Senior Embedded Software Engineer - Platform

Intuitive • Sunnyvale, CA

1d

About The Position

Our team designs and builds the embedded platform software infrastructure that supports critical performance, safety, and user-facing features of the da Vinci™ Surgical System, Intuitive’s flagship product. We’re looking for an experienced Sr. Embedded Software Engineer to join our team. This role will focus on operating system internals, resource management, and system architecture for our next-generation robotics platform. You will take technical ownership of our OS Abstraction Layer (OSAL) framework and design robust resource-allocation mechanisms to ensure system reliability and safety across multiple operating system environments.

Requirements

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Engineering, Computer Science, or related technical field and 8+ years of experience; or Master's degree and 6+ years of experience; or a PhD with 3+ years of experience; or equivalent experience
• Deep expertise in at least two of: Linux kernel/user space, QNX RTOS, or bare-metal programming
• Strong proficiency in C/C++ with demonstrated understanding of system-level programming
• Extensive experience with: process and thread management, scheduling, and synchronization primitives, memory management (VM, paging, allocation strategies), IPC, resource monitoring, and enforcement mechanisms
• Strong debugging skills with tools like GDB, strace, valgrind, and system profilers
• Ability to mentor junior engineers and influence system architecture decisions through design and V&V activities
• Strong debugging and problem-solving skills with a systematic approach to troubleshooting
• Effective written and verbal communication skills for technical documentation and team collaboration

Nice To Haves

• Experience with NVIDIA Jetson platforms (TX2, Xavier, Orin), AMD MPSOC, NXP or similar ARM-based SOCs
• Knowledge of security principles for embedded system – secure boot, TPM
• Working knowledge of bazel/nix build environment
• Experience with hypervisors or virtualization in embedded contexts
• Experienced with Python and bash scripting for test automation and bootup design
• Demonstrated experience in and comfort with all phases of the product development lifecycle, including design, implementation, debugging, verification, validation, and transfer to manufacturing
• Experience designing software products in an FDA or other regulated industry or for mission-critical applications; comfortable with concepts of design input, design output, traceability, risk analysis, and mitigations

Responsibilities

• Design and development of product-focused, rock-solid, C/C++ software in a heterogeneous, multi-processor SoC/FPGA/real-time embedded environment.
• Design and implement resource allocation frameworks for system processes and applications.
• Develop contract-based resource management systems with enforcement mechanisms for: Memory budgets, CPU time and scheduling guarantees, I/O bandwidth, and device access.
• Support the design of monitoring and enforcement infrastructure to detect and handle resource violations.
• Architect, implement, and maintain the OSAL framework supporting Linux, QNX RTOS, and bare-metal environments.
• Ensure OSAL API consistency and portability across all supported operating systems.
• Work directly with Linux kernel interfaces, QNX microkernel APIs, and bare-metal system programming.
• Optimize system performance through careful resource allocation and scheduling strategies
• Debug complex multi-threaded and multi-process system issues.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Senior
• Number of Employees: 1-10 employees