Senior Embedded Software Engineer - Platform Software

Intuitive•Sunnyvale, CA

About The Position

Intuitive’s platform software team designs and builds embedded infrastructure supporting critical performance, safety, and user-facing features of the da Vinci Surgical System. The Senior Embedded Software Engineer will take technical ownership across the embedded platform software stack, lead board bring-up for next-generation platforms, and guide architectural decisions. The role serves as a technical anchor for the team, mentoring engineers and collaborating with hardware, system software, and FPGA teams. It owns subsystems supporting video networking, UI display, and machine learning capabilities of da Vinci 5, while advancing robustness, reliability, manufacturability, and serviceability. The position includes end-to-end board bring-up from initial power-on through production readiness; development and technical direction of Linux-based embedded software; definition of test strategies and automated validation frameworks; and resolution of hardware-software integration issues. It also includes mentoring, technical documentation, and work within FDA-regulated development processes.

Requirements

At least 8 years of related experience with a bachelor's degree, 6 years with a master's degree, 3 years with a Ph.D., or equivalent experience.
Expert-level proficiency in C or C++ for embedded systems, including memory management, real-time constraints, and performance-critical code.
Experience with bare-metal and embedded Linux development, including kernel internals, custom device-driver development, BSP bring-up, and user-space application development.
Proficiency with embedded development and debugging tools, including GDB, JTAG, logic analyzers, oscilloscopes, and cross-compilation toolchains.
Hands-on experience with hardware interfaces and protocols including I2C, I2S, T1S, SPI, UART, USB, Ethernet, and CAN, including bring-up debugging and driver development.
Strong debugging and root-cause analysis skills, with a record of resolving complex, multi-layer hardware-FPGA-software integration failures in time-critical environments.
Demonstrated ability to mentor and technically develop junior and mid-level engineers.
Effective written and verbal communication skills for technical documentation and cross-functional collaboration.

Nice To Haves

Hands-on production embedded experience with NVIDIA Jetson platforms (TX2, Xavier, Orin, or similar) or comparable ARM-based SoCs.
Hands-on production embedded experience with GPU acceleration (CUDA) and hardware-accelerated inference frameworks (TensorRT).
Experience with QNX RTOS or other real-time operating systems in safety-critical applications.
Proficiency in Python and bash scripting for test automation, bootup design, and build-system integration.
Demonstrated ability to root-cause complex hardware-software interactions.
Experience across the product development lifecycle, including design, implementation, debugging, verification, validation, and transfer to manufacturing.
Experience designing software products in an FDA-regulated or other regulated industry, or for mission-critical applications; familiarity with design inputs and outputs, traceability, risk analysis, and mitigations.

Responsibilities

Lead board bring-up for next-generation platforms, including bootloader configuration, BSP customization, peripheral driver integration, and system validation from initial power-on through production readiness.
Own development and technical direction of embedded software for video networking, UI display, and machine learning applications on Linux-based systems, including architectural decisions, code review, and performance optimization.
Design and own test strategies to validate board functionality, peripheral interfaces, and system performance; define acceptance criteria and drive resolution of complex hardware-software integration issues.
Partner with and technically guide hardware engineers to identify, root-cause, and resolve board-level issues during early development, serving as the primary software interface for cross-functional hardware bring-up.
Architect and lead automated test frameworks for board validation and regression testing, creating scalable infrastructure for multiple platform variants.
Mentor junior and mid-level engineers through code reviews, technical guidance, and hands-on debugging support.
Author and maintain technical documentation, including design specifications, bring-up procedures, and failure analysis reports, in compliance with FDA-regulated development processes.