Head of Safety

Dynamic Creatures; Cambridge (MA); On-site; USD 180,000 - 240,000; Full time

Job summary

Dynamic Creatures in Cambridge, MA is seeking a Head of Safety to own safety across the company. You will set the safety strategy, build the engineering system behind it, and remain hands-on from early architecture through validation and deployment.

You will work directly with founders and engineering leaders to make safety a design input, a release requirement, and an operating discipline. This role is based in Cambridge, MA and requires in-person work five days a week.

Qualifications

• Experience owning safety for physical robots or complex electromechanical products operating near people.
• Led hazard analysis and safety architecture from design to deployment, not just policy.
• Ability to translate standards and risk into practical design decisions and release gates.

Responsibilities

• Own the safety program across the full robot lifecycle: concept, design, integration, verification, deployment, operations, and change control.
• Lead hazard identification and risk assessment using methods like FMEA, fault-tree analysis, HAZOP, and STPA.
• Translate hazards into clear safety requirements, architectures, and engineering priorities across hardware, software, AI, and cloud systems.
• Define and verify safety functions, limits, diagnostics, degraded modes, emergency behavior, and human-robot interaction safeguards.
• Build validation strategy and evidence: test plans, fault injection, edge-case testing, traceability, safety cases, and release-readiness reviews.
• Own roadmap for relevant standards and certifications (ISO 12100, ISO 13482, ANSI/CAN/UL 3300, ISO 13849, IEC 61508, IEC 62061).
• Establish safe deployment practices for guest-facing environments, including site assessment and incident review.
• Collaborate with external labs, partners, customers, insurers, and regulators as needed.
• Grow and lead the safety function as the company expands.

Skills

Robotics safety

Hazard analysis leadership

Safety architecture

Verification & deployment

Systems engineering

Standards interpretation

Validation & fault injection

Effective communication

Job description

Dynamic Creatures | Cambridge, MA

Safety is and always will be our number-one priority. Dynamic Creatures builds mobile character robots for entertainment and hospitality-systems that operate in busy, unpredictable, guest-facing environments around families, staff, and the public.

We're hiring a Head of Safety to own safety across the company. You will set the safety strategy, build the engineering system behind it, and remain hands-on from early architecture through validation and deployment. You'll work directly with our founders and engineering leaders to make safety a design input, a release requirement, and an operating discipline.

What you'll do

• Own the product and system safety program across the full robot lifecycle: concept, design, integration, verification, deployment, operations, and change control.
• Lead hazard identification and risk assessment using appropriate methods such as FMEA, fault-tree analysis, HAZOP, and STPA.
• Translate hazards into clear safety requirements, safety architectures, and engineering priorities across mechanical, electrical, embedded, controls, autonomy, AI, and cloud systems.
• Define and verify safety functions, limits, diagnostics, degraded modes, emergency behavior, and human-robot interaction safeguards.
• Build the validation strategy and evidence: test plans, fault injection, abuse and edge-case testing, traceability, safety cases, and release-readiness reviews.
• Own the roadmap for relevant standards and certifications, including ISO 12100, ISO 13482 and its service-robot successor, ANSI/CAN/UL 3300, and functional-safety standards such as ISO 13849, IEC 61508, or IEC 62061 where applicable.
• Establish safe deployment practices for guest-facing environments, including site assessment, operating procedures, incident and near-miss review, field monitoring, and corrective action.
• Work with external labs, partners, customers, insurers, and regulators as needed.
• Build and lead the safety function as the company grows.

What you'll bring

• Experience owning safety for physical robots or similarly complex electromechanical products operating near people.
• A track record of personally leading hazard analysis, safety architecture, verification, and deployment-not only writing policy or managing compliance.
• Strong systems engineering judgment across hardware and software, with the ability to reason about interactions, failures, and emergent behavior.
• Experience turning standards and risk assessments into practical design decisions, testable requirements, and release gates.
• Hands-on experience with validation, fault injection, incident investigation, and field feedback loops.
• The credibility to challenge designs when necessary while helping teams find practical paths forward.
• Clear communication with engineers, executives, partners, and non-technical stakeholders.

Experience with mobile robots, service robots, autonomous systems, functional safety, or safety certification is especially relevant. We care most about the systems you have personally made safer, the evidence you built, and the decisions you owned.

This role is based in Cambridge, Massachusetts and is expected to be in person five days per week.