- [DeepDive Analysis Series: SURVIVAL FRAMEWORK - NPI Survival using Kilimanjaro Takeaways (17m29s)](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/npi-sherpa/2026-02-10-deepdive-analysis-series-survival-framework-npi-survival-using-kilimanjaro-takea) (NPI Sherpa)
- [DeepDive Masterclass Summary Series: THE PRE-ASCENT PROTOCOL - A Summary of the 4-part series (30m40s)](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/npi-sherpa/2026-03-24-deepdive-masterclass-summary-series-the-pre-ascent-protocol-a-summary-of-the-4-p) (NPI Sherpa)
- [333: Project Purgatory](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/embedded-fm/2020-06-04-333-project-purgatory) (Embedded.fm)

## Citing this page

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