Staff Embedded Virtualization Architect

Intuitive; Sunnyvale (CA); On-site; USD 230,000 - 310,000; Full time

Job summary

Intuitive is seeking a Staff Software Engineer to lead the architecture and implementation of mixed-criticality embedded virtualization for a next-generation surgical robotic system. You will drive the virtualization safety strategy, partitioning, and hypervisor tuning across hardware and software layers in a highly regulated environment.

You will prototype Xen and QNX hypervisors, own hypervisor configuration, and build deterministic inter-VM communication.

Qualifications

• Experience designing virtualization safety architecture for mixed-criticality systems.
• Prototype and evaluate Xen and QNX hypervisors for certifiability and determinism.
• Own hypervisor configuration, integration, and platform gap analysis.
• Architect deterministic inter-VM communication and device virtualization.

Responsibilities

• Define the virtualization safety architecture ensuring isolation between safety-critical and non-safety-critical apps.
• Prototype and evaluate Xen and QNX hypervisors for safety, determinism, certifiability, and platform fit.
• Own hypervisor system configuration and integration, addressing platform limitations.
• Architect and implement deterministic inter-VM communication and device virtualization (virtio, shared memory, PCIe).
• Plan and execute analysis and verification to prove freedom from interference and safe failure behavior.
• Lead FMEA for the virtualized platform, translating risks into design mitigations and recovery behaviors.
• Build platform observability showing guest/hypervisor health, utilization, latency, and jitter.

Skills

Embedded virtualization

Partitioning architecture

Deterministic timing

Platform safety engineering

Cross-functional leadership

Stakeholder communication

Tools

Xen hypervisor

QNX hypervisor

Virtio

PCIe passthrough

Hypervisor configuration

Job description

Intuitive is seeking a Staff Software Engineer to lead the architecture and implementation of mixed-criticality embedded virtualization for a next-generation surgical robotic system. You will drive the virtualization safety strategy, partitioning, and hypervisor tuning across hardware and software layers in a highly regulated environment.

You will prototype Xen and QNX hypervisors, own hypervisor configuration, and build deterministic inter-VM communication.