Staff AV Safety Engineer - Human Factors (GPSSC)
About The Position
The Staff AV Safety Engineer, Human Factors, provides technical leadership to ensure human factors concepts are appropriately studied, analyzed, and implemented throughout the design, development, validation, deployment, and operation of GM’s automated driving systems. The position serves as a technical expert on interactions between the automated driving system, vehicle, and driver or safety operator. It evaluates human performance, human error, workload, attention, comprehension, trust, misuse, and automation limitations, translating findings into actionable safety requirements, design guidance, research plans, operational controls, and safety-case evidence. The role works across safety, systems engineering, human factors, design and user experience, product, legal and regulatory teams, and external research organizations. The position is based remotely; candidates who live within a specified radius of a GM hub are expected to report there three times a week or at another frequency set by their manager. Travel is under 25%. Relocation benefits are available to candidates who qualify under company policy. Following a motor vehicle report review, the employee may be eligible for GM’s company vehicle evaluation program, which requires participants to purchase or lease a qualifying GM vehicle every four years unless an exception applies.
Requirements
- Bachelor’s degree in Human Factors, Systems Engineering, Industrial Engineering, or a related technical field.
- 10+ years of experience applying human factors engineering principles to safety-critical transportation systems, such as automotive, aviation, or marine systems.
- Demonstrated experience analyzing human interactions with complex automation systems.
- Demonstrated expertise leading or contributing to structured hazard analysis, such as System Theoretic Process Analysis (STPA), Fault Tree Analysis (FTA), or Failure Modes, Effects, and Criticality Analysis (FMECA).
- Experience translating human factors findings into safety requirements, design recommendations, operational controls, training guidance, or validation criteria.
- Experience planning, reviewing, executing, or interpreting human factors research or human-in-the-loop studies.
- Ability to analyze operational events, incidents, near misses, or operator performance to identify human-error causal factors using event data, video, telemetry, or anecdotal evidence.
- Strong technical writing, presentation, facilitation, and cross-functional communication skills to frame ambiguous problems, provide clear technical rationale, and defend decisions.
- Proven ability to build stakeholder trust and confidence and influence broad areas of the organization.
Nice To Haves
- Advanced degree in Human Factors, Systems Engineering, Industrial Engineering, or a related technical degree.
- Experience in the automated vehicle industry.
- Experience working with research institutions, external vendors, and/or multidisciplinary academic and engineering teams.
- Experience with functional safety, safety of the intended functionality (SOTIF), operational safety, safety management systems, safety cases, and other safety standards or frameworks.
- Familiarity with requirements tools such as JAMA or DOORS.
Responsibilities
- Serve as a recognized human factors safety expert, advance development and best practices, influence AV safety strategy, and turn complex human factors issues into clear conclusions and recommendations.
- Lead or support complex, cross-functional hazard analyses of features and components, including driver-automation interaction, operator performance, human error, mode confusion, and loss of situational awareness.
- Derive traceable requirements, mitigations, validation activities, and operational controls from human factors hazard assessments.
- Provide safety technical direction for human-machine interface features and components, including moding, visual and non-visual alerts, escalations, driver monitoring systems, and driver displays.
- Evaluate whether automated-system interactions support appropriate understanding, attention, decision-making, response, and recovery under normal, degraded, and failure-related conditions.
- Define research questions and execution strategies independently; select methods and evaluation criteria; and turn study results into safety requirements and best practices.
- Integrate research, field and test-vehicle data, incident reviews, operator feedback, and industry evidence into benchmarks, performance thresholds, safety recommendations, and validation needs.
- Lead structured human factors analyses of incidents, safety events, operational deviations, and emerging concerns to identify human-error causal factors and improve system design, procedures, training, or other controls.
- Provide human factors input to operator training, qualification, fatigue management, and performance-monitoring programs.
- Own or contribute to human factors safety-case claims and evidence; identify gaps, assess change impacts, and support closure through reviews, audits, launch-readiness activities, and assurance forums.
Benefits
- Medical, dental, and vision benefit options.
- Health Savings Account and Flexible Spending Accounts.
- Retirement savings plan.
- Sickness and accident benefits.
- Life insurance.
- Paid vacation and holidays.
- Tuition assistance programs.
- Employee assistance program.
- GM vehicle discounts.
- Incentive pay program with payouts based on company performance, job level, and individual performance.
- Potential eligibility for a company vehicle evaluation program, subject to successful motor vehicle report review and program requirements.
- Relocation benefits for candidates who qualify under company policy.
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What This Job Offers
Job Type
Full-time
Career Level
Senior
