Senior Systems Engineer, Fail Operational Safety Strategy

Role Overview

The System Design and Mission Assurance (SDMA) team at Zoox is responsible for constructing the safety case and fail-operational design for autonomous driving robots before public road deployment. This role focuses on pioneering safety strategies for novel environments and expanding operational design domains (ODDs).

Responsibilities

• Define and own the fail-operational safety strategy and roadmap for expanding into new operating environments and Operational Design Domains (ODDs), ensuring all new ODD elements have tailored solutions meeting safety and reliability requirements.
• Design and maintain fault response strategies that keep the vehicle safe and operational during malfunctions, including decision-making logic selecting appropriate actions based on fault nature and severity.
• Build a framework for assessing fault handling and recovery effectiveness in new ODDs, defining key metrics for system resilience and safety while using data analysis and automation to drive continuous improvement.
• Partner closely with software, hardware engineering teams, and operations to ensure a holistic approach to system safety and fault tolerance, translating complex technical concepts for diverse audiences.
• Leverage the latest AI and LLM tools to accelerate analysis work and automate repetitive manual tasks.

Qualifications

• B.S. or higher degree in Systems Engineering, Robotics, Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, or a related field, with 8+ years of relevant experience.
• Strong systems engineering background with experience in requirements management and system architecture development.
• Deep understanding of fault detection, isolation, and recovery techniques, including redundancy, failover, and graceful degradation strategies.
• Strong analytical skills in quantitative analysis and modeling, performance metrics definition, and system-level trade-off analysis.
• Excellent technical communication and documentation abilities, with demonstrated success working with cross-functional teams in complex technical environments.

Bonus Qualifications

• Advanced degree (M.S. or Ph.D.) in a relevant field.
• Experience with autonomous vehicle development or similar complex robotics systems.
• Familiarity with requirements management tools (e.g., Polarion, DOORS) and experience with system safety analysis and requirements validation.
• Experience with data analysis tools such as Databricks, BigQuery, Looker, or Grafana.
• Familiarity with ISO 26262, ISO 21448, and other industry safety standards.