Systems and Safety Engineer, Autonomy Sensing

Aurora Innovation Aurora Innovation · Robotics · Mountain View, CA · Systems and Safety Engineering

This role focuses on defining and validating the sensing capabilities of autonomous vehicles to ensure super-human performance and safety. It involves requirements definition, impact analysis, safety analyses (HARA, FMEA, STPA), and comprehensive Verification & Validation (V&V) activities. The role collaborates with various teams to elicit requirements, perform data analysis, and support requirement management workflows. While familiarity with AI/ML applications is desirable, the core responsibilities are in systems and safety engineering for autonomous systems, particularly in safety-critical industries.

What you'd actually do

  1. Own the definition and allocation of requirements within a sensing capability, understanding impacts to interfacing modules, with appropriate decomposition and traceability
  2. Perform impact analysis that supports product expansion as it relates to requirements, coverage, and risk due to sensing capabilities
  3. Collaborate closely with Product, Operations, and Autonomy teams to elicit sensing requirements from product definitions and system-level requirements and use cases
  4. Perform safety analyses (such as HARA, FMEA, STPA etc.) to understand the safety and any risk associated with sensing capabilities
  5. Define and execute comprehensive Verification & Validation (V&V) activities

Skills

Required

  • 3+ years of experience in systems engineering, safety engineering, or a related field
  • Experience writing verifiable functional and non-functional requirements, preferably in autonomous systems
  • Experience in a safety critical industry and software development standards, software safety fault/hazard analysis, and requirements-driven software verification and validation strategies
  • Proven ability to work in high-ambiguity environments with evolving priorities, while managing diverse stakeholders across software, product, and operations teams
  • Excellent communication and presentation skills

Nice to have

  • 5+ years experience deploying safety-critical features or products at scale
  • Demonstrated proficiency in the application of ISO 26262, ASPICE, and ISO 21448 (SOTIF)
  • Familiarity with the applications of Artificial Intelligence or Autonomous Systems technologies (e.g., Reinforcement Learning, Deep Learning, Machine Learning) to sensing, perception, multi-unit planning, or command and control of autonomous systems
  • Familiarity with modern software development practices and designs, unit testing, integration test, and release processes
  • Experience with various testing modalities and strategies

What the JD emphasized

  • safety critical industry
  • software safety fault/hazard analysis
  • requirements-driven software verification and validation strategies
  • ISO 26262
  • ASPICE
  • ISO 21448 (SOTIF)