Principal System Safety Engineer

Anduril • Costa Mesa, CA

1d

About The Position

Anduril's Reliability & System Safety Engineering organization is hiring Principal System Safety Engineers to operate across the company rather than within one program or product line. The team partners with Engineering to help ensure products are safe and meet mission-performance, environmental, and customer requirements. Its work includes developing system safety processes and methods that support scalable, long-term business success.

The Principal System Safety Engineer serves as a company-wide technical authority, setting safety philosophy, risk acceptance posture, and analytical standards across Anduril's divisions. The role provides independent safety assessments throughout program lifecycles, engages programs early to identify difficult-to-reverse design decisions, and deploys as a senior resource where deep system safety judgment is needed. The role helps ensure systems can be certified, fielded, and defended, and prepares programs for formal government safety certification.

The position shapes enterprise technical risk posture and safety practices, including for emerging autonomous and AI/ML-enabled systems. It negotiates safety criteria and compliance approaches with customers and authorities, develops the capabilities of senior engineers, and represents Anduril in external safety and standards forums.

Requirements

• At least 15 years of industry experience as a System Safety Engineer or equivalent engineering background.
• B.S. degree in Mechanical Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, Systems Engineering, or an equivalent technical discipline.
• Direct experience with government safety review boards, including building and presenting safety cases and achieving board approval; examples include WSESRB, NNMSB, and SSSTRP.
• Deep experience with safety-critical hardware and software systems in the defense or aerospace industry.
• Expert-level knowledge of MIL-STD-882E, including the ability to tailor it credibly, and working familiarity with service-level system safety policy and the Joint Software Systems Safety Engineering Handbook (JSSSEH).
• Expert background in safety analysis techniques including FTA, FHA, SCFTA, and FMECA, and judgment about when each technique is unsuitable.
• Failure investigation and analysis experience, with a track record of solving problems and preventing recurrence.
• Extensive design review experience, including PDR, CDR, and MRR, and confident presentation skills with executives, customers, and external safety authorities.
• Strong analytical, problem-solving, and communication skills, with the ability to build influence across organizations without formal authority.
• Willingness to travel between Anduril sites, customer locations, and test ranges to support programs across the portfolio.
• Eligibility to obtain and maintain a U.S. security clearance.

Nice To Haves

• M.S. or Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, Systems Engineering, or an equivalent technical discipline.
• AI/ML and autonomy safety experience, including run-time assurance and the safety implications of DoD autonomous weapon system policy.
• Experience with Relyence, Teamcenter, JIRA, JAMA, Cameo, and/or Ansys.

Responsibilities

• Serve as a company-wide System Safety technical authority across Anduril divisions and set enterprise-wide direction.
• Conduct independent, end-to-end safety assessments of programs at any lifecycle phase.
• Deploy as a senior technical resource to programs, establish a credible System Safety approach, and leave a sustainable baseline for program teams.
• Prepare programs and engineering teams for formal government safety certification.
• Shape the enterprise technical risk posture through analytical models, hazard framing, and risk acceptance philosophy used for fielding, test, and investment decisions.
• Develop analysis and verification approaches for emerging technologies, including autonomous and AI/ML-enabled systems not sufficiently covered by existing frameworks.
• Negotiate safety acceptance criteria, alternate means of compliance, and tailored standards with customers, service safety centers, and regulatory authorities.
• Drive System Safety philosophy, planning standards, and requirements practices across the enterprise, and influence customer and regulatory requirements for novel systems.
• Develop Senior and Staff System Safety engineers and create frameworks, mental models, and training for engineers across the company.
• Represent Anduril in industry working groups, standards bodies, and customer safety forums.

Benefits

• Highly competitive equity grants are included in the majority of full-time offers and are considered part of total compensation.
• Top-tier benefits for full-time employees, described as a comprehensive, competitive package available at little to no cost to employees. The posting does not enumerate specific benefits.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Principal