System Safety Engineer, Operations & Fleet Response

System Safety; Los Angeles, Northern (CA, KY); Hybrid; USD 196,000 - 248,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Health insurance

Dental insurance

Vision insurance

Life insurance

Disability insurance

401(k) with company match

Paid time off

Sick time

Maternity leave

Baby bonding leave

Holidays

Equity incentives

Annual bonus

Job summary

Waymo, the world’s leading autonomous driving technology company, seeks a seasoned System Safety engineer to lead cross‑functional safety analyses, define mitigations, and ensure compliance across hardware, software, and operations. You will shape safety requirements and verification strategies while promoting a strong safety culture.

The role reports to a System Safety Lead and requires 7+ years in System Safety engineering, with a strong background in risk management and Systems Engineering.

Qualifications

• You have a strong technical background in engineering and safety.
• You can apply systems engineering principles to define safety mitigations.
• You can lead risk-based decisions and collaborate with stakeholders.

Responsibilities

• Lead cross-functional safety analyses to identify hazards and assess risks.
• Define safety requirements and mitigations and verify effectiveness in the field.
• Guide adoption of safety standards and ensure regulatory compliance.
• Evaluate ongoing effectiveness of risk control strategies and identify new hazards.
• Lead in integrating System Safety with Waymo safety framework.

Skills

Cross-functional leadership

System Safety engineering

Safety analyses

Risk management

Project management

Education

Bachelor of Science in Electrical/Mechatronics/Aerospace Engineering, Computer Engineering, Computer Science, or related technical fields

Master’s degree or PhD preferred

Job description

Waymo is an autonomous driving technology company with the mission to be the world's most trusted driver. Since its start as the Google Self-Driving Car Project in 2009, Waymo has focused on building the Waymo Driver—The World's Most Experienced Driver™—to improve access to mobility while saving thousands of lives now lost to traffic crashes. The Waymo Driver powers Waymo’s fully autonomous ride-hail service and can also be applied to a range of vehicle platforms and product use cases. The Waymo Driver has provided over ten million rider-only trips, enabled by its experience autonomously driving over 100 million miles on public roads and tens of billions in simulation across 15+ U.S. states.

The Waymo Safety team works to promote and help to continuously improve the safety of Waymo's fully autonomous driving technology. Our experts develop safety goals and strategies, and conduct safety engineering analyses to ensure safety is being considered throughout the design and development of our vehicles. The team develops and promotes safety strategies and policies for autonomous vehicles for its work with regulatory authorities, lawmakers, law enforcement and public and non-profit organizations. Our Safety Team also helps advise on compliance with applicable environmental, health, and safety regulations.

In this hybrid role, you will report into one of our System Safety Leads.

You will:

• Lead cross-functional efforts to perform safety analyses and identify potential hazard and their causes, assess safety risks (qualitatively and quantitatively), support the definition of safety requirements, inform design decisions, propose mitigations, and support verification strategies
• Participate in hardware, software, and operations design and readiness reviews and discussions to help ensure that safety mitigations and requirements are addressed and ensure the safety mitigations are working effectively in the field
• Provide guidance on the adoption and adaptation of relevant safety standards, and industry best practices, and help ensure Waymo and its partners comply with relevant safety regulations
• Evaluates the continued effectiveness of implemented risk control strategies; supports the identification of new hazards
• Provide leadership in defining, implementing, and improving relevant System Safety processes while promoting our safety culture inside Waymo
• Provide leadership in integrating the System Safety Methodology with other methodologies of the Waymo safety framewor

You have:

• Bachelor of Science in Electrical/Mechatronics/Aerospace Engineering, Computer Engineering, Computer Science, or related technical fields
• Strong technical project management skills with the ability to manage multiple parallel projects
• 7+ years of relevant engineering work experience that includes minimum 5 years of System Safety engineering
• Proficient in selecting and performing appropriate inductive/deductive safety analyses in order to efficiently identify hazards and their level of risk
• Proficient in applying Systems Engineering principles including defining SMART safety mitigations/requirements and collaborating on effective verification and validation methods
• Extensive background in risk management and aligning risk based decisions with stakeholders

We prefer:

• A Master’s degree or PhD in Electrical/Mechatronics/Aerospace Engineering, Computer Engineering, Computer Science, or related technical fields
• Experience in complex, safety critical fleet operations and the impact to hardware, software, and systems design

Travel:

• Ability to travel approximately 5% of the time

In accordance with Washington state law, we are highlighting our comprehensive benefits package, which is available to all eligible US based employees. Benefits for this role include:

• Health, dental, vision, life, disability insurance
• Retirement Benefits: 401(k) with company match
• Paid Time Off: 20 days of vacation per year, accruing at a rate of 6.15 hours per pay period for the first five years of employment
• Sick Time: 40 hours/year (statutory, where applicable); 5 days/event (discretionary)
• Maternity Leave (Short-Term Disability + Baby Bonding): 28-30 weeks
• Baby Bonding Leave: 18 weeks
• Holidays: 13 paid days per year

Waymo employees are also eligible to participate in Waymo’s discretionary annual bonus program, equity incentive plan, and generous Company benefits program, subject to eligibility requirements.

The expected base salary range for this full-time position across US locations is listed below. Actual starting pay will be based on job-related factors, including exact work location, experience, relevant training and education, and skill level. Your recruiter can share more about the specific salary range for the role location or, if the role can be performed remote, the specific salary range for your preferred location, during the hiring process.

Salary Range

$196,000 — $248,000 USD