Staff Functional Safety Engineer

Rivian and Volkswagen Group Technologies•Irvine, CA

About The Position

As a Staff Functional Safety Engineer within the Propulsion and Dynamics domain, you will own the functional safety strategy for propulsion, dynamics and chassis features across multiple vehicle programs. You will define how it is applied across the domain, setting the safety architecture patterns, decomposition strategies, and analysis methods that other engineers build against. You will act as the technical authority for these features functional safety across Rivian, VW, Audi, Porsche, and Scout programs: arbitrating architecture trade-offs between fail-operational redundancy and cost/complexity, resolving cross-domain safety conflicts, and representing the organization's technical position with Tier 1 suppliers, internal executives, and external assessors. You will lead the hardest technical deep dives, common-cause and dependent failure analysis across redundant channels, FTTI budget allocation across detection and reaction paths, and ASIL decomposition arguments that must survive independent scrutiny. Beyond individual programs, you will raise the capability of the whole team: mentoring senior and mid-level safety engineers, establishing reusable safety concept templates and analysis standards, driving adoption of AI-assisted workflows that accelerate safety analysis without eroding ISO 26262 rigor, and owning the technical credibility of the safety case at Start of Production sign-off.

Requirements

Degree in Electrical/Electronic, Mechatronics, or similar engineering discipline.
10+ years in the automotive industry (or equivalent) as a systems and/or functional safety engineer, including demonstrated IC-level safety concept development.
Deep, hands-on ISO 26262 expertise (Parts 3, 4, 6, 9) applied at an OEM or Tier 1, with a track record of concepts that reached production.
Proven experience with vehicle dynamics, propulsion and chassis systems.
Demonstrated technical leadership without direct authority — mentoring engineers, driving methodology adoption, and aligning cross-functional stakeholders.
Experience defending safety arguments to external assessors, certification bodies, or OEM customers.
Strong V&V grounding: fault injection, HIL, DVP&R development, requirements coverage analysis, CAN/LIN/Ethernet/FlexRay.

Nice To Haves

Experience leveraging AI-assisted tools to accelerate safety analysis while maintaining ISO 26262 rigor and review discipline.

Responsibilities

Own the functional safety architecture across multiple vehicle programs — define the safety concept patterns, redundancy strategies, and ASIL decomposition approaches that senior engineers implement against.
Lead the highest-complexity safety analyses: system and software HARA, FTA, FMEA, and DFA, with particular ownership of dependent/common-cause failure analysis across redundant channels, power supplies, and communication paths.
Set and defend FTTI/FDTI/FRTI budgets and safe-state definitions; adjudicate when availability requirements conflict with fault-reaction requirements.
Define the domain's requirements strategy, FSR/TSR/SWSR structure, traceability model, and quality bar in the requirements tool, rather than only authoring within it.
Own the safety validation strategy for the domain: fault insertion campaigns, HIL and vehicle-level coverage, release qualification criteria, and the evidence chain that closes each safety goal.
Serve as the technical counterpart to Tier 1 suppliers and external assessors; review and challenge supplier safety cases, DIAs, and analysis deliverables.
Drive cross-domain safety alignment with propulsion, ADAS, E/E architecture, and software platform teams, resolving interface-level safety conflicts and freedom-from-interference arguments.
Mentor senior and mid-level functional safety engineers; run technical reviews, calibrate analysis quality across the team, and grow the domain's bench strength.
Establish and evolve team-level methodology — analysis templates, review checklists, tooling, and AI-assisted workflows that increase throughput while preserving ISO 26262 review discipline.
Own the chassis safety case and traceability evidence through Start of Production sign-off, and represent it to program leadership.