Karan Chitkara

Promoted to the highest individual contributor engineering level for outstanding innovation and technical depth in medical device software development. Drive the design and strategic direction of complex neurostimulation platforms.

• Defined the technical roadmap for platform-wide software modernization including modular architecture, telemetry acceleration, and security-first design for the next-generation External Neurostimulator (ENS), positioning it to replace legacy systems worldwide.
• Led cross-functional alignment with human factors, systems engineering, clinical, and firmware teams to drive end-to-end design traceability, regulatory readiness, and cohesive user experiences across platforms.
• Served as software architect and visionary behind several key Medtronic innovations, including multi-device reusability frameworks, patient/session data fidelity enhancements, and dynamic signal-driven programming systems.
• Elevated software governance through implementation of enterprise-level development practices, including scalable design patterns, code health infrastructure, and static/dynamic analysis protocols tuned for safety-critical systems.
• Acted as technical advisor to senior leadership, offering guidance on technology investments, product risk strategies, and competitive positioning in the neurostimulation landscape.
• Delivered strategic IP contributions, including multiple U.S. and international patents on electrode selection, signal trace visualization, and data-driven programming automation — demonstrating market foresight and technical originality.
• Actively mentoring emerging engineering talent, leading internal working groups, and driving a culture of excellence around software design, reliability engineering, and innovation lifecycle acceleration.
• Continually advocating for cybersecurity integration into the product lifecycle, helping establish provisioning and obfuscation protocols tailored for BLE-enabled implantable interfaces and mobile companions.

• Architected scalable and modular software frameworks for Medtronic's Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS) systems, ensuring high performance, security, and compliance with medical regulations across 10+ global regulatory markets.
• Led the design of cross-platform mobile architectures (iOS & Android) to standardize development, improve efficiency, and reduce maintenance overhead across therapy teams.
• Developed common reusable software components, enabling multiple teams across Medtronic to leverage a unified development approach and eliminating redundant engineering efforts.

• Played a critical role in multiple major software releases, including the Sensight Directional Lead System and Adaptive Deep Brain Stimulation (aDBS), ensuring millions of patients worldwide have access to optimized neurostimulation therapy.
• Ensured successful deployment of DBS software solutions across numerous international regulatory markets, including FDA (US), TÜV (EU MDR), NMPA (China), and many more global bodies.
• Led technical execution for new therapy programming features, improving clinical efficiency and reducing patient visit times.
• Spearheaded the Electrode Identifier feature — an innovation that automates electrode selection and titration, saving clinicians hours of programming time — recognized as part of TIME Magazine's Best Inventions of 2025.

• Designed and implemented automation frameworks that drastically reduced software validation cycles from months to days, enabling faster regulatory approvals and accelerating time-to-market.
• Developed the Automation Runner Tool, which analyzes over 17 million lines of code and executes 20,000+ test cases automatically, streamlining the testing pipeline and reducing manual effort by 90%.
• Integrated automated test execution with software requirements tracking, simplifying regulatory audits and providing end-to-end traceability.

• Implemented cryptographic security protocols to encrypt patient data and secure device communication via Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE), ensuring tamper-proof interaction between mobile applications and implantable neurostimulators.
• Ensured compliance with HIPAA, GDPR, and global medical data security standards through secure software design principles.
• Developed proprietary encryption frameworks for Medtronic's next-generation neurostimulator devices, ensuring patient data protection across all communication channels.

• Worked closely with Systems, Human Factors, Risk, Reliability, and Firmware teams to ensure a smooth software development lifecycle (SDLC) from initial design to post-market release.
• Led cross-team discussions to bridge the gap between software, hardware, and clinical engineering, ensuring software solutions align with real-world medical use cases.
• Mentored multiple junior engineers and interns, guiding them in software design, best practices, and Medtronic's regulatory software development processes.
• Conducted technical interviews for full-time hires, ensuring that new talent aligns with Medtronic's engineering standards.
• Led exploratory research into AI-driven therapy optimizations and enhanced user interfaces for clinicians.

• Designed and implemented a common platform to facilitate secure and reliable communication between Medtronic medical devices and mobile applications (Android & iOS), standardizing data exchange, device pairing, and communication protocols.
• Enabled multiple therapy teams to adopt a unified framework instead of building custom implementations, significantly reducing development effort and ensuring consistency across the Neuromodulation division.
• Improved scalability and maintainability by implementing a modular, reusable architecture with well-documented SDKs, API guides, and example implementations.

• Designed and implemented a KMM-based framework, allowing developers to write shared business logic for iOS and Android, reducing code duplication and accelerating feature development.
• Provided common APIs and data models that therapy teams could use to focus on UI and therapy-specific logic rather than handling lower-level communication details.
• Conducted architecture reviews and code consultations to ensure consistency and best practices across therapy teams adopting the platform.

• Implemented a dependency injection framework to allow teams to integrate only the required components, ensuring lighter and more efficient mobile applications.
• Designed automated test frameworks for the shared platform, ensuring high stability and compatibility before deployment across therapy applications.
• Worked with firmware and embedded systems teams to align mobile communication protocols with device-side implementations, ensuring seamless interaction.
• Collaborated with offshore teams to ensure seamless integration of the platform across different therapy applications.

• Designed and implemented a mobile application for Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS) therapy, enabling clinicians to configure and manage neurostimulation therapy for patients with integrated secure BLE communication protocols.
• Utilized MVC, MVP, and FLUX architectural patterns to develop a modular and maintainable software structure, improving code reusability and scalability.
• Developed an automation tool to capture and document application screens, reducing manual validation efforts for regulatory approval and providing engineers and regulatory teams with structured documentation for software verification.
• Created and implemented unit tests and automated testing frameworks to ensure high code quality and system reliability, designing end-to-end test cases covering edge cases, performance tests, and security assessments.

• Diagnosed and resolved critical software defects in Android-based medical applications, improving system reliability and user experience through root cause analysis and comprehensive debugging.
• Contributed to feature development for Medtronic's Android applications, implementing key UI components and business logic while supporting senior and principal engineers in architecture decisions.
• Wrote unit tests and automated test scripts, ensuring software quality, preventing regressions, and increasing code coverage across releases.
• Worked alongside firmware, backend, and testing teams to ensure seamless integration of software components, gaining hands-on experience in the end-to-end medical device software development lifecycle.

• Diagnosed and resolved over 150 real-world software issues, enhancing the reliability of enterprise applications used in the power trading and energy generation industry.
• Designed and implemented new software modules using JavaScript and C#, expanding system capabilities for power industry clients, including interactive web applications for power distribution data visualization.
• Created complex stored procedures, views, and functions in SQL Server to process large volumes of energy transaction data efficiently, optimizing database performance and retrieval speeds.
• Worked on an advanced C++-based computation engine that interacted with SQL Server databases to solve unit commitment problems — optimizing energy generation planning and minimizing costs while meeting demand.

• Designed and developed a web-based course proposal approval system, replacing the university's paper-based process with a digital platform built in Java with a MySQL database backend.
• Built interactive front-end interfaces using HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, and implemented server-side validation and role-based access controls using the Struts framework.
• Integrated the system with existing university databases, enabling seamless data synchronization across multiple departments and reducing administrative overhead.
• Provided technical documentation and training to administrative staff, ensuring smooth adoption and transition to the new platform.