Senior Software Engineer

It started with a simple idea: what if surgery could be less invasive and recovery less painful? Nearly 30 years later, that question still fuels everything we do at Intuitive. As a global leader in robotic-assisted surgery and minimally invasive care, our technologies—like the da Vinci surgical system and Ion—have transformed how care is delivered for millions of patients worldwide.

We’re a team of engineers, clinicians, and innovators united by one purpose: to make surgery smarter, safer, and more human. Every day, our work helps care teams perform with greater precision and patients recover faster, improving outcomes around the world.

The problems we solve demand creativity, rigor, and collaboration. The work is challenging, but deeply meaningful—because every improvement we make has the potential to change a life.

If you’re ready to contribute to something bigger than yourself and help transform the future of healthcare, you’ll find your purpose here.

Primary Function of Position

Our Servo Software team as part of System Software is responsible for the real-time software infrastructure that supports critical performance, safety, observability and user-facing features of the da Vinci™ Surgical System, Intuitive’s flagship product. Our software includes infrastructure and Surgical System middleware & frameworks for observability, motion control algorithms, state machines, audio intercom and system sounds, data streaming and logging, and platform support for our next-generation da Vinci™ Simulator product line. Because our workstreams depend upon and enable the work of other teams, we occupy an exciting intersection of system software architecture, feature development, observability and demonstration of product safety and reliability.

As a Senior Software Engineer, you will be collaborating with talented cross-functional teams across the company to develop applications to help improve robotics system software and software for system introspection, observability and system event timeline visualization of Intuitive’s robotic surgical platform. In this role, you will also architect and develop applications and pipelines to help understand system software status (events, logs, data streams), construct system event timeline and analyze complex multimodal robotics system issues.

Essential Job Duties

• Design and develop product-focused, robust and efficient robotics system software (C/C++) and software for observability applications (auto issue detection, log replay), pipelines and analytics to help understand system software status (events, logs, data streams), construct system event timeline and analyze complex multimodal robotics system issues.
• Design and develop robust applications (Python) to analyze system status from Logs, Events and Data streams (either locally interfacing to system or from backend)
• Identify and prove out new architectural enhancements to the software infrastructure and development processes that elevate the broader organization beyond your own team.
• Contribute to multiple areas of software development, including but not limited to the following:
  • • Design and development of robotic system software.
    • Robotics system introspection, observability, and system event timeline visualization of Intuitive’s robotic surgical platform.
    • Real-time processing performance analysis.
    • Extension of current processing frameworks to next generations of products.
    • Bring-up of research prototypes used to evaluate new product concepts.
    • Design and development of hardware / software diagnostic tools.
    • Unit testing and code integration efforts to ensure exceptional system reliability and robustness.
• Contribute to conducting system failure analysis, identifying issues, risks, and discussing effective mitigation strategies.
• Interface and collaborate with multiple teams, including Embedded System Software, User Interface Software Engineering, Data pipeline & analytics, Field Service User Applications, System Test and reliability Engineering to bring robotics observability applications from prototype to launch
• Document software designs according to Intuitive's development and quality guidelines.

Required Education, Skills & Experience

• Minimum of 8 years of experience and a Bachelor's degree; or 6 years of experience and a Master's degree; or a PhD with 3 years of experience; or equivalent experience
• Proficiency in C/C++ and experience with Python
• Familiarity building embedded software and/or distributed systems and/or applications that operate on observability data (log, events, data streams) from robotics or embedded devices

Preferred Skills & Experience

• Experience working with robotics and system software for complex distributed systems
• Comfort with concepts of design input, design output, traceability, and risk analysis
• Demonstrated experience and comfort with all phases of the product development lifecycle (design, implementation, debug, verification, validation, and transfer to manufacturing)
• Experience or familiarity working with data platform teams and developing data pipelines for embedded devices data
• Familiarity with applications for system observability, processing, visualization and automatic issue detection for robotics systems (analysis using python in cloud based on system events, logs, data – applying known signatures or ML based techniques)
• Experience with data visualization and knowledgeable in full stack software development
• Familiarity with deployment infrastructure along with CI/CD pipelines

Due to the nature of our business and the role, please note that Intuitive and/or your customer(s) may require that you show current proof of vaccination against certain diseases including COVID-19.  Details can vary by role.

Intuitive is an Equal Opportunity Employer. We provide equal employment opportunities to all qualified applicants and employees, and prohibit discrimination and harassment of any type, without regard to race, sex, pregnancy, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, color, age, religion, protected veteran or disability status, genetic information or any other status protected under federal, state, or local applicable laws.

Mandatory Notices

U.S. Export Controls Disclaimer:  In accordance with the U.S. Export Administration Regulations (15 CFR §743.13(b)), some roles at Intuitive Surgical may be subject to U.S. export controls for prospective employees
who are nationals from countries currently on embargo or sanctions status.

Certain information you provide as part of the application will be used for purposes of determining whether Intuitive Surgical will need to (i) obtain an export license from the U.S. Government on your behalf (note: the government’s licensing process can take 3 to 6+ months) or (ii) implement a Technology Control Plan (“TCP”) (note: typically adds 2 weeks to the hiring process).  

For any Intuitive role subject to export controls, final offers are contingent upon obtaining an approved export license and/or an executed TCP prior to the prospective employee’s
start date, which may or may not be flexible, and within a timeframe that does not unreasonably impede the hiring need. If applicable, candidates will be notified and instructed on any requirements for these purposes. 

We will consider for employment qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records in accordance with fair chance laws.

Preference will be given to qualified candidates who do not reside, or plan to reside, in Alabama, Arkansas, Delaware, Florida, Indiana, Iowa, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, Missouri, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, or Tennessee.

This position may be filled at a different job level than listed here depending on
business need and/or on the selected candidate’s experience, knowledge and skills.
Compensation will be based primarily on the job level at which the role is filled and the
candidate’s qualifications, consistent with applicable law.

Accommodation & Accessibility Notice:

Intuitive is committed to providing reasonable accommodations to qualified individuals with disabilities. If you require assistance or an accommodation during any part of the application or interview process, please contact People Services at [email protected].

We provide market-competitive compensation packages, inclusive of base pay, incentives, benefits, and equity. It would not be typical for someone to be hired at the top end of range for the role, as actual pay will be determined based on several factors, including experience, skills, and qualifications. The target compensation ranges are listed.