Senior Controls Software Engineer (Robotics & Test Systems) - Surgical

Careers that change lives start here. Medtronic is a global leader in healthcare technology with a Mission to alleviate pain, restore health, and extend life. Our 95,000 employees work across more than 150 countries to put patients first — developing innovative medical technologies that improve the lives of 72+ million patients each year. Your unique talents will help shape the future of healthcare while building a career grounded in purpose, growth, and impact. A Day in the Life Making the best possible surgery accessible to every patient. We believe the future of surgery is less invasive and more precise, predictable, and personalised. We bring together sharp surgical expertise, extensive medical knowledge, and cutting-edge technology with a single-minded focus on each patient - wherever they are, and however they need to be treated. Each surgical specialty faces unique challenges, yet the goal is universal: better care for patients. By understanding these differences, we deliver solutions that empower surgeons and keep patients at the heart of every decision. We are seeking a Senior Controls Software Engineer to design, implement and adapt low-level controls software for advanced test rigs and robotic instrument operation. The role translates test objectives and system requirements into reliable control functions, including motor control, state machines, motion trajectories, force and position control, operating limits, interlocks and test-specific control modes. This is a hands-on engineering role within a multidisciplinary advanced development team. The successful candidate will develop and integrate controls software with motors, drives, sensors, data-acquisition systems, real-time interfaces and mechanical systems; support rig commissioning and troubleshooting; and deliver maintainable solutions that enable repeatable, traceable instrument performance testing, characterisation and engineering investigations. The role will be based at the Mervue Campus in Galway, Ireland. • Design, implement, test and maintain low-level controls software for test rigs, robotic mechanisms and instrument-operation platforms. • Develop motor-control functions, machine and instrument state machines, homing and calibration sequences, motion trajectories and coordinated operating modes. • Implement closed-loop force, torque, position, velocity and hybrid control strategies appropriate to the test objective and system architecture. • Define and implement software limits, error handling, fault recovery, interlocks, watchdogs and test-specific control modes that support safe and repeatable operation. • Translate system requirements, test methods, motion profiles and load cases into software requirements, control algorithms, interfaces and verification approaches. • Integrate controls software with servo drives, embedded controllers, real-time systems, sensors, encoders, load cells, torque sensors, data-acquisition hardware and mechanical assemblies. • Develop reusable software components, device interfaces and configuration approaches that can be applied across multiple rigs and instrument platforms. • Collaborate with test, systems, mechanical, electrical, mechatronics and software engineers to define interfaces, timing, I/O, communications and expected system behaviour. • Support concept feasibility, rapid prototyping, rig bring-up, commissioning, tuning, verification, troubleshooting and release for engineering use. • Use modelling, simulation, data analysis and structured experiments to tune control performance and understand dynamic interactions between the instrument, robot and test equipment. • Create and maintain software design descriptions, interface documentation, test evidence, configuration records and other technical docu