Senior Systems & Safety Engineer – Autonomy

Gatik AI • Santa Clara, CA

2d • $160,000 - $240,000 • Onsite

About The Position

Gatik’s commercial middle-mile operations require uncompromising system safety across the entire autonomous driving stack. As a Senior Systems & Safety Engineer for Autonomy, you will own the functional safety lifecycle (ISO 26262) and overall system safety concepts for Gatik’s software architecture—spanning perception, localization, mapping, planning, controls, and fault management. You will architect high-availability, fail-operational mechanisms, define system-level safety targets, and ensure every autonomy release satisfies Gatik’s driverless safety case.

Requirements

• B.S., M.S., or Ph.D. in Robotics, Systems Engineering, Computer Science, or Aerospace Engineering.
• 6+ years in functional safety or systems engineering for autonomous vehicles, robotics, or safety-critical aerospace/automotive platforms.
• Deep expertise in ISO 26262, UL 4600, and ISO 21448.
• Demonstrated mastery of safety analysis techniques: HARA, STPA, FMEA, FTA, and Reliability Block Diagrams.
• Strong programming proficiency in C++ and Python for reading codebases, analyzing logs, and writing architectural scripts.
• Experience defining architecture for deterministic, real-time autonomous systems.
• Experience with safety and requirements management software (Jama, DOORS, Enterprise Architect, or code-based tracing tools).

Nice To Haves

• Experience shipping Level 4 driverless commercial operations (trucking or passenger AVs).
• Experience with middleware safety (ROS2 safety layers, Adaptive AUTOSAR, or custom IPC frameworks).
• Expertise in safety arguments using Goal Structuring Notation (GSN).

Responsibilities

• Define and maintain the Functional Safety Concept (FSC) and Technical Safety Concept (TSC) for Gatik’s Level 4 autonomous system in accordance with ISO 26262 (up to ASIL D).
• Lead system-level HARAs, STPA (System-Theoretic Process Analysis), FMEAs, and FTAs (Fault Tree Analysis) across autonomy modules.
• Derive safety requirements from vehicle-level goals down to software components, allocating requirements to middleware, stack algorithms, and diagnostic monitors in systems like Jama/Jira.
• Architect fail-operational, fail-aware, and fail-safe fallback strategies, including degraded modes, trajectory fallback, and pull-over behaviors.
• Define and monitor Safety Performance Indicators (SPIs) and safety metrics to continuously assess stack maturity and release readiness.
• Partner closely with Autonomy Software, Middleware, Infrastructure, and Systems teams to embed functional safety into daily agile development processes.

What This Job Offers

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