Senior Software Engineer, Platform Engineering

It started with a simple idea: what if surgery could be less invasive and recovery less painful? Nearly 30 years later, that question still fuels everything we do at Intuitive. As a global leader in robotic-assisted surgery and minimally invasive care, our technologies—like the da Vinci surgical system and Ion—have transformed how care is delivered for millions of patients worldwide.

We’re a team of engineers, clinicians, and innovators united by one purpose: to make surgery smarter, safer, and more human. Every day, our work helps care teams perform with greater precision and patients recover faster, improving outcomes around the world.

The problems we solve demand creativity, rigor, and collaboration. The work is challenging, but deeply meaningful—because every improvement we make has the potential to change a life.

If you’re ready to contribute to something bigger than yourself and help transform the future of healthcare, you’ll find your purpose here.

As a Senior Software Engineer on Intuitive’s Platform Engineering team, you will design and build automation infrastructure that bridges our digital products with robotic systems. You’ll implement and improve automated pipelines—spanning simulation, cloud data ingestion, and secure software delivery—to drive improved reliability, faster iteration, and stronger security posture across our web, mobile, and embedded applications. This role requires hands-on engineering depth, security-mindedness, and close collaboration with software, SDET, DevOps, and security teams.

Key Responsibilities

1. CI/CD, Automation & Security

• Design, implement, and maintain end-to-end build, test, and deployment pipelines for digital products integrated with robotic platforms.
• Embed security practices into CI/CD workflows: integrate static analysis (SAST), dependency scanning (SCA), container image scanning, and secret detection as automated quality gates.
• Develop reusable automation frameworks and scripts (Python, shell, etc.) to reduce manual effort, minimize errors, and accelerate delivery.
• Extend Jenkins, GitLab CI, or similar tooling to enforce consistent quality and security gates before every release.
• Collaborate with security analysts to translate security requirements and policies into automated, scalable pipeline controls—bridging the gap between security strategy and engineering execution.

2. Integration & Reliability

• Build processes to ingest test results and telemetry data into scalable cloud data pipelines (AWS/GCP) for real-time analysis and visualization of software reliability metrics.
• Collaborate with embedded and digital teams to ensure consistent, secure interfaces between edge devices, cloud services, and client-facing applications.
• Implement and maintain infrastructure-level security controls including container hardening, network segmentation for build environments, and least-privilege IAM policies across CI/CD and cloud infrastructure.

3. Developer Experience & Adoption

• Serve as the primary interface between the Platform Engineering team and product development teams—understand their workflows, pain points, and requirements to ensure platform capabilities actually solve real problems.
• Provide white-glove onboarding and hands-on support for teams adopting platform tooling, CI/CD pipelines, and security automation while self-service capabilities mature.
• Evangelize best practices for build, test, deployment, and secure development across the organization through documentation, workshops, office hours, and direct pairing with product teams.
• Act as an internal advocate for the developer experience: pressure-test the platform our core platform team is building by representing the voice of the user, surfacing usability gaps, and ensuring the tools we ship are genuinely intuitive and meet the needs of our engineering user base.
• Provide structured feedback loops between product development teams and the core platform team—translating adoption friction and feature requests into actionable platform improvements.

Required (Must-Have)

• 5+ years of hands-on experience in DevOps, platform engineering, release engineering, or related software development discipline.
• Proven experience building and operating CI/CD pipelines for distributed systems (e.g., Jenkins, GitLab CI, CircleCI).
• Strong proficiency in Python (scripting, automation frameworks) and comfortable authoring build/test tooling.
• Solid experience with containerization and orchestration (Docker, Kubernetes) and integrating containers into CI/CD workflows.
• Demonstrated ability to write and maintain infrastructure-as-code (Terraform, CloudFormation, or equivalent) and integrate IaC into automated pipelines.
• Practical experience integrating security tooling into CI/CD pipelines—e.g., SAST, SCA/dependency scanning, container image scanning, or secret management. You don’t need to be a security researcher, but you should be comfortable implementing and tuning security automation and partnering with security teams to operationalize their requirements.
• Working knowledge of supply chain security concepts: signed artifacts, provenance tracking, SBOM generation, or similar practices.
• Solid knowledge of Linux (Ubuntu, RHEL) and familiarity with Windows server environments.
• Experience with cloud platforms (AWS and/or Google Cloud) for deploying build servers, data pipelines, or test infrastructure, including practical understanding of IAM, network security groups, and least-privilege principles.
• Strong communication skills—able to contribute to technical discussions, document standards clearly, and mentor peers.
• Proven ability to learn complex systems quickly and drive practical solutions from high-level requirements.
• Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related technical field (or equivalent work experience).

