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

The main responsibility of the position is to lead the Systems Analysis engineering team responsible for the robotic control algorithms, safety systems, and mechatronic design of a novel medical robotic platform, including robotic system and instrumentation.

Essential Job Duties

• Talent management
  • Demonstrates deep comprehension of the technical competence required for success, guiding and growing that competence in the whole team as necessary via recruiting, hiring, performance managing, and training.
  • Embraces Intuitive’s organizational culture and champions it throughout the team.   Seeks opportunities to highlight, reward, and reinforce the culture. Maintains positive group dynamics.
  • Provides vision for Systems Analysis engineering team and fosters environment that encourages creativity, calculated risk taking, and crisp execution.
• Product development process
  • Contributes actively to evaluating and refining development standards, processes, tools to maximize team efficiency and product stability.
  • Maintains and grows positive collaborations and product development workflows with relevant cross-functional teams and stakeholders, including Mechanical Engineering, Instrument Engineering, Clinical Engineering, Product Management, Quality, Regulatory, Manufacturing, in a way that balances speed and scope.
  • Supports team members technically through direct technical mentoring and by facilitating collaboration and design reviews. Ensures health of overall systems analysis software architecture.
• Planning
  • Develops plans which balance short term needs, long term objectives, technical debt recovery, and appropriate contingencies to support the business.
  • Interfaces “across” with enabling or dependent functions, maintaining alignment of the Systems Analysis projects and plans, escalating unresolved conflicts as needed.
  • Defines SMART quarterly and annual goals for the systems analysis team to support the business and clearly conveys them to the organization.
• Executing on plans
  • Ensures smooth execution of complex deliverables by monitoring the work of the team members and holding them accountable for deliverables.
  • Monitors status of projects and anticipates appropriate interventions to drive any project falling behind.
  • Maintains constant awareness of progress toward expectations and addresses structural issues and recurrent patterns to ensure learning and enhanced forward progress.

Required Skills and Experience

• Minimum 6 years experience in high-tech software development
• Minimum 3 years experience as a people manager, or equivalent project/team leadership, with proven ability to work well in a team environment

• Great communication skills
• Extensive hands-on experience in system-level design and analysis of complex robotic devices.
• Demonstrated expertise in mechatronic design, kinematics and dynamics, algorithmic software development, risk analysis, safety system design
• Demonstrated ability to systematically troubleshoot and debug complex systems
• Comfortable with all phases of the product development lifecycle including design, implementation, debugging, verification, qualification, and transfer
• Extensive experience planning and executing complex software deliverables on tight deadlines
• Experience recruiting, mentoring, and functionally managing teams of highly skilled engineers
• Extensive experience creating, presenting, and refining clear, compelling technical specifications from top-level architecture documents down to low-level implementation guides and test plans

Required Education and Training

• MS or PhD in CS, EE, ME or related fields

Working Conditions

• None

Preferred Skills and Experience  

• Experience with medical device development
• Experience with designing FDA regulated products; experience with design control
• Experience with manufacturing processes and design-for-manufacturability principles

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.