Principal Engineer Team Lead, Safety & Targets

motional; United States; Remote; USD 200,000 - 275,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Medical, dental, vision

401k with company match

Health savings accounts

Life insurance

Pet insurance

Job summary

Motional in the United States seeks a senior technical leader to bridge software and real-world deployment within the Safety & Targets organization. You will lead the Safety & Targets team, defining quantitative targets, and producing the safety case for driverless robotaxi services.

This role blends hands-on work with people leadership in a safety-critical environment. You will mentor engineers, own safety-critical development, and drive cross-functional decisions with autonomy, operations, and

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree with 7+ years, or Master's or PhD with 5+ years in systems engineering, functional safety, autonomous systems, or robotics.
• 3+ years leading safety-critical development, validation, or safety assurance programs for autonomous driving or other safety-critical tech.
• Hands-on technical leader with a proven track record of growing small, high-performing teams and data-driven engineering culture.

Responsibilities

• Lead development and maturation of collision detection, response, and imminent collision handling across autonomy and operations.
• Own the benchmark program spanning safety, comfort, and assertiveness using naturalistic data and crash statistics.
• Define what sufficient validation coverage looks like and drive cross-functional closure of gaps.
• Deliver systems engineering artifacts including hazard analysis, STPA, HAZOP, FMEA, requirements, and safety-case arguments.
• Productionize crash data analysis, event ingestion, labeling, and automated monitoring for fleet-scale safety insights.
• Mentor and grow a high-performing safety engineering team and collaborate with autonomy, infrastructure, operations, and legal.

Skills

Systems engineering

Functional safety

Autonomous systems

Leadership

Education

Bachelor's degree

Master's degree

Tools

HAZOP/STPA tools

Job description

Role overview

This is a senior technical leadership role within a systems engineering organization that bridges software development and real-world deployment of autonomous vehicles. The position leads the Safety & Targets team responsible for developing safety-critical functions, defining quantitative performance targets, and producing the systems engineering evidence underwriting the safety case for commercial launch of a fully driverless robotaxi service. The work blends hands-on technical contribution with people leadership in a safety-critical environment.

Responsibilities

• Lead development and maturation of collision detection, response, and imminent collision handling across autonomy, remote vehicle assistance, and operational functions, defining behaviors and proving them out
• Own the benchmark program spanning safety, comfort, and assertiveness, building human-driving baselines from naturalistic data, crash statistics, evasive maneuver modeling, and predicted crash-rate analysis
• Define what sufficient validation coverage looks like, identify gaps in test suites, and drive cross-functional closure of those gaps
• Deliver systems engineering artifacts including hazard analysis, STPA, HAZOP, FMEA, requirements, and coverage argumentation that underpin the safety case and regulatory submissions
• Productionize crash database analysis, collision event ingestion and labeling, and automated continuous monitoring so safety insight scales with fleet miles
• Mentor and grow a high-performing engineering team and partner with autonomy, infrastructure, operations, and legal stakeholders

Requirements

• Bachelor's degree with 7+ years, or Master's or PhD with 5+ years, in systems engineering, functional safety, autonomous systems, or robotics, with deep expertise in one area and working knowledge of the others
• 3+ years leading safety-critical development, validation, or safety assurance programs for autonomous driving or other emerging safety-critical technologies
• Hands-on technical leader with a proven track record of growing small, high-performing teams and fostering rigorous, data-driven engineering culture

Nice to have

• Background combining real-world crash data, large-scale simulation, and closed-course testing to validate safety functions at scale

Benefits and work setup

• Base salary range of $200,000 to $275,000 USD, with potential bonus or equity participation
• Benefits program includes medical, dental, vision, 401k with company match, health savings accounts, life insurance, and pet insurance