Lead Functional Safety Engineer

Dexterity•Redwood City, CA

3h•$130,000 - $192,000

About The Position

Dexterity is hiring a Lead Functional Safety Engineer to lead functional safety engineering for industrial robots, autonomous mobile systems, and motion-control and drivetrain architectures. The role owns the complete safety lifecycle, from hazard and risk analysis through requirements, architecture, implementation, verification, and validation, supporting compliant deployment in North American, European, and Japanese markets. The engineer will establish functional safety management and integrate safety activities into the company's quality processes. They will assess machinery risks, develop and review safety architectures, analyze robotic and drivetrain failure modes, and define safety interfaces and safe behavior across controls, drives, sensors, and communications. The role also involves certification support, safety analysis and documentation, verification and validation, safety-related implementation support, and customer-facing technical guidance. The position requires a bachelor's degree in Electrical, Mechanical, or a related engineering discipline and 10+ years of functional safety experience in a relevant safety-critical domain. Functional safety certification is preferred. Domestic and international travel may be required. Annual base salary is $130,000–$192,000; total rewards may also include equity and medical, dental, and vision benefits.

Requirements

Bachelor's degree in Electrical, Mechanical, or a related engineering discipline.
10+ years of functional safety experience in robotics, autonomous systems, industrial automation, automotive, aerospace, or other safety-critical machinery domains.
Hands-on experience with servo drives, inverters, motor controls, encoders, brakes, safety PLCs, safety I/O, and safety-rated networks.
Demonstrated ownership of the complete safety lifecycle: hazard and risk analysis, safety requirements, PLr/SIL determination, architecture, implementation, verification, and validation.
Ability to evaluate manipulator and mobile-platform/drivetrain hazards, including stopping distance, stored energy, braking, unintended motion, and loss of control.
Experience with Structured Text, Ladder Logic, and/or Function Block Diagram, along with PLCs, microcontrollers, and safety-related embedded systems.
Ability to determine how a safety-critical failure is detected, how the system reaches a defined safe state, and how required PL/SIL is quantitatively justified and demonstrated through analysis, implementation, and validation.

Nice To Haves

Functional safety certification such as TÜV Functional Safety Engineer, CFSE, CFSP, or CMSE.

Responsibilities

Create and maintain a Functional Safety Management Plan covering the lifecycle, responsibilities, required work products, competence and independence requirements, and approval authority.
Develop and maintain QMS integration for safety activities, reviews, approvals, deviations, corrective actions, and audits.
Perform machinery risk assessments per ISO 12100; identify hazards, define safe states and safety functions, and determine required PLr or SIL.
Support compliance and certification activities with certification bodies, test laboratories, and external assessors, including UL, TÜV, NRTLs, and notified bodies.
Interpret relevant regulations and standards, advise engineering teams on their practical application, and stay aware of changing robotics-safety and compliance expectations.
Develop and review safety architectures for E-stop, protective stop, STO, safe stopping, safely limited speed, overspeed protection, brake control, restart prevention, and protective sensing.
Apply ISO 13849-1/-2 and IEC 62061, including redundancy, diagnostics, MTTFd/PFH calculations, common-cause failure analysis, and validation.
Analyze robotic and drivetrain failure modes, including motor and inverter faults, welded switching devices, encoder or feedback loss, brake, steering, and gearbox failures, unintended torque, overspeed, and loss of control.
Define safety interfaces among safety PLCs, robot controllers, servo drives and inverters, motors, brakes, encoders, scanners, contactors, and safety I/O; specify safe behavior for communication loss or invalid data.
Apply safety-rated communication protocols such as PROFIsafe, CIP Safety, and EtherCAT/FSoE, with working knowledge of PROFINET, EtherNet/IP, and other industrial networks as system interfaces.
Perform HARA, FMEA/FMECA/FMEDA/DFMEA, fault tree analysis, fault injection testing, and safety-case analyses; translate results into traceable safety requirements and design evidence.
Perform mechanical and structural analysis and failure analysis for components whose failure can create or worsen a hazard, linked to inspection and proof-test needs.
Plan and execute verification and validation covering stopping performance, response time, sensor and encoder faults, drive faults, communication loss, restart behavior, and achievement of the defined safe state.
Support safety-related PLC and embedded implementation, component selection, IEC 61131-3 programming, customer-site standard operating procedures, and scalable safety training and troubleshooting.
Engage in customer-facing technical meetings to clarify safety design decisions, explain functional-safety compliance, and provide expert guidance on system guardrails.
Travel domestically and internationally as required.