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
Primary function of Position:
The Director, Learning Technology and Operations is a product-led leader responsible for Intuitive’s enterprise learning technology ecosystem, including SAP SuccessFactors Learning and Percipio. The Director sets the product strategy and roadmap and drives continuous improvement. This role reports to the Sr. Director, People Tech & Digital Employee Experience. The Director leads and develops the product management and global Learning Management System (LMS) administration teams across the US, India, and Mexico, and builds a scalable support model as the function moves into People Technology. The role partners with IT and Quality Management to keep the platform reliable and compliant, and with Learning & Development, HR, Procurement, and Finance organizations to deliver modern, easy-to-use learning experiences. The ideal candidate has deep learning platform expertise, experience running learning systems in a regulated environment, and a proven record of leading change. Financial and vendor management skills, and the ability to use AI and automation to improve service and efficiency, round out the profile.
Key Responsibilities
Global Operations & Service Delivery Oversight
- Provide leadership oversight for global LMS operations and service delivery across the US, India, and Mexico, working through the Tier 1 and Tier 2 Operations Managers.
- Use data, ticket trends, and user feedback to set SLA, quality, and satisfaction targets and to identify where service can be elevated.
- Review performance with the Operations Managers on a regular cadence and hold them accountable for results.
- Simplify operations by standardizing and automating processes, knowledge content, and reporting, and by removing duplicative work.
- Set priorities and guide capacity and investment decisions to balance sustaining support against transformation work as demand grows.
- Establish the controls and standards that keep LMS operations accurate, secure, private, and audit-ready, including how approved changes are implemented and how completion records and objective evidence are archived in the GxP system.
- Serve as the executive escalation point for critical incidents and for cross-functional and vendor issues.
Leadership & Team Development
- Lead the product management team and the global LMS administration team of managers, administrators, and contractors, aligning both to a single product vision and setting clear expectations, goals, and accountability for results.
- Develop the team through coaching on complex technology decisions, defined career paths, skills development, and succession planning, building a leadership bench and cross-region capability.
- Foster a customer-centric culture focused on learner experience, accountability, continuous improvement, and learning.
- Manage workload and priorities across the team and the employee/contractor mix.
- Promote agile ways of working and strong cross-functional partnerships across HR, Quality, Technology, and business teams.
Organizational Change & Transition
- Lead the planning and execution of the transition of the LMS administration organization, processes, and platform operations into People Technology, with defined milestones, risks, and success measures.
- Maintain service continuity, compliance, and audit readiness throughout the transition, with no degradation in SLAs or user experience.
- Align operating model, governance, tooling, and ways of working with People Technology and Digital Employee Experience standards, and identify opportunities to share services and capabilities across People Technology platforms.
- Lead change management and communication for the team, stakeholders, and users.
Partnership with IT and Quality Management
- Partner with IT on the technical roadmap, release schedule, upgrades and patches, integrations, and platform performance, providing clear requirements and acceptance.
- Participate in release testing and validation and support IT in creating and maintaining validation documentation.
- Establish joint operating rhythms with IT, including release planning, incident and escalation reviews, and shared project tracking, so that service issues and platform changes are resolved quickly.
- Partner with Quality Management so that approved training content, assignments, and removals are implemented accurately and on time.
- Support quality audits and corrective and preventive actions (CAPAs) by providing LMS reports and records when requested.
- Align LMS processes and work instructions with quality procedures and change control and establish clear decision rights and escalation paths with IT, Quality, and Learning & Development.
Financial Accountability
- Own the annual budget for the learning technology operations, vendor services, contractors, and program spend; forecast accurately and manage variances.
- Build business cases and ROI/TCO analyses for new capabilities, platform changes, and resourcing decisions, and present them to senior leadership.
- Drive efficiencies and cost avoidance through license and content rationalization, process standardization, and optimization of the regional and employee/contractor delivery mix.
- Track and report operating metrics such as cost per ticket, cost per learner, and license utilization to demonstrate value and guide investment decisions.
Vendor Management
- Act as the key liaison between internal customers, technical resources, and vendors, and jointly own with IT the relationships and contracts with SAP, Percipio, learning content providers, and managed service and contractor partners, including negotiation, renewals, and commercial terms in partnership with Procurement.
- Hold vendors accountable to SLAs, quality standards, and roadmap commitments through regular performance reviews, and escalate and resolve issues.
- Drive key product enhancements on behalf of Intuitive and represent Intuitive’s needs in vendor roadmaps and user communities.
