Director, System Safety

Job description

Job responsibilities

• Lead a multi-disciplinary team across systems, test execution, and safety risk and process/SMS
• Drive the Driver-Out (DO) gated deployment plan with strategic ride-hail partners (Lyft, Uber) — internal gating, partner safety onsites, and recommendation packages for go/no-go decisions
• Own the Safety Case Framework for May's L4 systems, including HARA, FTA, FMEA, and runtime-monitor coverage for the MPDM-based decision-making stack, with ML-aware safety analysis
• Build out and operationalize the Safety Management System (SMS): incident risk assessment process, risk register automation, recall response plan, safety gating test suite, and the Product Safety Competency Register.
• Define safety architecture — partner with Autonomy, Validation, and Hardware to ensure safety-by-construction across future releases (scalable runtime monitoring, ODD enforcement, Driver-Anomaly response systems).
• Execute on May's L4 Japan compliance plan — partner with the Systems & Japan Programs Manager and the Japan Regulatory Safety Engineer on partner engagement and bilingual regulator response cadences.
• Co-lead strategic partner safety onsites (e.g., Uber Safety Onsite cadence) with the VP, Safety & Validation; own the technical narrative in OEM, ride-hail, and regulator forums.
• Hire and onboard the open safety roles and develop existing leaders in the org.

Job requirements

• 8+ years in product or system safety engineering, with 3+ years on L3+ AV or comparable hard-tech safety programs (aviation, rail, robotics).
• BA/BS degree in engineering, computer science, or a related technical field; advanced degree preferred.
• Direct experience authoring safety case work products (HARA, FTA, FMEA, safety case construction) on a shipping vehicle or equivalent cyber-physical program.
• Hands-on contribution to at least one driverless or driver-out commercial deployment milestone — named on the safety recommendation.
• 3+ years managing engineers, including at least one stint managing a manager OR leading a team of senior ICs and ready to step up to manager-of-managers.
• Experience working with regulators (NHTSA, FMCSA, FTA, state DMVs, MLIT, or international equivalents) — direct or in close partnership with an executive sponsor.
• Working knowledge of ML-driven decision-making safety standards (ISO 21448 SOTIF, ISO 8800) and traditional functional safety (ISO 26262) preferred.
• Experience in Automotive, AV, Aerospace, or another safety-critical regulated industry is highly preferred.