Senior Manager Industrial Design - ION

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

Joining Intuitive means joining a team dedicated to using technology to improve patient care efficacy and decreasing invasiveness of medical procedures, with patient safety as our highest priority. We work in a high-energy, focused, small-team environment, and believe in applying first principle thinking, insight and data-driven decision making, continuous learning, and systematic planning to deliver results and achieve our goals.

Description of Position:

Intuitive’s da Vinci and Ion systems push the frontier of human-machine interaction by fusing many technologies into a core product experience – technologies such as immersive 3D vision, real-time haptic interfaces and robotic instruments and accessories. Industrial Design is a key function at Intuitive that works across multiple technical disciplines to envision possibilities and synthesize needs & requirements into beautifully designed, high-performance solutions.

The Senior Manager, Industrial Design is a strategic design leader responsible for defining and driving the industrial design vision across a portfolio of products and experiences. This role leads teams of industrial designers and collaborates with adjacent design disciplines, engineering, clinical, and business partners to deliver cohesive, scalable, and high-impact product solutions.

This leader operates with a holistic, systems-level mindset, translating business strategy and user needs into a clear multi-year design vision and roadmap, while ensuring execution excellence from concept through launch. They are accountable not only for design quality, but also for the contribution of design to usability, product success, and overall business impact.

Role and Responsibilities

Strategic Leadership & Vision:

• Nurtures relationships with partners and stakeholders within the businesses
• Leads the design of physical products, product ecosystems, and design strategies from concept to implementation.
• Identifies, frames, and acts on opportunities to drive product design and user experience consistency, and envisions compelling new product possibilities for the business.
• Creates compelling presentations and regularly presents to business leaders and stakeholders.
• Owns and drives the industrial design strategy across a defined product portfolio, ensuring consistency and cohesion across product ecosystems.
• Defines and drives a multi-year industrial design vision aligned with business objectives and product strategy.
• Identifies and leads breakthrough innovation opportunities that shape the future of human-machine interaction.
• Translates user insights, clinical needs, and business priorities into a forward-looking design roadmap.

Business & Cross-Functional Impact

• Accountable for design contributions to product success, including usability, adoption, and customer experience outcomes.
• Partners with product, engineering, and business leadership to balance user experience, technical feasibility, and business goals.
• Drives informed trade-offs across cost, manufacturability, performance, and user experience.
• Represents industrial design in executive-level reviews and contributes to product and portfolio strategy discussions.

Design Systems & Platform Ownership

• Owns and governs industrial design systems, standards, and principles across the product ecosystem.
• Champions scalable approaches to physical design, including form language, CMF, ergonomics, and system integration.
• Drives consistency and quality across multiple programs through strong system-level thinking.

Team & Organizational Leadership

• Builds, leads, and scales a high-performing industrial design organization.
• Develops leadership capability within the team, including mentoring senior designers and managing managers where applicable.
• Defines organizational structure, hiring strategy, and capability development plans.
• Recruits and retains top design talent while fostering a culture of excellence, collaboration, and growth.

Operational Excellence

• Establishes team goals, metrics, and operating rhythms aligned with business and product objectives.
• Drives continuous improvement of design processes to increase efficiency, quality, and scalability.
• Manages resource allocation and planning across multiple programs and priorities.
• Implements best practices to evolve and mature the industrial design function.

Stakeholder & Executive Influence

• Partners with senior leaders across engineering, clinical, and product teams to align on priorities and execution.
• Influences and aligns stakeholders at all levels, including executive leadership, on key design decisions and trade-offs.
• Communicates design vision and outcomes through compelling storytelling and presentations.

Program Management & Execution

• Leads detailed, bottom-up planning across programs, translating milestones into clear timelines, deliverables, and resource plans.
• Tracks design progress end-to-end, maintaining visibility into completion status, risks, dependencies, and critical path.
• Provides regular executive-level readouts on progress, key risks, mitigation plans, and decision timelines.
• Proactively identifies and escalates blockers, ensuring timely resolution and cross-functional alignment.

Qualifications

Skills/Job Requirements:

• 12+ years of experience in industrial design or product development, including leadership of multidisciplinary teams and delivery of complex products to market.
• Bachelor’s or Master’s degree, in Industrial Design.
• Experience leading industrial designers, including mentoring staff, negotiation of project scopes with stakeholders, and general project management ability.
• Proven record of design excellence and shepherding of highly usable and beautiful products to market that contain sophisticated user interactions.
• Excellent teamwork skills with natural inclination to collaborate across multiple disciplines.
• Brings holistic view. High-level of confidence and articulation of design approach and POV. Strong aesthetic and storytelling skills. Passionate for delivering the best possible experience.
• Ability to travel up to 10% of the time.

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.

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.