The types of positions they are hiring for indicate that they are actually prepping for the last big push to regulatory approvals. Now that they have an approved ISO 13485-compliant Quality Management System in place, they can follow their own approved development guidelines to complete the software development effort in house. Hardware development is down to the last few tweaks - I'd prefer they left the hardware alone unless it violated someone else's patents, but I think Mr. Brar is on top of that situation so hardware is just "nice to have" tweaks (it would be nice if we could also afford them!).
The new positions I have seen are indicative of strong medical device software folks with 21st century coding skills, meaning latest, most efficient compilers, reasonably hack-proof code, and able to meet IEC 62304 as well. This should result in software which is most suitable for the IDE approval and human trials.
Putting this development effort in-house might appear expensive based on salary ranges, but contracting an outside organization is much more expensive and requires legal reviews and contract changes to alter the development path - we have seen how well that worked for us with Nalgreiter! If there had been no issues with Nalgreiter, they still would have cost us several million dollars in development expenses, many times what it would have cost to hire people directly, and without all the hassle.
Titan just needed to get the development center locked down to have a place for the team to work as a cohesive group, with actual hardware to develop and run the code. In-house talent gives them better oversight, less risk, tighter control, and improved economics. These posted positions are extremely good news for Titan and, believe it or not, this greatly improves the outlook for the entire company and its investors.
I'm looking forward to seeing some revised numbers next quarter with substantially lower cost estimates to completion. Fingers crossed, anyway!
