Senior System Engineer

Apera; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 140,000 - 190,000; Full time

Job summary

Apera seeks a Senior Systems Engineer to join an innovative engineering team deploying complex electromechanical systems into safety-critical environments. You will help develop and deploy high-reliability autonomous systems already in real-world operation.

You’ll collaborate across hardware, software, controls, operations, and certification to scale the technology, improve reliability, and mature the systems engineering processes as the company grows.

Qualifications

• BS or MS in Aerospace/Systems/Electrical/Mechanical Engineering.
• 5–10+ years of experience in safety-critical electromechanical systems.
• Experience across systems design, not single-discipline work.
• Proven ability to solve complex multidisciplinary problems.
• Experience with modeling, simulation, statistics for problem solving.
• Knowledge of fail-safe and fail-operational architectures.
• Experience with energy budgets, flight dynamics, reliability, and statistics.
• Experience implementing systems engineering processes.
• Strong communication across engineering disciplines.

Responsibilities

• Act as technical expert in deploying high-reliability autonomous systems into safety-critical environments, owning requirements, metrics, test coverage, and validation processes.
• 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.
• 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

System-level design

Trade studies

Reliability analysis

Cross-functional leadership

Education

Bachelor's / Master's in Engineering

Tools

SysML

Simulation tools

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.