Sr. Software Engineer - Embedded Real-Time Audio

Intuitive•Sunnyvale, CA

About The Position

Our team is responsible for the real-time software infrastructure and state machines that support critical performance, safety and user-facing features of the da Vinci™ Surgical System, Intuitive’s flagship product. Our real-time software includes infrastructure for motion control algorithms, audio intercom and system sounds, data streaming and logging, and platform support for our next-generation da Vinci™ Simulator product line. Because our workstreams depend upon and enable the work of other teams, we occupy an exciting intersection of real-time architecture, feature development, and demonstration of product safety and reliability. The successful candidate must excel in a focused, small-team and cross-functional environment, be able to drive to solutions from rough requirements, and have a commitment to high product quality. They must demonstrate ownership of their areas of responsibility and of the overall product. A strong sense of shared responsibility and shared reward is required. A demonstrated experience and comfort working with C++ in an embedded environment is required.

Requirements

Minimum of 8 years of experience and a Bachelor's degree; or 6 years of experience and a Master's degree; or a PhD with 3 years of experience; or equivalent experience.
Experience in developing real-time embedded software for one or more of the following areas (or similar): audio intercom/DSP, embedded audio pipelines, robotics, automotive and consumer electronics devices.
Experience in modern C++ and familiarity with design patterns.
Experience in developing for Embedded Linux and/or RTOS/QNX at multiple levels, such as hardware bring-up, drivers, application.
Experience in software support for hardware development including diagnostic tests, utilities, and power-on self-tests.

Nice To Haves

Experience with scripting languages (e.g. Python, Matlab, etc.) for diagnostic/test automation.
Comfort with concepts of design input, design output, traceability, and risk analysis.
Demonstrated experience and comfort with all phases of the product development lifecycle (design, implementation, debug, verification, validation, and transfer to manufacturing).
Experience with designing software products in an FDA or other regulated industry or for mission critical applications.
Familiarity with Audio HW/SW integration (Microphones, Speakers, Codecs etc.), audio data pipeline frameworks and routing, Audio buffering, clock synchronization, transporting audio over network and audio processing algorithms like Echo Reduction and Cancellation, Noise Reduction, Automatic Gain control.
Familiarity with Audio system related metrics, observability and diagnostics.

Responsibilities

Design and develop product-focused, robust, efficient, and elegant C++ software in a heterogeneous, multi-processor SoC/FPGA/real-time-embedded environment.
Analyze and quantify overall system performance and safety, including verification of adherence to specifications as well as identification of improvement opportunities, such as reduced latency and increased reliability/determinism.
Extend existing tools and create new tools to support such analysis efforts.
Interface and collaborate effectively and respectfully with other teams, including Platform Software, Electrical Engineering and FPGA Design, Mechanical Engineering, System Analysis, System Test, User Interface Software Engineering, Manufacturing and Clinical Engineering.
Participate in product risk analysis, defining requirements, implementing mitigations, and drafting and executing verification tests.
Identify and prove out new architectural enhancements to the software infrastructure and development processes that elevate the broader organization beyond your own team.
Extend embedded audio software architecture to enable or improve user-facing audio features along with system audio, audio data pipelines and processing.
Contribute to the design, extension, and testing of our audio and system events streaming software that serve as the communication mechanism for the system sounds and for communication between Surgeon and OR staff.
Consider and apply appropriate inter-process communication software design principles.
Contribute to multiple areas of software development, including but not limited to the following: configuration and monitoring of custom audio processing hardware.
real-time processing performance analysis.
extension of current processing frameworks to new processors and hardware designs.
design, development, and extension of offline hardware simulation environments to facilitate rapid software development and testing.
bring-up of research prototypes used to evaluate new product concepts.
design and development of hardware / software diagnostic tools.