Systems Safety Engineer

Swarm Aero; California; On-site; USD 140,000 - 210,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Equity in a high-growth company

Competitive base salary

Medical, dental, vision, 401k

PTO and paid sick leave

Monthly wellness stipend

Office lunch daily

Paid parental leave

Job summary

Swarm Aero seeks a System Safety Engineer to architect safety into swarming UAVs and the associated C2 software. You will lead SSA, FHA, FTA, and DAL allocations across avionics, flight control, propulsion, and power systems to ensure fail-safe behavior and regulatory compliance.

Collaborate with systems engineering on architecture choices like automatic takeoff/landing and airborne detect-and-avoid, coordinate with airworthiness, and drive safety inputs for flight clearance processes.

Qualifications

• 7+ years of system safety experience on aerospace, defense, or UAS programs.
• Experience applying ARP 4761/4754 safety objectives to software development.
• Knowledge of MIL-STD-882 and related safety handbooks.
• Experience with DO-178/DO-254 and civil software standards.
• Ability to communicate safety findings clearly to engineers and leadership.
• US person status required.

Responsibilities

• Lead aircraft and system safety analyses (SSA, FHA, FTA, CCA, CMA).
• Derive safety requirements and coordinate mitigations across subsystems.
• Define DAL allocations to mitigate software design errors.
• Support design reviews and flight readiness with safety inputs.
• Collaborate with systems engineering on safety implications of architecture decisions such as automatic takeoff/landing and DAA.

Skills

System safety

SSA

FHA

FTA

DAL allocation

Safety architecture

ARP4761/ARP4754

Communication skills

Education

Bachelor's in Engineering

Tools

STAMP

STPA

DO-178/DO-254

Job description

Swarm Aero is redefining air power, building the largest swarming UAV and the most versatile swarming aircraft network in the world. The company is moving quickly to launch the first aircraft designed specifically for swarming, as well as the Command & Control software to mobilize swarms of thousands of heterogeneous autonomous assets and empower human operators to achieve superhuman results.

The team has created and exited multiple startups, negotiated defense deals worth billions of dollars, and designed and built 30+ novel aircraft, with aerospace experience from Scaled Composites, Airbus, Archer Aviation, Blue Origin, and Boom Supersonic.

Swarm Aero is building large, autonomous, swarming UAS for operations at scale in contested environments. Safety isn't a checkbox for us - it's a design input. We need a System Safety Engineer who can architect safety into the design, someone who can work directly with engineering teams to mitigate hazards and ensure our aircraft fail gracefully when things go wrong.

What You'll Do

• Lead aircraft and system safety analysis (SSA), functional hazard assessment (FHA), fault tree analysis (FTA), common cause analysis (CCA), common mode analysis (CMA)

• Derive safety requirements and work with subsystem teams to develop appropriate architectural mitigations, failure containment, redundancy, and detection across avionics, flight control, propulsion, and power systems

• Define and justify development assurance level (DAL) allocations to mitigate software design errors

• Support design reviews, test readiness reviews, and flight readiness reviews with safety inputs and findings

• Collaborate with systems engineering on architecture decisions that have safety implications including automatic takeoff/landing, airborne detect and avoid (DAA), and signal loss behaviors for navigation and communications

• Develop safety-related inputs to flight authorization packages and coordinate with airworthiness stakeholders as needed

• Lead root-cause identification and corrective action planning on safety-related issues discovered during analysis, simulation, integration, or test

What We're Looking For

• 7+ years of system safety experience on aerospace, defense, or UAS programs

• Strong foundation in systems engineering principles and practices

• Hands-on experience with SSA, FHA, FTA on flight-critical systems

• Strong understanding of failure mode classification, development assurance levels (DALs), and safety architecture principles

• Experience applying safety objectives to software development

• Experience with ARP4761 and ARP4754

• Experience with military safety standards and handbooks (e.g. MIL-STD-882, JSSSEH)

• Experience with civil software development standards (e.g. DO-178, DO-254)

• Ability to communicate safety findings clearly to engineering, test, and program leadership

• US person status required

Nice to Have

• Familiarity with System-Theoretic Accident Model and Processes (STAMP) and System-Theoretic Process Analysis (STPA)

• Experience analyzing degraded-mode behaviors and the safety implications of signal loss or adversarial conditions

• Active security clearance

ITAR requirement

To conform to U.S. Government export regulations, applicant must be a U.S. citizen, lawful permanent resident of the U.S., protected individual as defined by 8 U.S.C. 1324b(a)(3), or eligible to obtain the required authorizations from the U.S. Department of State.

Swarm Aero is an equal opportunity employer. We value diverse backgrounds and experiences and make employment decisions without regard to race, religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, veteran status, or disability.

What We Offer

• Meaningful equity in a high-growth defense technology company

• Competitive base salary commensurate with experience

• Medical, dental, vision, and 401k

• PTO and paid sick leave

• Monthly wellness stipend

• Daily catered lunch (office)

• Paid parental leave

• Direct impact on a critical national security mission

• A world-class team of engineers and operators solving genuinely hard problems