Lead Functional Safety Engineer

Dexterity•Redwood City, CA

About The Position

Dexterity is an enterprise Physical AI company building intelligent robots for complex industrial work. Its systems combine robotics and a Physical AI platform to support demanding logistics workflows, including trailer loading and unloading and airport baggage handling. Dexterity is headquartered in Redwood City, California. The Lead Functional Safety Engineer leads functional safety engineering for industrial robots, autonomous mobile systems, and motion-control and drivetrain architectures. The role owns the full safety lifecycle, from hazard and risk analysis through requirements, architecture, implementation, verification, and validation, to support compliant deployment in North American, European, and Japanese markets. The engineer also supports safety-related implementation, certification, customer guidance, and scalable safety practices. The role requires a Bachelor's degree in Electrical, Mechanical, or a related engineering discipline and 10+ years of functional safety experience in robotics, autonomous systems, industrial automation, automotive, aerospace, or another safety-critical machinery domain. Candidates must be able to determine how safety-critical failures are detected, how systems reach defined safe states, and how required PL/SIL levels are quantitatively justified and demonstrated through analysis, implementation, and validation. Functional safety certification such as TÜV Functional Safety Engineer, CFSE, CFSP, or CMSE is preferred. Domestic and international travel is required as needed. The annual base salary range is $130,000–$192,000 USD. Total rewards may also include equity and medical, dental, and vision benefits. Actual compensation depends on experience, skills, scope, level, qualifications, and internal equity. Dexterity may use AI tools to support parts of the hiring process, but final hiring decisions are made by humans.

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 safety-critical failures are detected and how systems reach a defined safe state, and to quantitatively justify and demonstrate required PL/SIL through analysis, implementation, and validation.
Willingness to travel domestically and internationally as required.

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 lifecycle, responsibilities, work products, competence and independence requirements, and approval authority.
Integrate safety activities, reviews, approvals, deviations, corrective actions, and audits into the existing Quality Management System processes.
Perform machinery risk assessments under 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 monitor changing robotics-safety and compliance expectations.
Develop and review safety architectures for emergency stops, protective stops, Safe Torque Off, 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 findings into traceable safety requirements and design evidence.
Perform mechanical and structural failure analysis for components whose failure could create or worsen a hazard, linking results 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.
Participate in customer-facing technical meetings to clarify safety design decisions, explain functional-safety compliance, and provide expert guidance on system guardrails.