System Safety Engineer III - New Glenn

Blue Origin • Space Coast, WA

16h

About The Position

Blue Origin is hiring a System Safety Engineer III to support the development and operations of New Glenn, a reusable, heavy-lift orbital launch vehicle designed to carry people and payloads to multiple destinations. The role is a fully independent system safety position requiring deep systems engineering fluency. The engineer owns end-to-end safety assessments for vehicle elements and subsystems, including hazard analysis, failure-mode identification, risk quantification, and safety-case development, and contributes to systems engineering integration, verification, and certification. The position bridges the SQMA safety organization and element-level systems engineering teams to embed safety in the design process. It reports within AERS Engineering & Systems on the New Glenn GS1/9E program.

The role leads and conducts hazard analyses, maintains FMECA and fault-tree artifacts, assesses common-cause and zonal hazards, tracks hazard closure, and develops safety requirements and design constraints. It also supports architecture safety assessments, design reviews, engineering changes, nonconformance dispositions, and mishap or anomaly investigations. In systems engineering, the role contributes to requirements decomposition, interface management, verification planning, configuration control, integration analysis, and certification activities. It represents safety and systems engineering in program forums and prepares technical documentation and safety-case artifacts for reviews and certification.

Requirements

• B.S. in Aerospace Engineering, Systems Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, or a related field; an M.S. is strongly preferred.
• 5–10 years of combined system safety and systems engineering experience, with demonstrated progression in scope and complexity.
• Hands-on experience authoring hazard-analysis artifacts on real programs, including FHA, FMECA, FTA, CCA, and PHA.
• Working knowledge of systems engineering processes, including requirements decomposition, verification planning, interface management, and configuration control.
• Experience with at least two of the following safety standards and regulatory frameworks: MIL-STD-882, MIL-STD-1629, SAE ARP4761, NASA-STD-8719, and FAA 14 CFR Part 450.
• Ability to quantify risk using probabilistic methods, reliability modeling, and failure-rate databases such as MIL-HDBK-217, NPRD/EPRD, or equivalent.
• Strong technical writing skills, including the ability to author hazard analyses, safety cases, and technical decision memos suitable for review-board scrutiny.
• Excellent communication skills and ability to present safety findings to program leadership, design teams, and external reviewers such as the FAA and customers.
• Must meet Blue Origin export-control eligibility requirements: be a U.S. citizen or national, U.S. permanent resident, or lawfully admitted to the U.S. as a refugee or granted asylum.

Nice To Haves

• M.S. or Ph.D. in a relevant engineering field.
• Experience with launch-vehicle or human-rated spacecraft safety programs.
• Experience with reusable vehicle systems, including understanding how reuse affects safety, fatigue, degradation, and refurbishment-inspection adequacy.
• INCOSE CSEP or ESEP certification.
• Familiarity with customer certification requirements processes.
• Experience with fracture-control programs, such as NASA-STD-5019 or equivalent.
• Programming skills in Python or MATLAB for reliability modeling and data analysis.
• Experience with AI/ML tools for engineering analysis or automation.

Responsibilities

• Lead and execute Functional Hazard Assessments (FHA/FHAA), Preliminary Hazard Analyses (PHA), and Subsystem Hazard Analyses (SSHA) for assigned vehicle elements.
• Author and maintain FMECAs for assigned subsystems, and derive Critical Items Lists (CIL) and basic events for Fault Tree Analyses.
• Develop and maintain Fault Tree Analyses (FTA) for safety-critical functions, quantify unreliability, and identify single-point failures and common-cause vulnerabilities.
• Perform Common Cause Analyses (CCA) and Zonal Safety Assessments to identify latent failure interactions.
• Own hazard sheets and hazard tracking for assigned subsystems, and drive hazard closure through design changes, operational controls, or accepted risk.
• Develop safety requirements and derive safety-related design constraints, flow them into DNG requirements, and track verification closure.
• Support Architecture Safety Assessments (ASA), ensuring system architecture meets safety intent and redundancy and independence claims are substantiated.
• Represent system safety at design reviews, author safety review packages, and present findings to safety review boards.
• Assess safety impacts of Engineering Change Requests (ECRs) and nonconformance dispositions.
• Lead or support safety analysis for mishap and anomaly investigations, including contributing-cause identification, barrier analysis, and corrective-action adequacy assessment.
• Contribute to element-level systems engineering for 9E GS1, including requirements decomposition, interface management, verification planning, and configuration control.
• Lead verification campaigns for safety-critical requirements, including planning, execution, and closure of verification evidence.
• Perform cross-subsystem integration analysis at vehicle interfaces where safety and systems engineering intersect.
• Represent systems engineering and safety at program-level forums and drive action closure on safety-related items.
• Author technical decision memos and trade-study reports for safety-critical design choices.
• Support certification activities, including Element Design Reviews (EDRs), Pre-Ship Reviews (PSRs), and Flight Readiness Reviews (FRRs), with safety-case artifacts.
• Contribute to customer certification safety documentation as the program scales toward national security missions.

Benefits

• Medical, dental, and vision insurance.
• Basic and supplemental life insurance.
• Paid parental leave.
• Short- and long-term disability.
• 401(k) with company match of up to 5%.
• Education Support Program.
• Stock options for all regular employees working at least 20 hours per week.
• Paid time off of up to four weeks per year based on weekly scheduled hours.
• Up to 14 company-paid holidays.
• Depending on role type and job level, employees may be eligible for benefits and bonuses based on individual contributions and company results.

What This Job Offers

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