Staff Robotics System Safety Engineer

Rhoda AI; Mountain View (CA); On-site; USD 120,000 - 160,000; Full time

Job summary

Rhoda AI is seeking an experienced professional to develop safety-related features for their humanoid robot. The ideal candidate will have over 10 years in mass-produced electromechanical product development and a strong background in systems safety engineering. Responsibilities include defining fail-safe strategies and collaborating with various engineering teams.

Candidates should possess a B.S. in Robotics, Mechatronics, Electrical Engineering, or Computer Science. Experience with safety-critical product certification is essential. Join us in pushing the boundaries of robotics technology.

Qualifications

• 10+ years of experience in mass-produced electromechanical product development.
• Experience with HARA, DFMEA, FTA, STPA, and safety case development.
• Proven track record in safety-critical product development.

Responsibilities

• Develop safety-related features of Rhoda AI humanoid robot.
• Drive requirements from inception to verification.
• Hands-on support of System Integration and Application Engineering teams.

Skills

Mass-produced electromechanical product development

Systems safety engineering

Data analysis using Python or statistical tools

Motor control knowledge

Education

B.S. in Robotics, Mechatronics, Electrical Engineering or Computer Science

M.S. Engineering degree

Job description

At Rhoda AI, we’re building the next generation of generalist intelligent robots. We own the full robotics stack from high-performance hardware and robot systems to the infrastructure and state-of-the-art foundation world models that control our robots. Our robots are designed to be generalists capable of operating in complex, real-world environments and handling long-tail edge cases, made possible by our cutting edge research and end-to-end system design. We've raised over $450M and are investing aggressively in model research, infrastructure, hardware development, and manufacturing scale-up to make generalist robotics a reality.

Job Duties

• Develop safety-related features of RhodavAI humanoid robot
• Derive by analysis and/or empirically requirements related to stopping, collision avoidance, collision sensing, motor control and diagnostics
• Define fail-safe, fail-degraded and fail-operational strategies and required architectures
• Drive requirements from inception to approval to implementation to verification
• Invent, implement and use custom instrumentation and verification equipment for the purpose of deriving, verifying requirements and developing diagnostics strategies
• Hands‑on support of System Integration and Application Engineering teams
• Work closely with Mechanical, Electrical, Software and Applications teams

Requirements

• 10+ years mass‑produced electromechanical product development experience
• B.S. in Robotics, Mechatronics, Electrical Engineering or Computer Science
• Data collection and analysis methodologies - data acquisition and instrumentation, data conversion and analysis using Python or statistical tools, data presentation
• Proven experience in systems safety engineering, including HARA, DFMEA, FTA, STPA and safety case development for complex electromechanical systems with significant robotic aspect
• Proven track record of complex safety‑critical product development from inception to mass production, including passing through safety certification
• Proven experience deriving safety requirements for a robotic system through analysis and experimentation
• Proven experience in developing test cases with fault injection, instrumenting and executing those test cases, analyzing data and presenting to cross‑functional teams to argue for a passing result or a pivot in design or test methodology
• Proven experience working in at least one of the three basic disciplines: Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Software Engineering

Nice to have

• Certification from TUV Rheinland or similar in Functional Safety (IEC 61508 or Machinery)
• Experience in AI safety for Physical AI
• In-depth understanding of autonomy sensor methods - vision, TOF, laser, etc
• In-depth understanding of motor control
• In-depth understanding of safety‑critical embedded systems electronics, firmware and software
• Significant experience developing, characterizing or troubleshooting various electric and pneumatic actuators
• Experience designing and deploying robotic solutions for industrial manufacturing
• Experience with robotics in more than one industry, among surgical, aerospace, automotive, mining, earth-moving, agricultural, home and commercial service robots
• M.S. Engineering degree