Senior Systems Engineer, Autonomy Verification and Validation (Safety & Fail Operational)

Zoox•Foster City, CA

About The Position

Zoox is on an ambitious journey to develop a full-stack autonomous mobility solution for cities and deploy such a robotaxi solution safely. As a Senior Systems Engineer, Autonomy Verification & Validation at Zoox, you will have the opportunity to work closely with cross-functional teams to analyze and measure our system's performance and safety. You will lead the creation of cutting-edge V&V methodologies, develop processes, write comprehensive validation plans, and execute tests and simulations to ensure the safety of the autonomous driving software. Your real-world and virtual tests will capture the full end-to-end performance, from advanced AI systems through the custom vehicle platform.

Requirements

B.S. or higher degree in Automotive Engineering, Aerospace, Robotics, Electrical, Mechanical, or Systems Engineering.
7+ years of system test engineering experience in the autonomous vehicle, robotics, or aerospace industry.
Strong analytical skills with hands-on experience in complex hardware-software integration.
Experience with requirement and test traceability tools such as Polarion, Jama, DOORS, or TestRails.
Deep understanding of the V-model and the application of verification and validation to safety-critical systems.
Ability to grapple with ambiguity and lead cross-functional initiatives in a fast-paced environment.
Proficiency with probability, statistics, and risk assessment methodology.

Nice To Haves

Experience developing integration and test plans for fail-operational architectures or safety-critical robotic systems.
Hands-on experience with industry safety standards such as ISO 26262 or ISO 21448 (SOTIF).
Experience with test scripting and data analysis languages (Python and SQL preferred).
Familiarity with programming languages such as C or C++.

Responsibilities

Define strategies and methodologies to verify and validate the software stack and fail-operational architectures with robust test coverage.
Work cross-functionally to develop detailed simulation and structured test plans and procedures to validate autonomous features and safety requirements, ensuring the system can handle nominal and edge-case "fail-operational" scenarios.
Contribute to the evolution of the Zoox safety case by providing technical evidence and validation data ahead of every major development milestone.
Lead the technical and logistical planning of tests.
Design test programs to achieve high coverage of requirements and scenarios, drawing on simulation and analysis where possible.
Maintain rigorous end-to-end traceability between requirements, test cases, and results to produce a closed-loop safety case.
Perform sophisticated test data analysis and define automated data extraction tools to streamline reporting and ensure high-fidelity performance metrics.