Product Management & Strategy
- Own the product vision and roadmap for the learning technology ecosystem, and align it with IT’s technical roadmap, in sync with Intuitive’s business growth goals and people priorities.
- Translate business needs, voice-of-customer input, and enhancement requests into a prioritized, scalable roadmap with clear KPIs and measurable outcomes.
- Define release requirements, confirm acceptance of scope and lock scope with IT, and establish and execute the global launch plan, including training, collateral, and communications.
- Define and execute LMS controls, permissions, and best practices, and own monitoring of all learning domains.
- Establish an operating model for the large community of stakeholders and departments that request and maintain learning content, including intake, standards, and lifecycle management, in partnership with Learning & Development.
Governance, Quality & Compliance
- Govern policy and practice through cross-functional learning technology governance forums, including executive and advisory input.
- Ensure LMS operations meet audit readiness, certification governance, and GxP-compliant record-keeping requirements defined by Quality and Regulatory, working with IT on the validated state of the platform.
- Own release documentation, including work instructions and procedures, and oversee the functional health of integrations with systems such as Veeva, Workday, product lifecycle management, and ServiceNow.
Learning Experience & Skills-Based Enablement
- Lead the evolution of how employees discover, access, and engage with learning through improved search, personalization, guided workflows, and self-service.
- Define the functional requirements and data model needs to support skills-based talent development in partnership with Talent Management, Learning & Development, and HR systems teams.
AI & Automation
- Evaluate and adopt AI and automation capabilities available in SAP SuccessFactors, Percipio, and ServiceNow, such as intelligent support and case deflection and administrative automation, piloting and scaling high-value use cases that improve service quality and efficiency.
- Ensure AI and automation solutions align with governance, compliance, data security, privacy, and responsible AI standards, including validation expectations in a regulated environment.
Analytics, Adoption & Continuous Improvement
- Monitor and improve key performance indicators, including SLA attainment, user satisfaction, self-service adoption, content quality, cost efficiency, and program outcomes.
- Communicate progress, outcomes, and business value to HR and executive leadership.
Qualifications
Skills, Experience, Education & Training
Minimum Qualifications:
- Minimum 12+ years of learning technology or HR technology experience with proven results in creating technical strategies, developing business requirements, deploying technologies, and business process re-engineering.
- Minimum 7+ years leading, developing, and coaching technical or operational teams.
- Minimum bachelor’s degree in technology, business, or a related technical field.
- Experience managing learning systems in a regulated environment (medical device, pharmaceutical, or similar), including GxP, 21 CFR Part 11, and quality management system-related training requirements.
- Deep expertise in the SAP SuccessFactors Learning platform, including configuration, curriculum and assignment management, integrations, release management, and administration at enterprise scale.
- Experience leading global, multi-tier support operations with defined SLAs and ticketing systems (e.g., ServiceNow), including teams that combine employees and contractors, at a company with employee populations across multiple regions.
- Experience partnering with IT and Quality organizations on validated system releases, change control, and audit support.
- Experience owning a budget and managing vendor relationships and contracts, with a track record of driving cost efficiencies.
- Demonstrated product management experience, including owning a roadmap, prioritizing against competing demands, and measuring outcomes with KPIs.
- Strong customer orientation and superb communication skills, with the ability to communicate clearly with technical, functional, and executive audiences; strong personal and technical influencing skills.
- Strong collaborator who can engage and influence partners across the company and define clear ownership and decision rights with peer functions; interacts frequently with internal and external senior-level leadership.
- Process orientation and technical project management skills; experience with multiple project methodologies, including Agile/iterative development, a plus.
- Familiarity with US and global data privacy laws, GDPR, and Sarbanes-Oxley compliance.
Preferred Qualifications:
- Experience leading a team through an organizational transition, integration, or platform modernization.
- Experience with Percipio or similar learning content platforms, and with LMS integrations to systems such as Veeva, Workday, and ServiceNow.
- Experience with skills-based talent frameworks, skills taxonomies, and enabling skills-based talent development.
- Experience applying AI and automation (including generative AI, conversational AI, and AI-powered search) to improve service delivery or user experience.
- Comfortable operating in fast-changing environments and creating clarity out of ambiguity.
**Please note this role requires being onsite 3 days per week in either our Peachtree Corners, GA office or our Sunnyvale, CA office. 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.
Accommodation & Accessibility Notice:
Intuitive is committed to providing reasonable accommodations to qualified individuals with disabilities. If you require assistance or an accommodation during any part of the application or interview process, please contact People Services at HRHelpNow@intusurg.com. 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.
