Senior System Engineer

Apera; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 150,000 - 210,000; Full time

Job summary

Apera in San Francisco is seeking a Senior Systems Engineer to lead the development and deployment of high-reliability autonomous systems in safety-critical environments. You will own system-level design across hardware, software, controls, and certification, influencing how systems are built, tested, and deployed.

You will drive requirements, interfaces, and trade studies, manage risk-based margins, and collaborate across engineering disciplines to scale robust engineering processes as the

Qualifications

• BS and/or MS in Aerospace Engineering, Systems Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering or a related discipline.
• 5-10+ years of industry experience developing safety-critical electromechanical systems.
• Experience with systems or vehicle-level design across disciplines.
• Proven ability to solve multidisciplinary engineering problems and drive to resolution.
• Experience using engineering tools such as modelling, simulation, statistics to investigate problems.
• Knowledge of designing systems for challenging environments including temperature extremes, vibration, ESD, and high electrical noise.
• Understanding of fail-safe and fail-operational architectures.
• Comfortable working with energy budgets, flight dynamics, reliability, and risk-based thresholds.
• Experience developing or implementing systems engineering processes in new programs or scaling environments.
• Strong communication skills and influence across disciplines.

Responsibilities

• Act as a technical expert in deploying high-reliability autonomous systems into safety-critical environments, owning requirements, metrics, test coverage, and validation processes to ensure safe and robust system performance.
• Own system and subsystem requirements, including definition, decomposition, allocation, and traceability.
• Define system interfaces and work across engineering disciplines to establish and manage technical budgets.
• Develop frameworks and facilitate trade studies to optimise system architecture and operational decisions across performance, safety, reliability, and cost.
• Evaluate hardware and software release standards, verification strategies, and test requirements.
• Work closely with design engineering, systems engineering, test, and certification teams to demonstrate system safety and readiness for deployment.
• Identify complex technical risks and develop practical, data-driven solutions across multidisciplinary engineering teams.
• Help establish and continuously improve systems engineering processes as the organisation scales.

Skills

Systems modelling

Simulation

Statistical analysis

Cross-disciplinary collaboration

Strong communication

Problem solving

Education

BS/MS in Aerospace Engineering or related

Job description

We're looking for a Senior Systems Engineer to join an innovative engineering team developing and deploying complex electromechanical systems into safety-critical environments.

This is an opportunity to play a key engineering role in the development and deployment of high-reliability autonomous systems that are already operating in the real world.

You'll work across hardware, software, controls, operations, and certification to help scale the technology, improve reliability, and mature the systems engineering processes behind it.

As a senior member of the team, you'll have significant technical ownership and the opportunity to influence how systems are designed, tested, validated, and ultimately deployed.

Responsibilities

• Act as a technical expert in the deployment of high-reliability autonomous systems into safety-critical environments, owning requirements, metrics, test coverage, and validation processes to ensure safe and robust system performance.
• Own system and subsystem requirements, including definition, decomposition, allocation, and traceability.
• Define system interfaces and work across engineering disciplines to establish and manage technical budgets.
• Develop frameworks and facilitate trade studies to optimise system architecture and operational decisions across performance, safety, reliability, and cost.
• Evaluate hardware and software release standards, verification strategies, and test requirements.
• Work closely with design engineering, systems engineering, test, and certification teams to demonstrate system safety and readiness for deployment.
• Identify complex technical risks and develop practical, data-driven solutions across multidisciplinary engineering teams.
• Help establish and continuously improve systems engineering processes as the organisation scales.

Requirements

• BS and/or MS in Aerospace Engineering, Systems Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, or a related discipline.
• 5-10+ years of industry experience developing safety-critical electromechanical systems, ideally within aerospace, autonomous vehicles, robotics, industrial automation, or another highly regulated environment.
• Experience with systems or vehicle-level design, rather than working exclusively within a single engineering discipline.
• Proven ability to independently solve complex, multidisciplinary engineering problems and drive them through to resolution.
• Experience using engineering tools such as systems modelling, simulation, statistical analysis, or your modelling language/tool of choice to investigate and solve complex problems.
• Knowledge of designing systems capable of operating reliably in challenging environments, including temperature extremes, mechanical vibration, ESD, and/or high electrical noise.
• Understanding of both fail-safe and fail-operative architectures, including designing systems capable of continuing to operate through certain classes of faults.
• Comfortable working with energy budgets, flight dynamics, reliability, and statistical analysis to establish appropriate risk-based thresholds and system margins.
• Experience developing or implementing systems engineering processes, particularly within new programs, rapidly scaling organisations, or start-up environments.
• Strong communication skills and the ability to influence technical decisions across multiple engineering disciplines.