Principal/Staff Systems Engineer, Safety & Architecture

Kodama Systems; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 180,000 - 240,000; Full time

Job summary

Kodama is seeking a Principal/Staff Systems Engineer, Safety & Architecture, to own system-level architecture and safety engineering for its teleoperated and autonomous platform. You will collaborate across hardware, software, networking, controls, and field operations, guiding safety analyses, verification strategies, and cross-cutting architectural decisions.

This senior IC role reports to the CTO and focuses on applying safety standards, leading complex decisions, and serving as a technical

Qualifications

• BS or advanced degree in electrical, mechanical, systems, or a related engineering field, or equivalent practical experience.
• Significant experience designing or integrating complex, safety-critical electromechanical systems across hardware, software, networking, controls, and physical-machine behavior.
• Experience developing system requirements and interfaces and applying system or functional safety methods through design, integration, and verification.
• Demonstrated ability to lead cross-disciplinary technical decisions and hands-on debugging, data, and machine testing when needed.

Responsibilities

• Develop and maintain system requirements, fault behavior, and performance requirements across hardware and software boundaries.
• Own system safety analysis, including hazard analyses, safety requirements, FMEAs, fault trees, and analysis of failures or degraded system behavior.
• Lead next-generation architecture and requirements for safety-critical control systems, including safety controllers and E-stops.
• Translate system and safety requirements into verification strategies and evidence that new capabilities are ready for field deployment.
• Ensure architecture and engineering practices apply relevant safety standards (BS EN 17067:2018, BS EN 62745:2017, ISO 17757:2019).
• Serve as a technical resource to customers, OEM partners, and other external stakeholders on system architecture and safety.

Skills

System-level architecture

Safety engineering

Hazard analysis

Verification strategies

Cross-disciplinary collaboration

Education

BS/MS in Electrical/Mechanical/Systems Engineering

Job description

About Kodama

Kodama builds technology to teleoperate and autonomously control heavy equipment in complex, unstructured environments. Today, our systems operate forestry machines in commercial production for paying customers, and we are building the autonomy stack to enable those machines to perform increasingly complex work independently.

The Role

We are looking for a Principal/Staff Systems Engineer, Safety & Architecture to own system-level architecture and safety engineering across Kodama’s teleoperated and autonomous machine platform. You will work across hardware, software, networking, controls, autonomy, and field operations to strengthen and formalize our system architecture, requirements, safety analyses, and verification as the platform evolves.

This is a senior individual contributor role and Kodama’s technical owner for system safety and cross-cutting architectural decisions. The role will report to the CTO.

What You’ll Do

• Develop and maintain system requirements, fault behavior, and performance requirements across hardware and software boundaries.


• Own system safety analysis, including hazard analyses, safety requirements, FMEAs, fault trees, and analysis of failures or degraded system behavior.


• Lead next-generation architecture and requirements for safety-critical control systems, including safety controllers and E-stops.


• Translate system and safety requirements into verification strategies and evidence that new capabilities are ready for field deployment.


• Ensure Kodama’s architecture and engineering practices appropriately apply relevant safety standards, including BS EN 17067:2018, BS EN 62745:2017, and ISO 17757:2019.


• Serve as a technical resource to customers, OEM partners, and other external stakeholders on system architecture and safety.

What We’re Looking For

• BS or advanced degree in electrical, mechanical, systems, or a related engineering field, or equivalent practical experience.


• Significant experience designing or integrating complex, safety-critical electromechanical systems, with the ability to reason across hardware, software, networking, controls, and physical-machine behavior.


• Experience developing system requirements and interfaces and applying system or functional safety methods through design, integration, and verification.


• Demonstrated ability to lead cross-disciplinary technical decisions and willingness to get hands‑on with debugging, data, and machine testing when needed.

Especially Relevant Experience

We don’t expect candidates to have all of the following, but experience in several would be particularly valuable:

• Autonomous vehicles, mobile robotics, heavy equipment, aerospace, defense, or other safety‑critical cyber‑physical systems


• Functional safety standards such as ISO 17757, ISO 13849, IEC 61508, IEC 62061, ISO 26262, or related frameworks


• Hands‑on certification or third‑party safety assessment work with organizations such as TÜV or UL


• Teleoperation, distributed robotics, or safety‑critical networking and communications


• Embedded systems, safety controllers, PLCs, CAN/J1939, hardware‑in‑the‑loop testing, or fault injection


• Robotics perception, localization, planning, control, or autonomy safety


• Off‑road or unstructured operating environments

Location & Travel

This role can be remote within the United States. We expect approximately 10–20% travel to customer sites, with more concentrated travel during the first few months to develop a firsthand understanding of our machines, customers, and operating environments.