Principle AV Safety Engineer: SOTIF and Human Factors

General Motors; United States; Remote; USD 120,000 - 160,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading company in the automotive industry seeks a Principal Safety & System Engineer for their Autonomous Driving Software department. This role focuses on ensuring safety through human factors and risk assessments in automated driving systems. The successful candidate will collaborate with various teams to develop safety strategies and improve operational processes, contributing to the vision of zero crashes and zero emissions. This remote position requires expertise in safety analysis and human factors.

Benefits

Company Vehicle Evaluation Program

Qualifications

• Experience with ISO 21448 Safety of the Intended Function (SOTIF) standard.
• Proven track record in safety-critical operations.

Responsibilities

• Identify and monitor key performance metrics for safety.
• Perform risk assessments for safety-critical operations.
• Support human interfaces through safety analysis techniques.

Skills

Safety Analysis

Risk Assessment

Human Factors

Usability

Education

Bachelor's Degree in Engineering

Job description

Remote: This role is categorized as remote. The successful candidate may be based anywhere in the United States and is not expected to report to a GM worksite unless directed by their manager.

Company Vehicle: Upon successful completion of a motor vehicle report review, you will be eligible to participate in a company vehicle evaluation program, through which you will be assigned a General Motors vehicle to drive and evaluate. Note: program participants are required to purchase/lease a qualifying GM vehicle every four years unless one of a limited number of exceptions applies.

The Role

The Safety Assurance for Effective Autonomous Driving Software (SAFE-ADS) department is part of the Global Product Safety, System, and Certification (GPSSC) organization at GM. This department serves as the central body for automated driving system (ADS) safety and brings together expertise from across the company to establish a comprehensive safety case. GM’s vision is zero crashes, zero emissions, and zero congestion – AV safety is at the heart of driving forward this vision.

Our scope spans several organizations across GM, requiring us to work directly with executive leaders, their team members, and strategic partners to build and deploy safe autonomous capabilities at scale. As the Principal Safety & System Engineer for AV SOTIF with a focus on the human as part of the system, you will report directly to the head of AV Safety Strategy and Assessment. This role is responsible for providing technical guidance and expertise in support of the program test and production safety cases. The human driver is a critical part of the overall system performance, and the assumptions used in the design of the automated driving system need to be verified and justified.

What You’ll Do

The Principal AV SOTIF and Human Factors role will be engaged early in the development cycle to identify, assess, and develop mitigation strategies for hazards considering the human as part of the system. This includes hazards that a test system operator or customer could experience or introduce to the automated driving system. This role will support and drive analyses to align with ISO 21448 Safety of the Intended Function (SOTIF) standard and encompass operations in closed course testing, validation testing on-road, and the system as intended to be deployed with customers. Responsibilities include collaborating with operations on measuring the effectiveness of operator training and working with engineers on proactively identifying human factors risks to be accounted for in feature designs.

The following are tasks that this role can be expected to perform:

1. Identify and monitor key performance metrics and indicators to help ensure process and continuous improvement. Report on safety issues, trends, & recommendations to development programs and executives.
2. Perform risk assessments for safety-critical operations using quantitative (STPA) and qualitative methods.
3. Support system human interfaces through safety analysis techniques, including considerations for usability, mental load, ergonomics, and workload.
4. Develop requirements with systems engineering and engineering teams to account for human interface, usability, ergonomics, and to minimize potential human errors that could lead to safety-critical scenarios.
5. Assist with the development and execution of the safety audit program strategy and plan to ensure effective safety controls.
6. Support root cause analysis and implement corrective action plans to eliminate or minimize exposure to identified risks.
7. Review concepts of operations, operational procedures, training materials, and operational changes for hazards, and develop operational safety requirements to embed in processes to control risks.
8. Partner with systems and engineering teams to develop methods to identify emerging risk trends.
9. Champion safety case technical claims related to the human driver and work with the safety case team to establish safety case assessment plans and execute these plans.

This job is not eligible for relocation benefits. Any relocation costs would be the responsibility of the selected candidate.