About the roleGatik's commercial middle-mile operations require uncompromising system safety across the entire autonomous driving stack. As a Senior Systems & Safety Engineer for Autonomy, you will own the functional safety lifecycle (ISO 26262) and overall system safety concepts for Gatik's software architecture-spanning perception, localization, mapping, planning, controls, and fault management. You will architect high-availability, fail-operational mechanisms, define system-level safety targets, and ensure every autonomy release satisfies Gatik's driverless safety case.
This role is onsite 5 days a week at our Santa Clara, CA office!
What you'll doKey Responsibilities- System Safety Concept Development: Define and maintain the Functional Safety Concept (FSC) and Technical Safety Concept (TSC) for Gatik's Level 4 autonomous system in accordance with ISO 26262 (up to ASIL D).
- Hazard Analysis & Risk Assessment (HARA): Lead system-level HARAs, STPA (System-Theoretic Process Analysis), FMEAs, and FTAs (Fault Tree Analysis) across autonomy modules.
- Requirements Breakdown & Traceability: Derive safety requirements from vehicle-level goals down to software components, allocating requirements to middleware, stack algorithms, and diagnostic monitors in systems like Jama/Jira.
- Minimum Risk Maneuver (MRM) Architecture: Architect fail-operational, fail-aware, and fail-safe fallback strategies, including degraded modes, trajectory fallback, and pull-over behaviors.
- Safety Metrics & SPIs: Define and monitor Safety Performance Indicators (SPIs) and safety metrics to continuously assess stack maturity and release readiness.
- Cross-Functional Collaboration: Partner closely with Autonomy Software, Middleware, Infrastructure, and Systems teams to embed functional safety into daily agile development processes.
Minimum Qualifications- Education: B.S., M.S., or Ph.D. in Robotics, Systems Engineering, Computer Science, or Aerospace Engineering.
- Experience: 6+ years in functional safety or systems engineering for autonomous vehicles, robotics, or safety-critical aerospace/automotive platforms.
- Standards Mastery: Deep expertise in ISO 26262, UL 4600, and ISO 21448.
- Technical Rigor:
- Demonstrated mastery of safety analysis techniques: HARA, STPA, FMEA, FTA, and Reliability Block Diagrams.
- Strong programming proficiency in C++ and Python for reading codebases, analyzing logs, and writing architectural scripts.
- Experience defining architecture for deterministic, real-time autonomous systems.
- Tooling: Experience with safety and requirements management software (Jama, DOORS, Enterprise Architect, or code-based tracing tools).
Preferred Qualifications- Experience shipping Level 4 driverless commercial operations (trucking or passenger AVs).
- Experience with middleware safety (ROS2 safety layers, Adaptive AUTOSAR, or custom IPC frameworks).
- Expertise in safety arguments using Goal Structuring Notation (GSN).
Salary Range - $160,000- $240,000
