Sr. Engineer - Architect Software Functional Safety

Magna International•Southfield, MI

About The Position

As a Lead Software Functional Safety Architect, you will serve as the technical authority ensuring our embedded software platforms meet the highest standards of safety integrity. You aren't just an observer; you are a "shadow architect" who operates independently of the primary software architect to provide critical checks, balances, and safety-first design leadership. Your primary focus will be on high-performance SoC/MCU systems targeting ASIL D compliance, ensuring that every line of code and architectural decision contributes to a fail-safe environment.

Requirements

10+ years in Embedded SoC development with a proven track record in complex silicon environments.
3+ years of experience specifically as a Software Architect.
Hands-on experience developing software components that have successfully achieved ASIL C or D certification.
Expert-level understanding of ISO 26262 (Parts 4, 6, and 9).
Direct experience participating in (and defending architectures during) formal safety evaluations or external audits.
Proficiency with safety analysis tools (e.g., Ansys medini analyze, APIS IQ-FMEA, or similar).
The ability to "think like a failure"—predicting how a system might break before it does.
Strong enough to push back against the primary development team to maintain safety integrity.
Ability to translate complex safety manuals into actionable development tasks for the software team.

Responsibilities

Deep-dive into SoC/MCU Safety Manuals to extract hardware-software interface requirements (HSIs).
Identify which hardware modules (e.g., DMA, Memory Protection Units, Watchdogs) are relevant to the safety case.
Collaborate with the System Engineering team to align on diagnostic coverage and error handling strategies.
Define the end-to-end fault propagation paths —from hardware fault detection to the transition into a defined Safe State.
Develop and maintain software architectures that explicitly prove the achievement of functional safety goals.
Lead and "own" the creation of the Software FMEA (Failure Mode and Effects Analysis) and Software FTA (Fault Tree Analysis).
Define and review Software Safety Requirements (SSRs), ensuring they are technically sound and fully traceable to specific architectural elements.
Act as the independent technical voice to challenge the main software architecture, ensuring safety is never compromised for performance or features.
Drive the team toward successful Safety Audits and assessments.
Mentor junior engineers on ASIL-compliant coding standards (e.g., MISRA C/C++, CERT).
Bridge the gap between hardware-level safety features and high-level software application safety.