Principal Engineer Team Lead, Safety & Targets

Role overview

This is a senior technical leadership role within a systems engineering organization that bridges software development and real-world deployment of autonomous vehicles. The position leads the Safety & Targets team responsible for developing safety-critical functions, defining quantitative performance targets, and producing the systems engineering evidence underwriting the safety case for commercial launch of a fully driverless robotaxi service. The work blends hands-on technical contribution with people leadership in a safety-critical environment.

Responsibilities

- Lead development and maturation of collision detection, response, and imminent collision handling across autonomy, remote vehicle assistance, and operational functions, defining behaviors and proving them out - Own the benchmark program spanning safety, comfort, and assertiveness, building human-driving baselines from naturalistic data, crash statistics, evasive maneuver modeling, and predicted crash-rate analysis - Define what sufficient validation coverage looks like, identify gaps in test suites, and drive cross-functional closure of those gaps - Deliver systems engineering artifacts including hazard analysis, STPA, HAZOP, FMEA, requirements, and coverage argumentation that underpin the safety case and regulatory submissions - Productionize crash database analysis, collision event ingestion and labeling, and automated continuous monitoring so safety insight scales with fleet miles - Mentor and grow a high-performing engineering team and partner with autonomy, infrastructure, operations, and legal stakeholders

Requirements

- Bachelor's degree with 7+ years, or Master's or PhD with 5+ years, in systems engineering, functional safety, autonomous systems, or robotics, with deep expertise in one area and working knowledge of the others - 3+ years leading safety-critical development, validation, or safety assurance programs for autonomous driving or other emerging safety-critical technologies - Hands-on technical leader with a proven track record of growing small, high-performing teams and fostering rigorous, data-driven engineering culture

Nice to have

- Background combining real-world crash data, large-scale simulation, and closed-course testing to validate safety functions at scale

Benefits and work setup

- Base salary range of $200,000 to $275,000 USD, with potential bonus or equity participation - Benefits program includes medical, dental, vision, 401k with company match, health savings accounts, life insurance, and pet insurance