Staff Functional Safety Engineer

Rivian•Palo Alto, CA

About The Position

As a Hardware Functional Safety Engineer working in the Electric Power Conversion group, you will be responsible for performing functional safety development of internally designed power electronics components. This role demands both deep technical expertise and the organizational influence to align cross-functional teams, drive supplier strategy, and shape engineering standards across the broader Power Electronics organization. This position reports directly to the Sr. Manager of Functional Safety within our Power Electronics organization.

Requirements

BS, MS, or PhD in Electrical/Electronic Engineering
Embedded systems design experience
5+ Years of experience in developing electrical safety hardware, systems safety, and functional safety engineering background in ISO 26262 Part 4, 5, 8 within the automotive or equivalent industries (e.g. aerospace) or IEC 61508 Part 1, 2 & 3
Strong understanding of failure mode analysis of complex electrical designs, ASICs, preferably in power electronics applications
Handling advanced electronics design and analyzing advanced electrical circuits
Extensive knowledge and application of Safety Analysis methodologies using industry-standard tools, from functional system level to HW and SW component level: FTA, FMEA, FMEDA, DFA, STPA, SPFM/LFM, and PMHF
Detailed experience analyzing electrical circuits, preferably in power electronics applications
Prior experience performing hardware FTAs, FMEDAs, DFAs at the component level
Ability to understand and create traceability in JAMA or similar requirements management tool
Working within cross-functional teams - systems hardware, software, mechanical, manufacturing, and a proven record of working on multiple projects involving safety engineering
Ability to work with resilience, zooming out and out-of-the-box thinking
Strong team player with a drive to exceed expectations and meet deadlines

Nice To Haves

Tool expertise with Medini, Flow, or similar strongly preferred
Experience with LTSpice or similar simulation tool with prior experience of simulating circuits strongly preferred
failure effects
ISO 26262 Certified strongly preferred

Responsibilities

Develop Hardware FTA, FMEA & FMEDA’s, DFA for electrical hardware design
Serve as the Safety expert in safety-critical cross-functional design decisions
Support the reliability organization in deriving mission profiles and FIT rates for hardware components using IEC or Siemens standards
Develop hardware safety concepts, hardware safety architecture, hardware safety requirements to lead/drive and provide electrical hardware design recommendations across electronics subsystems, ASICs, SoCs, PMICs and microcontrollers
Support application-specific software safety analysis (FTA, FMEA) and software safety requirements and architecture development
Collaborate with Reliability organization in defining mission profiles based on vehicle use cases
Develop upstream and downstream traceability between hardware safety, technical safety requirements, relevant test cases, and work products in traceability tool
Develop Design Verification Plan (DVP) for relevant hardware safety and system safety requirements including fault injections
Support the electrical hardware and power electronics software/controls test teams in executing test cases with troubleshooting
Support vehicle functional safety team in development of technical safety requirements and hazard analysis risk assessment
Documenting all relevant safety requirements, analysis, architecture implementation, verification and validation events for each sub-system
Authoring and reviewing high-level safety documentation
Driving functional safety design processes across the organization and being part of the safety culture within the organization