Nice to Have

• Experience with compliance-as-code or automated evidence collection for regulated environments (SOX, FDA, SOC2).
• Familiarity with medical device software standards or FDA validation requirements.
• Experience with AI/ML pipeline tooling (model training, deployment) or applying ML concepts to CI/CD optimization and reliability engineering.
• Hands-on experience with HashiCorp tools (Terraform, Vault, Consul) or other configuration management suites (Ansible, Chef, Puppet).
• Experience building or interfacing with large-scale data pipelines and visualizing reliability metrics via cloud-native dashboards.
• Familiarity with security frameworks (NIST, CIS Benchmarks) or threat modeling practices as applied to build and deployment infrastructure.
• Prior exposure to robotics integration (real-time constraints, device drivers, communication protocols).
• Contributions to open-source DevOps/CI/CD projects or active participation in DevOps-focused communities.

Why You’ll Love This Role

• Innovation: Work at the intersection of automation, security, and robotics—building the infrastructure that delivers safe, reliable software for cutting-edge surgical systems.
• End-to-End Impact: A true full-stack experience—from data on our robots, to local developer builds, to cloud data dashboards—shaping how we deliver software for robotic platforms.
• Security That Ships: Rather than writing policies that sit on a shelf, you’ll implement real security controls that run in every pipeline, every day.
• Cross-Functional Collaboration: Work closely with embedded engineers, security analysts, SDET teams, and product owners to break down silos and accelerate delivery.
• Growth & Learning: Gain exposure to regulated-industry security practices, large-scale cloud data pipelines, and robotics integration, broadening your expertise across platform engineering.

Due to the nature of our business and the role, please note that Intuitive and/or your customer(s) may require that you show current proof of vaccination against certain diseases including COVID-19.  Details can vary by role.

Intuitive is an Equal Opportunity Employer. We provide equal employment opportunities to all qualified applicants and employees, and prohibit discrimination and harassment of any type, without regard to race, sex, pregnancy, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, color, age, religion, protected veteran or disability status, genetic information or any other status protected under federal, state, or local applicable laws.

Mandatory Notices

U.S. Export Controls Disclaimer:  In accordance with the U.S. Export Administration Regulations (15 CFR §743.13(b)), some roles at Intuitive Surgical may be subject to U.S. export controls for prospective employees
who are nationals from countries currently on embargo or sanctions status.

Certain information you provide as part of the application will be used for purposes of determining whether Intuitive Surgical will need to (i) obtain an export license from the U.S. Government on your behalf (note: the government’s licensing process can take 3 to 6+ months) or (ii) implement a Technology Control Plan (“TCP”) (note: typically adds 2 weeks to the hiring process).  

For any Intuitive role subject to export controls, final offers are contingent upon obtaining an approved export license and/or an executed TCP prior to the prospective employee’s
start date, which may or may not be flexible, and within a timeframe that does not unreasonably impede the hiring need. If applicable, candidates will be notified and instructed on any requirements for these purposes. 

We will consider for employment qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records in accordance with fair chance laws.

Preference will be given to qualified candidates who do not reside, or plan to reside, in Alabama, Arkansas, Delaware, Florida, Indiana, Iowa, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, Missouri, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, or Tennessee.

This position may be filled at a different job level than listed here depending on
business need and/or on the selected candidate’s experience, knowledge and skills.
Compensation will be based primarily on the job level at which the role is filled and the
candidate’s qualifications, consistent with applicable law.

We provide market-competitive compensation packages, inclusive of base pay, incentives, benefits, and equity. It would not be typical for someone to be hired at the top end of range for the role, as actual pay will be determined based on several factors, including experience, skills, and qualifications. The target compensation ranges are listed.