Senior Research And Development Engineer

Role: Senior R&D Engineer Location: Cambridge, MA — in-person strongly preferred To apply: Email jobs@lambdasurgical.com with your resume/LinkedIn and three bullets demonstrating evidence of exceptional ability About Lambda Surgical Lambda Surgical is building physical intelligence for surgery. As more procedures move to camera-based approaches, surgeons increasingly operate from a 2D projection rather than a true spatial understanding of the operative field. Our first product, LambdaGuide, is a LiDAR-based spatial measurement system designed to integrate into existing endoscopic and robotic workflows and improve intraoperative precision. Pending FDA clearance, LambdaGuide has the potential to dramatically change how surgeons measure, navigate, and make decisions inside the body. Backed by some of the world’s leading technology investors, Lambda is building toward a future in which surgery is more precise, more intelligent, and more autonomous. Ultimately, we believe LambdaGuide will become the foundation for autonomous surgery by enabling the same core capability that unlocked autonomy in robotics: an adaptive world model that learns from expert human operators. Role Overview We’re looking for a Senior R&D Engineer to build a deep, first-principles understanding of our imaging and perception system, across the optics, electronics, firmware, software, and algorithms that turn raw sensor data into accurate 3D measurements and useful surgical scene understanding. This is a hands-on research, development, and applications role: you will prototype hardware/software configurations, characterize performance, debug across the sensing stack, support early customer and lab deployments, and help define future camera and perception platforms. You will move fluidly between CAD, electronics, embedded code, data analysis, calibration, machine vision, perception, and user feedback. This role is ideal for someone who loves taking systems apart to understand why they behave the way they do, building tools to prove it, and working directly with early users to make complex technology reliable in the field. Responsibilities Prototype and iterate on depth camera and perception pipelines, from illumination and sensor configuration through depth processing, calibration, 3D reconstruction, and localization. Design and integrate sensors, cameras, illumination, and compute hardware into working prototypes, including component selection, test rigs, and validation against requirements. Rapidly prototype, test, and debug across optics, electronics, firmware, software, calibration, and perception. Serve as a technical applications engineer for early customer and lab accounts, including setup, demos, troubleshooting, data collection, user training, and feedback capture. Support early installations and evaluations in realistic lab, cadaver, animal, clinical, and customer environments. Translate customer, surgeon, and lab feedback into engineering requirements, product improvements, failure modes, and test plans. Build internal tools for hardware testing, data visualization, measurement, calibration, and perception evaluation. Write code to control and communicate with camera modules, microcontrollers, illumination systems, and video acquisition devices. Create CAD models and dimensioned drawings for prototype fixtures, mounts, and mechanical integration. Collect, organize, and analyze imaging, depth, calibration, workflow, and field-use data. Document experimental methods and results clearly enough to support design decisions, regulatory submissions, customer support, and IP filings. Ideal Background Master’s or PhD degree in Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Robotics, Optics/Photonics, Computer Engineering, Computer Vision, or a related field; or a Bachelor’s degree with 3+ years of R&D experience in sensing, optics, robotics, embedded systems, imaging, or perception. Experience with embedded programming, C/C++, and/or Python for sensor, camera, and device communication. Comfort working with lab equipment such as oscilloscopes, power supplies, spectrometers, optical benches, cameras, illumination systems, and test fixtures for hardware characterization and debugging. Proficiency with CAD for mechanical design, prototype fixtures, integration components, and dimensioned drawings. Strong fundamentals in imaging systems, calibration, 3D geometry, hardware/software integration, and experimental design. Understanding of time-of-flight, structured light, stereo, monocular depth estimation, or other 3D depth-sensing principles is a plus. Experience with machine vision, perception pipelines, 3D reconstruction, point clouds, segmentation, tracking, SLAM, registration, real-time computer vision, depth camera SDKs, OpenCV, point cloud libraries, ROS, CUDA, or related perception tooling is a plus. Familiarity with laser/LED illumination systems, optical design, filters, dichroics, laser safety, high-speed digital PCB design, medical devices, surgical imaging, robotics, automotive sensing, or AR/VR is a plus. Traits We Value Utmost integrity. We need people who are honest, rigorous, trustworthy, and guided by a strong moral backbone and a genuine desire to do good with their time on earth. We value people who surface the truth quickly, even when it is inconvenient or difficult. High agency. We need people who take ownership, figure things out, create structure where it is missing, and drive ambiguous problems to resolution. Clear communication. We need people who can communicate clearly, directly, and thoughtfully across functions, including engineering, clinical, quality/regulatory, operations, leadership, partners, and customers. Other traits we value: curiosity, first-principles thinking, practical judgment, attention to detail, comfort with ambiguity, low ego, urgency, and excitement to build foundational technology for the future of surgery.