Systems Design Architect Engineer 4 - Contract

Job Title: Systems Design/Architecture Engineer 4
Location: Sunnyvale, CA
Duration: 12 Months

Job Description: 
Min 8 years of experience required

Primary Function of Position
Joining Client means joining a team dedicated to using technology to benefit patients by improving surgical efficacy and decreasing surgical invasiveness, with patient safety as our highest priority.
We take a human-centered approach that helps our teams pioneer industry-leading technologies and enables us to create meaningful experiences for care providers.
As a Senior Interaction Designer focused on Design Planning & Operations, you will help scale the impact of the Interaction Design organization by driving the planning, coordination, and operational effectiveness of design activities across the Da Vinci portfolio.
In this role, you will leverage your design expertise to structure and enable design work from concept through implementation. You will partner closely with Interaction Designers, Product Managers, Engineers, Human Factors Engineers, and Program Managers to ensure design activities are appropriately planned, prioritized, staffed, and executed. You understand design processes, user-centered development methodologies, and the realities of complex product development, enabling you to anticipate needs, identify risks, and help teams deliver high-quality outcomes.
Success in this role is measured by the effectiveness of the design organization, the quality of planning and execution, and the ability to create clarity, alignment, and visibility across multiple concurrent initiatives.
This position reports to the Director of Interaction Design, Da Vinci Systems.

Roles & Responsibilities
Design Planning & Coordination
• Plan and coordinate design activities across multiple product development programs.
• Partner with design leadership to establish priorities, timelines, staffing strategies, and execution plans.
• Develop and maintain design roadmaps, schedules, and tracking mechanisms that provide visibility into ongoing work.
• Ensure design activities are aligned with development milestones, phase-gate expectations, and business objectives.
• Identify dependencies, resource constraints, and risks that may impact design delivery.
Design Operations
• Improve the efficiency, consistency, and scalability of Interaction Design processes and ways of working.
• Maintain operational frameworks that support planning, prioritization, resource management, and execution.
• Create visibility into team capacity, workload distribution, and portfolio health.
• Track key metrics related to planning accuracy, resource utilization, and organizational effectiveness.
• Support continuous improvement initiatives that elevate the quality and efficiency of design operations.
Cross-Functional Collaboration
• Partner with Product Management, Engineering, Human Factors, and Program Management to align design activities with broader development efforts.
• Facilitate planning sessions, design reviews, roadmap discussions, and milestone readiness reviews.
• Support decision making through clear communication of design priorities, dependencies, risks, and tradeoffs.
• Foster alignment across teams while advocating for the needs of both the design organization and end users.
Resource & Portfolio Management
• Help manage the allocation of design resources across concurrent programs and initiatives.
• Support forecasting, capacity planning, and identification of future staffing needs.
• Monitor project progress and proactively identify operational challenges impacting delivery.
• Maintain portfolio-level reporting and communicate status, risks, and opportunities to design leadership.
Design Process Leadership
• Champion best practices for planning and executing user-centered design activities.
• Ensure adherence to established design and product development processes.
• Help mature organizational practices related to design governance, reviews, documentation, and execution.
• Contribute to the evolution of Interaction Design operations within a highly regulated product development environment.

Required Skills & Experience
• Bachelor's degree in Interaction Design, Human Factors, Product Design, Engineering, or a related discipline.
• Experience leading or coordinating design activities within cross-functional product development teams.
• Strong understanding of user-centered design methodologies and product development processes.
• Demonstrated ability to balance strategic planning with day-to-day execution.
• Exceptional organizational, facilitation, and communication skills.
• Ability to influence and align diverse stakeholders without direct authority.
• Experience managing multiple concurrent initiatives and priorities.
• Strong problem-solving and analytical skills.

Preferred Skills
• Experience working in medical devices, healthcare technology, or other regulated industries.
• Experience supporting UX, Interaction Design, or Human Factors organizations.
• Proficiency with Jira, Confluence, Figma, Adobe Creative Suite, and Microsoft 365 tools.
• Familiarity with Agile and hybrid product development methodologies.
• Experience with portfolio planning, capacity management, operational reporting, and resource forecasting.

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