Staff Software Engineer

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

Job Description

Primary Function of Position

As a Staff Software Engineer reporting to the Managing Staff Software Engineer in the MP Platform Engineering group, you will be the technical leader responsible for the architecture and implementation of mixed-criticality embedded virtualization. You’ll define how a next-generation surgical robotic system safely consolidates critical/real-time and non-critical software onto shared hardware. You will own the key elements of the virtualization safety strategy: partitioning architecture, hypervisor configuration, silicon and platform software tuning for freedom from interference.

Beyond virtualization, you will leverage your broad expertise and unique technical knowledge to contribute to company objectives, lead cross-functional projects from concept through completion, and coach colleagues in advancing their technical expertise. You will take ownership of multiple aspects of the embedded platform, exercising independent judgment on ambiguous, high-impact problems and influencing senior stakeholders on technical direction and associated risk.

In your first year, you will

• Ramp on the platform's hardware/software stack, safety requirements, and existing hypervisor deployments.

• Deliver an architecture recommendation for the hypervisor strategy, accounting for partitioning, determinism, and the safety implications of each hypervisor's certification posture.

• Characterize behavior on target hardware and produce the initial analysis artifacts demonstrating freedom from interference.

• Stand up the instrumentation needed to give the team visibility into timing, utilization, and VM/platform health.

Essential Job Duties

• Define the virtualization safety architecture for a mixed-criticality system, ensuring spatial and temporal isolation between safety-critical and non-safety-critical applications.

• Prototype and evaluate Xen and QNX hypervisors, defining an architecture based on safety, determinism, certifiability, and platform fit.

• Own hypervisor system configuration and integration, implementing creative solutions to overcome platform limitations and gaps in vendor support.

• Architect and implement deterministic inter-VM communication and device virtualization using virtio, shared memory, and PCIe/other device passthrough.

• Plan and execute the analysis and verification needed to demonstrate freedom from interference, deterministic timing, and safe failure behavior in a regulated environment.

• Lead failure modes and effects analysis for the virtualized platform, translating identified failures and technology limitations into design mitigations, fault containment, and defined recovery or degraded behaviors.

• Build platform observability that exposes guest and hypervisor health, resource utilization, latency, jitter, and other relevant system health signals on target hardware