The posting
Company Description
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.
Job Description
Primary Function of Position:
Intuitive’s Digital organization aims to improve patient care and empower care teams with unique data and insights from our integrated digital ecosystem. Program Managers in Digital are responsible for delivering new products and sustaining existing capabilities to our customers and partners.
The role requires a seasoned program delivery leader who combines rigorous project management discipline with the technical fluency needed to manage infrastructure-intensive digital programs in a regulated enterprise environment. This individual will serve as the primary program management accountable party for a portfolio of Digital initiatives spanning software product delivery, cloud infrastructure build-out, platform engineering, and operational readiness—ensuring each program is delivered on scope, on schedule, within budget, and in compliance with applicable quality and regulatory standards. The ideal candidate brings deep experience managing complex, multi-workstream programs where infrastructure dependencies — including cloud environment configuration, network architecture, DevOps pipeline maturity, and security and compliance controls — are first-class program concerns rather than afterthoughts.
At Intuitive, Program Management is not a task-based job. We are responsible for successful outcomes and delivery. This means strong program management fundamentals are a must, but most importantly, the ability to manage through influence. We look for candidates who know what success looks like and feel a personal stake in the services they support and the people they manage. People who understand how medical technology products are developed. People with a deep well of positive energy and unbounded enthusiasm. We look for people who hold themselves and their program teams to (almost, but not quite) impossibly high standards. People with unshakeable integrity and deep wisdom & judgment. People who need to know why. People who are comfortable in ambiguity and excel at bringing order to it. People who strive to simplify and to clarify. People who are as comfortable presenting to execs as they are with their nose buried in a burndown chart.
Roles and Responsibilities:
- Effectively manage cross-functional development programs across Intuitive’s different Business units and shared services, overseeing critical projects including cloud and infrastructure, and delivering against commitments and outcomes
- Help teams prioritize tasks to focus on the critical activities that drive progress and avoid being sidetracked by less important issues.
- Collaborate with cross-functional teams, including Infrastructure environment dependencies, to ensure the right people are updated with the right information at the right time on status and ensure that cross-product dependencies are understood, planned for, and crisply executed
- Perform risk analysis, develop contingency plans, and gather data from functions to proactively raise prioritization and scheduling tradeoff decisions
- Drive required discipline and rigor in requirements analysis, design, development, and testing through good development practices and effective use of phase gates.
- Work across the organization and external partners as needed to align functional support and input for the project
- Contribute to and help lead improvements to Intuitive project management processes and ongoing improvements to the way we ship new products and capabilities.
- Function as a primary point of contact for stakeholders across the org. stakeholders across the org.
Qualifications
Required Skills and Experience
- Demonstrated history of leadership in project, program, and portfolio management of software delivery programs involving infrastructure, at scale.
- Meaningful technical fluency in infrastructure platforms, DevOps practices, and cloud operations
- Understanding of environment management, change control, and infrastructure provisioning workflows
- Familiarity with CI/CD pipeline concepts, DevOps principles, containerization, and tooling sufficient to understand release dependencies and risks
- Strong grasp of software product development engineering principles, manufacturing, servicing, and quality control.
- Proven ability to think strategically, plan, and align product development with business goals and market needs.
- Naturally accountable and responsible; self-starter, self-motivated, self-directed, self-sufficient.
- Outstanding communication and presentation skills, written and verbal, to all levels of an organization.
- Ability to recognize project challenges and drive creative and simple solutions with a customer-focused approach
- Proven ability to influence at various levels and drive conflict resolution with low drama
Required Education and Training
- At least 8 years of program & project management experience with a bachelor’s degree and 6 years with a Master’s degree. This must include hands-on experience with development and commercialization of highly technical regulated/medical devices.
- Understanding of Design Controls under US and International Regulations preferred.
- Certification in project management (PMP, CSM) desired
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 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.
Accommodation & Accessibility Notice:
Intuitive is committed to providing reasonable accommodations to qualified individuals with disabilities. If you require assistance or an accommodation during any part of the application or interview process, please contact People Services at [email protected].
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.
