Safety Coordinator / Lab Lead

Scale AI; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 134,400 - 168,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Comprehensive health coverage

Retirement benefits

Learning and development stipend

Generous PTO

Job summary

Scale AI in San Francisco is seeking a Safety Coordinator / Lab Lead to ensure the safety and efficiency of our robotics testing environments. This critical role involves managing safety audits, documenting incidents, and fostering a safety-first culture among team members.

With a focus on compliance and structured procedures, you'll lead incident investigations and collaborate with engineering teams. The role requires a strong background in lab management and exceptional communication skills, all supported by comprehensive compensation and benefits.

Qualifications

• 3+ years of experience in lab management or safety coordination.
• Demonstrated experience with audit workflows and incident documentation.
• Exceptional written communication skills.

Responsibilities

• Design and execute safety audits across physical testing environments.
• Own the incident management pipeline and documentation.
• Collaborate with engineering teams to manage workspace allocation.

Skills

Lab management

Safety coordination

Technical operations

Communication skills

Tools

Safety Audit Tools

Incident Management Systems

Job description

Role Overview

As the Safety Coordinator / Lab Lead you will play a mission-critical role in scaling our physical testing infrastructure safely and efficiently. This is a high-impact position where your highest-priority responsibility will be owning the end-to-end execution of safety audits and incident documentation.

Operating at the intersection of cutting‑edge AI foundation models and complex robotics hardware, you will ensure our researchers, engineers, and autonomous systems interact in a secure, compliant, and highly organized environment.

Core Responsibilities

Priority Focus: Safety Audits & Incident Documentation

• Rigorous Safety Audits: Design, schedule, and execute routine safety audits across all physical testing environments, robot cells, and hardware workspaces to ensure continuous compliance with internal benchmarks and industrial safety standards.
• Incident & Near-Miss Documentation: Own the end-to‑end incident management pipeline. Act as the primary point of contact for documenting, archiving, and analyzing any lab incidents, mechanical anomalies, or near‑misses.
• Root‑Cause Analysis (RCA): Lead structured post‑incident investigations to identify systematic risks, authoring comprehensive RCA reports and implementing Corrective and Preventive Actions (CAPA).
• Data‑Driven Risk Mitigation: Treat safety data as a core operational asset—tracking safety metrics and audit trends to proactively surface and mitigate physical, electrical, and battery‑related hazards.
• Cross‑functional standardization & accountability: Build the tools/processes and associated documentation to drive standardization regarding safe work practices across all multiple facilities. Build mechanisms to hold all employees and partners to a high bar for safety in any Robotics facility.

Lab Leadership & Operational Excellence

• Daily Lab Operations: Manage the layout, organization, and upkeep of our physical testing arenas and motion‑capture volumes using 5S or equivalent workplace organization methodologies.
• Hardware & Asset Management: Oversee the inventory, calibration, and maintenance of specialized robotics hardware, compute nodes, and safety gear (PPE).
• Cross‑Functional Coordination: Collaborate closely with hardware and software engineering teams to smoothly manage workspace allocation for concurrent foundation model testing tracks.

Safety Culture & Onboarding

• Onboarding & Compliance: Develop, update, and deliver mandatory safety onboarding modules for all incoming engineers, researchers, and partners.
• Culture Champion: Cultivate a proactive, “safety‑first” culture that matches the velocity of Scale’s rapid AI development without compromising on physical guardrails.

Qualifications & Experience

Requirements

• Experience: 3+ years of experience in lab management, safety coordination, or technical operations within a high‑velocity robotics, aerospace, automotive, or autonomous vehicle R&D environment.
• Safety Protocols: Demonstrated experience building out structured audit workflows and detailed incident documentation pipelines (familiarity with OSHA standards or ISO robotics safety standards is highly valued).
• Technical Comfort: Ability to seamlessly navigate an environment featuring complex physical hardware, multi‑modal sensors, and advanced compute rigs.
• Communication & Drive: Exceptional written communication skills for documentation, with the assertive communication style required to enforce safety protocols across a brilliant, fast‑moving engineering team.

Compensation & Benefits

Compensation packages at Scale for eligible roles include base salary, equity, and benefits. The range displayed on each job posting reflects the minimum and maximum target for new hire salaries for the position and may be inclusive of several career levels at Scale; it will be determined during the interview process based on work location and additional factors, including job‑related skills, experience, qualifications, interview performance, and relevant education or training. Scale employees in eligible roles are also granted equity‑based compensation, subject to Board of Director approval. You will also receive benefits including, but not limited to: comprehensive health, dental and vision coverage, retirement benefits, a learning and development stipend, and generous PTO. Additionally, this role may be eligible for additional benefits such as a commuter stipend.

The base salary range for this full‑time position in the location of San Francisco is: $134,400 – $168,000 USD.

Equal Employment Opportunity

We believe that everyone should be able to bring their whole selves to work, which is why we are proud to be an inclusive and equal opportunity workplace. We are committed to equal employment opportunity regardless of race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, age, citizenship, marital status, disability status, gender identity or Veteran status.

We are committed to working with and providing reasonable accommodations to applicants with physical and mental disabilities. If you need assistance and/or a reasonable accommodation in the application or recruiting process due to a disability, please contact us at [e-mail]. Please see the United States Department of Labor's Know Your Rights poster for additional information.

We comply with the United States Department of Labor's Pay Transparency provision.

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