Senior Embedded Software Engineer - Platform Software
About The Position
The Senior Embedded Software Engineer will take technical ownership across Intuitive’s embedded platform software stack, which supports critical performance, safety, and user-facing features of the da Vinci Surgical System. The role leads board bring-up for next-generation platforms and drives architectural decisions for embedded software used in video networking, UI display, and machine learning capabilities of da Vinci 5. The engineer owns work from initial board power-on through production readiness, collaborating with hardware, system software, and FPGA teams to resolve integration issues and improve robustness, reliability, manufacturability, and serviceability. The position also provides technical guidance and mentorship to junior and mid-level engineers and produces documentation 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 PhD, 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 systems and embedded Linux, 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 bringing up, debugging, and developing drivers for hardware interfaces and protocols including I2C, I2S, T1S, SPI, UART, USB, Ethernet, and CAN.
- Strong debugging and root-cause analysis skills, with a track 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 experience with NVIDIA Jetson platforms (TX2, Xavier, or Orin), or comparable ARM-based SoCs, in a production embedded environment.
- Hands-on experience with GPU acceleration (CUDA) and hardware-accelerated inference frameworks (TensorRT) in production embedded systems.
- 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 product development lifecycle phases, 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 end-to-end board bring-up for next-generation platforms, including bootloader configuration, BSP customization, peripheral driver integration, system validation, and readiness for production.
- Own development and technical direction of embedded software for video networking, UI display, and machine learning applications on Linux-based systems; make architectural decisions, review code, and optimize performance.
- Design comprehensive test strategies for 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 hardware bring-up.
- Architect and lead automated test frameworks for board validation and regression testing, establishing 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 design specifications, bring-up procedures, and failure analysis reports in compliance with FDA-regulated development processes.
Benefits
- Market-competitive compensation packages, including base pay, incentives, benefits, and equity.
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What This Job Offers
Job Type
Full-time
Career Level
Senior
