About the roleGatik's autonomous medium-duty trucks and tractor-trailers operate in rigorous commercial environments requiring ultra-reliable, fail-operational hardware. The Senior Systems & Safety Engineer - Hardware will lead the safety architecture, reliability engineering, and functional safety compliance for Gatik's AV compute, sensor suite (LiDAR, Radar, Cameras, IMUs), power distribution units, and networking backbones. You will ensure Gatik's hardware stack withstands severe thermal, vibration, and component failure conditions without compromising safe autonomous operation.
This role is onsite 5 days a week at our Santa Clara, CA office!
What you'll doKey Responsibilities- Functional Safety: Conduct hardware functional safety activities including FMEDA (Failure Modes, Effects, and Diagnostic Analysis), PMHF (Probabilistic Metric for random Hardware Failures), and Single Point Fault Metrics (SPFM).
- Component Safety & Vendor Management: Evaluate, select, and qualify automotive-grade (AEC-Q100/200, ASIL-rated) compute, sensor, and power hardware from Tier-1 suppliers.
- Hardware Requirements: Define hardware requirements for compliance and system safety.
- Fault Injection & Diagnostics: Design test methodologies for hardware fault injection to validate hardware diagnostic coverage.
- Safety Case Evidence: Generate hardware safety manuals, FMEDA reports, and hardware verification documentation required for safety sign-off.
Minimum Qualifications- Education: B.S. or M.S. in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Mechatronics, or Automotive Engineering.
- Experience: 6+ years in hardware safety engineering, electrical architecture, or systems engineering in automotive (Tier-1/OEM) or aerospace industries.
- Standards Expertise: Deep working knowledge of ISO 26262 (Hardware level development), ISO 16750, SAE J1455, and FMVSS.
- Technical Mastery:
- Proven experience conducting FMEDA, FTA, and worst-case circuit analysis for safety-critical hardware.
- Expert knowledge of Automotive Ethernet, CAN-FD, LIN, PCIe, and high-speed deserializer (GMSL/FPD-Link) topologies.
- Experience with high-power DC-DC converters, smart power distribution modules (ePDMs), and battery management systems (BMS).
Preferred Qualifications- Direct experience designing or safety-certifying high-compute AV platforms.
- Experience with heavy/medium-duty commercial vehicle platform integration.
- Thermal and structural safety analysis experience under extreme environmental conditions.
Salary Range - $160,000- $240,000
