Research Scientist at Intuitive Surgical, Inc. in Sunnyvale, California

Job Description:

Company Description At Intuitive, we are united behind our mission: we believe that minimally invasive care is life-enhancing care. Through ingenuity and intelligent technology, we expand the potential of physicians to heal without constraints.

As a pioneer and market leader in robotic-assisted surgery, we strive to foster an inclusive and diverse team, committed to making a difference. For more than 25 years, we have worked with hospitals and care teams around the world to help solve some of healthcare's hardest challenges and advance what is possible.

Intuitive has been built by the efforts of great people from diverse backgrounds. We believe great ideas can come from anywhere. We strive to foster an inclusive culture built around diversity of thought and mutual respect. We lead with inclusion and empower our team members to do their best work as their most authentic selves.

Passionate people who want to make a difference drive our culture. Our team members are grounded in integrity, have a strong capacity to learn, the energy to get things done, and bring diverse, real world experiences to help us think in new ways. We actively invest in our team members to support their long-term growth so they can continue to advance our mission and achieve their highest potential.

Join a team committed to taking big leaps forward for a global community of healthcare professionals and their patients. Together, let's advance the world of minimally invasive care. Job Description
Primary Function of Position:

The Future Forward Research group within Intuitive Surgical has an immediate opening in Sunnyvale, CA for a research scientist with focus on Computer Vision, Machine Learning and AI, contributing to new technology development in the area of robot intelligence and autonomy. This role is an exciting opportunity to join a newly formed team and contribute to its growth and it will give you an opportunity to test your knowledge in a challenging problem-solving environment.

The successful candidate must excel in a high-energy, focused, small-team environment, be able to initiate and drive new research directions, and have a commitment to high research quality. A strong sense of shared responsibility and shared reward is required.

As part of the research team, immediate responsibilities include:

• Research, design, implement and evaluate complex perception, motion planning, and decision-making algorithms integrating across multiple disciplines and leveraging machine learning.


• Create experiments and prototype implementations of new learning algorithms and prediction techniques.


• Work closely with software engineering team members to drive scalable, real-time implementations.


• Collaborate with machine learning and robotic controls experts to implement and deploy algorithms, such as machine learning models.


• Collaborate closely with hardware engineering team members on developing systems from prototyping to production level.


• Contribute to research projects that develop a variety of algorithms and systems in computer vision, and image and video analysis.


• Advance the state-of-the-art in the field, including generating patents and publications


• Contribute to building new clinical datasets and data pipelines


• Participate in the integration of new ML/CV algorithms into existing and future robotic platforms


• Experiment with several users and clinical advisors to iterate prototype designs based on feedback and performance.


• Develop new technologies and digital products to improve surgeon and team performance on robotic surgery platforms.


• Support academic collaborations in related fields.

Additional responsibilities include:

• Contribute to multiple areas of research, including but not limited to the following:


• Design and apply CV/ML algorithms to novel, surgical applications


• Design/bring-up of novel sensing technologies


• Characterize surgeon and team behavior and workflow to optimize new technologies


• Establish strong academic collaborations across research disciplines

Qualifications
Skill/Job Requirements:

Competency Requirements: (Competency is based on: education, training, skills and experience).

In order to adequately perform the responsibilities of this position the individual must have:

• Minimum Doctoral degree in computer science, electrical and computer engineering, or Master's degree with minimum (5) years industry experience developing robotics, computer vision and machine learning applications


• Strong understanding of machine learning: you should be familiar with the process (data collection, training, evaluation, and making iterative improvements) of building effective learning systems.


• Strong hands-on experience with at least one of the main stream deep learning frameworks such TensorFlow, PyTorch, BLVC Caffe, Theano


• Strong hands-on experience with Python (proficiency), C/C++ (proficiency), Shell Script, Matlab


• Strong engineering practices, debugging/profiling skills, familiarity with multi-threaded programming.


• Train machine learning and deep learning models on a computing cluster to perform visual recognition tasks, such as segmentation and detection


• Hands-on experience with GPU accelerated algorithms and implementations


• Hands-on experience with state-of-the-art models based on CNNs, RNNs, and LSTMs


• Excellent communication skills both written and verbal


• Interested in early phases of product exploration and iteration based on incomplete requirements.


• Solid understanding of computer vision, machine learning, and deep learning algorithms and techniques is required


• Experience with visualization tools is a plus


• Self-starter and able to work in a collaborative and results-oriented environment


• Ability to travel domestically and internationally (5-15%)


• Able to view live and recorded surgical procedures

Additional Information

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 Employment 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.

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

Shift : Day

Travel : 10% of the time

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