Staff Software Engineer (Platform)

Job Description

Job Description

Staff Software Engineer (Platform)

Confidential Medical Robotics Company | Central Ohio | In-person

A fast moving medical robotics company is seeking a Staff Platform Software Engineer to own the architecture and technical roadmap of the software foundation supporting its robotics, controls, AI, hardware, and safety-critical systems.

The company is developing a new platform architecture as its regulated robotic product progresses toward commercialization and fleet deployment. This engineer will establish the core abstractions, interfaces, engineering standards, and development practices that other technical teams build against.

This is a technical-leadership position with substantial hands-on coding responsibility. Initially, the anticipated balance is approximately 60% coding and 40% architecture, mentorship, documentation, and technical leadership .

What you’ll do

• Own the architecture and roadmap for the core software-platform layer.
• Define interfaces between the platform, hardware, control algorithms, AI systems, firmware, and safety-critical subsystems.
• Lead decisions involving real-time constraints, fault handling, safety interlocks, versioning, and upgrade strategy.
• Design reusable APIs and abstractions that serve multiple engineering teams.
• Establish standards for testing, code review, documentation, reliability, and developer experience.
• Drive software practices supporting IEC 62304 Class B/C components and FDA design controls.
• Partner with quality and regulatory teams to maintain traceability, design-history documentation, and risk artifacts.
• Represent platform architecture in design reviews, ISO 14971 risk assessments, regulatory reviews, and audits.
• Mentor platform and firmware engineers while continuing to write production C++.
• Help build the platform-engineering function from the ground up.
• Potentially grow into broader engineering management or director-level leadership as the team expands.

Required qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in computer science, computer engineering, or a related technical discipline.
• Approximately 10–15 years of professional software engineering experience.
• Deep, recent C++ and embedded or real-time software-design expertise.
• Experience taking a complex platform or product from early development through commercial launch.
• Experience building software in medical devices or another regulated, safety-critical industry.
• Experience working under a formal lifecycle standard such as IEC 62304, ISO 26262, or DO-178C.
• Demonstrated ownership of architecture-level decisions—not merely implementation within someone else’s architecture.
• Experience defining APIs, frameworks, and abstractions used by other engineering teams.
• Experience establishing testing and software-development practices for a team.
• Strong architectural and regulatory documentation skills.
• Technical leadership and mentoring experience.
• Willingness to work in person in Central Ohio.

Preferred qualifications

• Direct involvement in a 510(k), PMA, or comparable regulatory submission.
• QNX or comparable RTOS experience.
• Embedded Linux and hardware-interface experience.
• Familiarity with robotic computing, sensors, actuators, or control systems.
• Python and ROS2 experience.
• Startup or early-stage company experience.
• Experience creating a platform-engineering function from scratch.
• Formal engineering-management experience.

Ideal candidate

The ideal candidate is still a committed software builder but can also create the architecture, standards, and technical direction for an emerging team. They can operate credibly with software, robotics, AI, quality, and regulatory stakeholders and translate those competing needs into a reliable platform.

They should be comfortable helping to build and guide the developing platform team, partnering directly with the VP of Engineering, and creating foundational systems without mature existing examples.