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.

About This Opportunity:

We are seeking a Clinical Data Annotation Lead to oversee all aspects of biopsy and pathology image annotation, from managing distributed annotator teams to ensuring quality, consistency, and scalability of labeled datasets. This role is both strategic and operational: you will design workflows, manage vendors and annotators, collaborate with pathologists, and partner with machine learning scientists to deliver gold-standard annotations at scale.  Ability to work in person at our San Carlos, CA office is preferred.

Responsibilities:

• Recruit, train, and manage annotation teams (internal and external) including pathologists and other data annotators

• Develop and optimize scalable annotation pipelines

• Establish rigorous QA/QC processes to ensure annotation accuracy, consistency, and reproducibility across datasets

• Partner with ML scientists to align annotation strategies with model development needs

• Define requirements for annotation platforms, work closely with product/engineering to improve annotation tooling

• Build systems to manage high-volume annotation projects across multiple disease areas and data modalities

• Ensure data handling, labeling, and storage meet regulatory and ethical standards (HIPAA, GDPR, FDA)

• Define long-term strategy for annotation operations, including vendor partnerships, automation opportunities, and multimodal data integration

• Track and report annotation throughput, quality, and efficiency to leadership

Qualifications:

• Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Life Sciences, Biomedical Engineering, Computational Biology, or related field (PhD a plus)

• 3+ years of experience in data operations, clinical data management, or annotation workflows, ideally in medical imaging or pathology

• Proven experience leading and scaling annotation or labeling operations

• Demonstrated success in managing cross-functional teams, vendors, or distributed annotators

• Excellent organizational and project management skills with attention to detail

• Experience with annotation tools/platforms and data labeling standards

• Strong analytical skills and creative mindset

• Works well in a small, agile team

Preferred Qualifications:

• Prior experience in medical imaging annotation, pathology ML, digital pathology

• Familiarity with ML/AI workflows, including supervised learning and dataset curation

• Experience with regulatory frameworks for medical data (FDA, CE, HIPAA)

• Knowledge of multimodal datasets (e.g., imaging + clinical or molecular data)

• Track record of building teams, processes, and infrastructure from the ground up

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.

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.