Sr. Simulation & Synthetic Data Engineer

About the Team

Future Forward Research Synthetic Data builds the simulation and data infrastructure that powers Intuitives autonomous surgical capabilities.

The Role

Youll build the virtual surgical worlds and the data pipelines that train our perception and policy models. Day to day that means designing simulation environments generating large volumes of labeled synthetic data and working with ML engineers to close the sim-to-real gap for robotic surgery. Its a hands-on engineering role at the intersection of 3D simulation machine learning and robotics.

What Youll Do

• Design and build high-fidelity simulation environments for surgical tasks.
• Generate scalable synthetic datasets including photo realistic imagery segmentation masks depth optical flow and kinematic state and own their quality versioning and delivery.
• Implement domain randomization and procedural scene generation to maximize sim-to-real transfer.
• Model deformable soft-tissue physics tool-tissue contact and instrument kinematics that match Intuitives platforms.
• Partner with ML engineers to define task curricula reward functions and evaluation benchmarks.
• Develop and refine sim-to-real transfer strategies and validate simulated behaviors against benchtop phantoms and real systems.
• Build reusable tools APIs and documentation so the broader team can spin up new tasks without deep simulation expertise.

Qualifications :

What You Bring

We care more about real depth in a few of these than shallow coverage of all of them.

• Strong software engineering. You write maintainable tested code in Python C and/or C# and youre comfortable in a Linux / Git / Docker / GPU workflow.
• Hands-on simulation or graphics experience. Youve built things in a physics simulator game engine or rendering/VFX pipeline robotics simulators real-time engines and offline graphics pipelines all count.
• A feel for data and models. Youve produced data that trained an ML model (or worked closely alongside that) and you understand how data quality and distribution show up in model behavior.
• Working knowledge of 3D and physics fundamentals coordinate frames rendering rigid-body and contact dynamics enough to reason about why a simulated scene does or doesnt look and behave correctly.

Youve likely spent several years building games simulation graphics robotics or data systems but were far more interested in what youve built than in a specific number on your résumé. If you dont check every box we still want to hear from you. Strong candidates often come from autonomous driving humanoid robotics gaming or VFX rather than surgical robotics specifically.

Education

• Bachelors degree in Computer Science Computer Graphics Robotics Electrical or Mechanical Engineering Physics or a related technical field or equivalent practical experience.
• An advanced degree (MS or PhD) in a related area is a plus not a requirement. Weve hired strong engineers from all paths including self-taught backgrounds and industry work in games VFX or robotics.

Bonus Points

None of these are required theyre signals not gates. Any one of them is a nice plus.

• Deformable-object simulation: FEM position-based dynamics or differentiable physics
• NVIDIA Isaac Sim/Lab
• Surgical robotics simulation: ORBIT-Surgical dVRK-based environments
• Sim-to-real techniques: domain randomization system identification privileged learning residual policies
• Vision-language or vision-language-action models and how simulation data supports them
• Procedural/generative asset creation: NeRFs Gaussian Splatting or diffusion models
• Distributed compute at scale: Ray Kubernetes Slurm multi-GPU/multi-node
• Medical imaging or surgical video pipelines
• Publications or open-source work in simulation graphics robotics or AI

Tools You Might Use

You wont touch all of these and we dont expect you to walk in knowing them.

Category

Examples

Simulation engines

Unity NVIDIA Isaac Sim/Lab MuJoCo

Deformable physics

PhysX FEM SOFA DiSECt NVIDIA Warp/Newton PBD

Rendering & data

USD Omniverse Replicator Blender

Infrastructure

Docker Kubernetes Ray Airflow CUDA

What Success Looks Like in Your First Year

• Simulation environments for several core surgical tasks are operational and integrated with the ML training pipeline.
• Synthetic data delivers measurable model lift on targeted perception or policy metrics.
• A quantitative sim-to-real correlation is established on benchtop phantoms.
• Parallelized infrastructure reliably generates thousands of training episodes per hour with automated dataset delivery.
• A reusable task-creation framework lets ML engineers define new surgical skills without deep simulation expertise.

Shift

• Day

Workplace Type

• Onsite - This job is fully onsite in the Sunnyvale campus.

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 employeeswho 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 governments 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 employeesstart 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 candidates experience knowledge and skills.
Compensation will be based primarily on the job level at which the role is filled and the
candidates 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.

Remote Work :

No

Employment Type :

Full-time