Senior System Safety Engineer

AeroVect; Washington; On-site; USD 140,000 - 190,000; Full time

Job summary

AeroVect is transforming ground handling with autonomy, delivering safety-focused autonomous systems for airlines and ground service providers worldwide. The Senior Safety Engineer will lead quantitative hardware safety analyses, FRF/HTR derivations, and safety-case support across software and hardware platforms.

You will collaborate with systems, software, robotics, hardware, and test teams to ensure safety requirements are traceable, testable, and verifiable.

Qualifications

• 5+ years of hands-on safety engineering experience in autonomous systems or related industries.
• Experience with ISO 26262, DO-178C/DO-254, or IEC 61508.
• Background in hardware safety engineering and failure-rate modeling.
• Experience with autonomous driving systems or mobile robotics.
• BS or MS in CS/EE/Systems Engineering/Robotics.

Responsibilities

• Perform quantitative hardware safety analyses including FMEDA and PMHF.
• Calculate failure rates using SN 29500, IEC 61709, MIL-HDBK-217.
• Evaluate drive-by-wire compute hardware, sensors, actuators for faults.
• Derive Hardware Safety Requirements for redundant architectures and fail-operational nodes.

Skills

Safety engineering

Hazard analysis

Systems engineering

Cross-functional collaboration

Technical mentorship

Education

B.S. or M.S. in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, Systems Engineering, Robotics

Tools

FMEDA

HARA/FMEA/FTA/STPA

SN 29500

IEC 61709

MIL-HDBK-217F

FMEDA workflows

Job description

Who We Are

AeroVect is transforming ground handling with autonomy, redefining how airlines and ground service providers around the globe run day-to-day operations. We are a Series A company backed by top-tier venture capital investors in aviation and autonomous driving. Our customers include some of the world’s largest airlines and ground handling providers. For more information, visit www.aerovect.com.

Working under the close guidance and supervision of the Head of Safety, the Senior Safety Engineer will execute core safety lifecycle tasks across AeroVect’s software and hardware platforms:

• System Safety Analysis: Perform hazard identification and risk assessments (HARA, FMEA, FTA, STPA) on the autonomous system architecture and vehicle operation concepts.
• Requirements Derivation: Derive, specify, and trace functional and technical safety requirements (FSRs / TSRs) for both supervised autonomy (safety driver present) and SDO unsupervised autonomy (driverless).
• Cross-Functional Execution: Collaborate directly with systems, software, robotics, hardware, and test teams to ensure safety requirements are integrated, testable, and verified.
• Safety Case Support: Assist in building safety case artifacts and verification evidence required for airport commercial deployment.

You Will

• Perform Quantitative Hardware Safety Analyses, including FMEDA, hardware diagnostic coverage analysis, and Probabilistic Metric for random Hardware Failures (PMHF).
• Calculate hardware component and system failure rates using standard methodologies (SN 29500, IEC 61709, MIL-HDBK-217F, Telcordia SR-332).
• Evaluate drive-by-wire compute hardware, sensor suites (Lidar, Radar, Camera), actuator interfaces, and power distribution systems for single-point and latent faults.
• Derive Hardware Safety Requirements (HSRs) for redundant architectures and fail-operational compute nodes.

You Have

• 5+ years of hands-on safety engineering experience in autonomous vehicles, automotive (ISO 26262), aerospace (DO-178C/DO-254), or industrial safety (IEC 61508).
• 5+ years in hardware safety engineering, EE reliability, or failure rate modeling for automotive, aerospace, or industrial robotics.
• Prior background working with autonomous driving systems or mobile robotics.
• Proven ability to work under the technical mentorship of a Principal Safety Engineer in a high-velocity agile engineering team.
• B.S. or M.S. in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, Systems Engineering, Robotics, or a related discipline.
• Proven mastery of FIT rate modeling, component failure rate calculation methods (SN 29500, IEC 61709, MIL-HDBK-217), and FMEDA workflows.
• ISO 26262-5 Mastery: Deep knowledge of hardware architectural metrics (SPFM, LFM) and hardware diagnostic strategies.