Staff Systems Engineer – Autonomy Behavior

Jobtailor; Sunnyvale (CA); On-site; USD 180,000 - 280,000; Full time

Job summary

Jobtailor seeks an experienced Systems Validation Lead to steer behavior validation from requirements through release. You will define decomposition, metrics, and traceability, and lead cross-functional reviews for autonomous vehicles and safety-critical validation.

You will connect safety claims with compliance requirements, hazard analyses, and robust simulation-based evaluation at scale, guiding data pipelines and validation tooling across teams.

Qualifications

• Master's degree in a related field required.
• 8+ years in systems engineering, autonomous vehicles, robotics, or safety-critical validation.
• Proven record evaluating autonomous vehicles for commercial fleets or launches.
• Strong fundamentals in architecture, decomposition, requirements strategy, and traceability.
• Experience defining or leading large-scale simulation evaluation.
• Production-quality Python programming and rapid experimentation.

Responsibilities

• Set systems engineering approach for behavior validation from requirements to release and monitoring.
• Define behavior decomposition, metrics, acceptance criteria, coverage, and traceability.
• Lead validation strategy for major capabilities and cross-cutting behaviors.
• Connect safety claims with compliance, hazard analysis, requirements, and test evidence.
• Direct behavior evaluation and simulation at scale across synthetic tests and road data.
• Guide scenario sourcing, data quality, and reproducibility; lead cross-functional reviews.
• Advise on validation tools, data pipelines, and repeatable analysis products.
• Translate complex results into clear, actionable recommendations.
• Collaborate across behavior, software, simulation, safety, legal, product, and operations teams.

Skills

Python Programming

Communication

Stakeholder Management

Technical Leadership

Systems Engineering

Validation Lifecycle Design

Education

Master's degree in systems engineering or related field

Tools

Validation Tools

Data Pipelines

Simulation Workflows

Job description

• Set the systems engineering approach for behavior validation from product requirements through release and monitoring
• Define behavior decomposition, metrics, acceptance criteria, coverage, confidence, and traceability
• Lead validation strategy for major capabilities and cross-cutting behaviors
• Connect safety claims, legal and compliance expectations, hazard analysis, requirements, simulation tests, and release evidence
• Set direction for behavior evaluation and simulation at scale across synthetic tests, road data, and counterfactual references
• Guide scenario sourcing, sampling, orchestration, data quality, and reproducibility
• Lead cross-functional technical reviews
• Guide validation tools, data pipelines, simulation workflows, and analysis products toward repeatable systems
• Turn complex results into clear recommendations
• Work across behavior, software, simulation, safety, legal, product, and operations teams

Requirements

• Master's degree in systems engineering, mechanical engineering, aerospace engineering, electrical engineering, computer science, robotics, or a related field
• 8 or more years of professional experience in systems engineering, autonomous vehicles, robotics, vehicle development, simulation, or safety-critical validation
• Proven record of evaluating autonomous vehicles for a commercial fleet, launch, supervised release, or other high-consequence product decision
• Deep systems engineering fundamentals, including architecture and decomposition, use‑case and scene modeling, requirements strategy, interface definition, verification and validation planning, and traceability
• Professional experience defining or leading simulation evaluation at scale
• Strong Python experience, including production‑quality analysis or validation software, design and pull request reviews, and rapid engineering experimentation
• Strong communication skills
• Demonstrated stakeholder management and technical leadership across organizational boundaries
• Evidence of setting direction beyond a single project
• Human benchmarking for behavior and safety evaluation
• Counterfactual analysis in simulation
• Experience building or using a safety case and writing or reviewing safety claims
• Familiarity with hazard analysis and structured safety methods such as STPA, FMEA, fault trees, scenario‑based hazard analysis, or equivalent approaches
• Experience with risk quantification, risk acceptance, severity and exposure reasoning, risk budgets, and mitigation decisions
• Experience translating legal or regulatory expectations into a compliance strategy
• Experience designing validation lifecycles
• Experience building or guiding validation scorecards, confidence rubrics, behavior protocols, or similar products
• Experience reducing manual expert review through automation
• Track record of developing other engineers and leading technical communities

Core Competencies

Demonstrates expertise in systems engineering with a focus on behavior validation, simulation evaluation, and safety-critical validation for autonomous vehicles. Proven ability to lead cross-functional teams, manage stakeholders, and translate complex results into actionable recommendations.

Highest-signal resume keywords

• Systems Engineering
• Simulation Evaluation
• Python Programming
• Safety Case Development
• Stakeholder Management

Hard Skills

• Behavior Decomposition
• Requirements Strategy
• Verification and Validation Planning
• Risk Quantification
• Counterfactual Analysis
• Hazard Analysis
• Validation Lifecycle Design
• Automation of Expert Review
• Technical Leadership
• Architecture and Decomposition

Soft Skills

• Strong Communication Skills
• Technical Leadership
• Stakeholder Management

Industry Keywords

• Autonomous Vehicles
• Safety-Critical Validation
• FMEA
• STPA
• Fault Trees

Tools & Technologies

• Validation Tools
• Data Pipelines
• Simulation Workflows