Staff Machine Control Engineer

Intuitive•San Carlos, CA

4d•$223,900 - $322,100•Onsite

About The Position

Intuitive is seeking an experienced machine controls engineer to lead the development of advanced mechatronic instrumentation for patient care applications. The role focuses on architecting and developing control and sensing software for medical robots or diagnostic instrumentation, from prototype through commercialization. Experimental design, empirical data collection, and data analysis and visualization are central to the work. Experience with low-latency machine controls, high-precision optical control, and biological sample handling is highly desired. The position is fully onsite at offices in the San Francisco Bay Area, California, and reports on-site. The engineer works hands-on with mechatronic hardware and collaborates with embedded systems, electrical, systems, and mechanical engineers, as well as multidisciplinary engineering teams and company leadership. The role includes software development and testing, hardware integration and optimization, documentation for the company’s Quality System, and debugging issues. The position may be filled at a different job level depending on business needs and the selected candidate’s experience, knowledge, and skills.

Requirements

Bachelor’s or master’s degree in Computer Science or a related field with 8+ years of industry experience, or a PhD with 5+ years of industry experience in systems control and sensing.
Strong knowledge of programming languages for real-time and pseudo-real-time control, including C#, C, and C++, on Linux OS.
Demonstrated experience architecting and writing motion-control, sensing, and state-machine code for one or more diagnostic instruments or medical robots that reached production.
Experience in low-latency machine controls for time-sensitive applications.
Strong experimental design, empirical data collection, and analysis and visualization skills for design iteration and optimization, using scripting languages such as Python.
Experience developing medical-device software according to FDA requirements, including software risk analysis and cybersecurity, through the product development lifecycle: design, implementation, debugging, verification, validation, and transfer to manufacturing.
Strong analytical skills and a creative mindset.
Bachelor’s, master’s, or PhD in Computer Science or a related field.

Nice To Haves

Experience controlling high-speed precision optics.
Experience with instrumentation involving biological sample processing.
Experience using OpenCV for camera sensing or computer vision applications.
Strong background in performance optimization to ensure deterministic execution of predefined software protocols.
Experience developing or interfacing with backend software for instrument data storage and network transmission.

Responsibilities

Architect, design, and implement control and sensing software for advanced mechatronic instrumentation.
Work hands-on with mechatronic hardware for system bring-up, calibration, operation, experimentation, and debugging.
Lead system optimization and debugging through experimental design, execution, and data analysis and visualization.
Interface with embedded systems and electrical engineers to develop software interfaces to lower-level controllers and firmware.
Collaborate with systems and mechanical engineers to architect, select, and optimize electrical control boards, motors, sensors, and other hardware components.
Write clean, structured, maintainable code and document software designs for instrument configurations, including error recovery.
Write and execute unit tests to ensure excellent software test coverage.
Use scripting languages such as Python for hardware prototype bring-up, test automation, and data analysis and visualization.
Generate detailed software requirements, design specifications, and software test protocols for the company’s Quality System.
Work with a multidisciplinary engineering team and company leadership to deliver technical milestones.
Prioritize and debug reported software issues and bugs.