Staff Systems Safety Engineer

Apptronik • Sunnyvale, CA

1d

About The Position

Apptronik is a human-centered robotics company developing AI-powered robots, including Apollo, a humanoid robot designed to work alongside people. The Staff Systems Safety Engineer will be the technical authority for robot safety from concept through customer deployment and will help bring Apollo to market at scale. The role authors the system safety architecture and safety case, provides technical leadership to safety engineers, and ensures safety arguments are robust for customers and assessors. It requires deep functional and robot safety expertise, technical leadership, and sound risk-based judgment.

Requirements

• Proven hands-on leadership of functional or system safety for complex robotic, machinery, or autonomous products from concept through deployment, including authoring safety architectures and safety cases.
• Deep expertise in hazard analysis and risk assessment, the hierarchy of controls, safety function definition, and the safety lifecycle under IEC 61508, IEC 62061, ISO 13849, and ISO 12100.
• Experience with robot and machinery safety standards such as ISO 10218, ANSI/A3 R15.06, ANSI/A3 R15.08, and ISO 25785-1, and with safety for robot deployments at customer sites.
• Experience providing technical leadership and mentoring to safety engineers across hardware, software, and system topics.
• Experience building a safety case and working with notified bodies, NRTLs, or third-party assessors.
• Strong executive communication, strategic thinking, and judgment to make and defend risk-based decisions.
• Bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Systems Engineering, Robotics, Computer Engineering, or a related field, or equivalent experience.
• 12 or more years of relevant experience, including 7 or more years in functional or system safety, with substantial responsibility for safety of complex robotic or electromechanical products and prior technical leadership of a safety team.
• Prolonged periods of sitting at a desk and working on a computer; ability to lift 15 pounds at times; vision to read printed materials and a computer screen; and hearing and speech to communicate.

Nice To Haves

• Master’s degree.
• Familiarity with safety of AI/ML-enabled systems, such as ISO/IEC TS 22440 and SOTIF (ISO 21448), and with requirements tools such as JAMA.
• Certified functional safety expert or professional, such as TÜV or exida.

Responsibilities

• Provide technical leadership to systems safety engineers across hazard analysis, safety requirements, site risk assessment, and commissioning; ensure the technical quality of their work and support initial customer deployments onsite.
• Set technical direction across the safety team, review work, mentor engineers, contribute to hiring, and align day-to-day technical priorities with long-term goals.
• Author the system-level safety architecture, including AI, and functional safety concept; drive safety decisions across current and next-generation platforms while balancing performance, technical risk, and compliance.
• Serve as technical authority for safety trade-offs, residual-risk recommendations, component and architectural decisions, and conflicts between safety and product goals.
• Author and maintain the safety case, ensuring complete, consistent, and traceable evidence across software, hardware, AI, user safety, and deployment, including the SOTIF argument for hazards that arise without a fault.
• Perform system-level safety analyses, including system fault trees and common-cause failure analysis; lead in-depth design reviews of safety-critical subsystems and own deliverables where the team has gaps.
• Define the safety lifecycle, including the AI safety lifecycle under ISO/IEC TS 22440 and the SOTIF process under ISO 21448, along with safety engineering methods and technical criteria for design reviews, safety gates, and SOTIF residual-risk acceptance.

What This Job Offers

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