Principal Autonomous Vehicle Safety SOTIF Engineer

Primary Purpose:

The Automated Driving Safety Engineer will work across multiple sites as a strong contributor in the application of the global safety standards and requirements governing the processes, activities and work products required for Motional’s autonomous operations. As a SOTIF Engineer, you will lead and be an active participant in developing the functional safety concept, including all aspects of feature decomposition and analysis. The focus is safety of the intended function analysis of autonomous driving systems in the advanced development project phase to improve safety during design and build the safety case and verification plan for how the system will be assessed during later project phases. This role will be responsible for the analysis of autonomous vehicle driving behavior and definition of the safety performance indicator.

Essential Duties:

• Contribute to ADAS and Self-Driving feature requirements and provide functional safety guidance on feature definition, design, verification and validation measures. 
• You will utilize various analysis techniques (e.g. HARA, FMEA, STPA) to identify functional insufficiencies at different system levels, including sensing and decision algorithms
• Derive safety hazards that would contribute to ADAS SOTIF events 
• Develop safety goals/requirements associated with identified ADAS-SOTIF related events 
• Help drive system architecture and controls actions to mitigate SOTIF risk 
• Data and machine learning algorithm analysis as per SOTIF process Qualifications 
• The SOTIF engineer shall be very familiar with ISO 21448 and be part of working group to develop and modify the SOTIF process to adapt to and apply to the integrated autonomous driving system solutions. 
• The SOTIF engineer shall be responsible to cooperate with SW, HW and SYS engineers to develop the entire project SOTIF safety case for various autonomous driving and ADAS features, including system and component level hazard analysis, use cases, ODD conditions, and SOTIF safety requirements 
• Item description decomposition to identify vehicle level actions required to perform the intended function. 
• ODD decomposition to identify road, weather, and other external disturbances.
• Identify scenario based test suites within the defined ODD
• Derive validation and verification test scenarios to demonstrate robustness of ADAS system to SOTIF
• Define safety performance indicator metric
• Manage safety requirements traceability and work with design, implementation, performance, validation and service team members to validate SOTIF requirements 
• Be part of team to develop and modify the SOTIF safety process 
• Lead or support advanced system or component of new feature or new technology from the SOTIF safety perspective
• Able to travel domestically and internationally
• Other duties may be assigned

• Degree education in Electrical/Electronic or Software (or similar) Engineering 
• Over 5 years of experience within the automotive industry, ideally L4 developer, OEM or Tier 1 working within systems engineering in relation to ADAS features with working knowledge of ISO 26262 
• 3+ years of experience in SOTIF for automotive
• Demonstrated experience in certifying or developing automotive software (autonomous or conventional)
• Enthusiasm and a desire to work in a very fast-paced environment where innovation and rapid change is the norm
• Experience in defining the SOTIF process for ADAS features 
• Understanding of emerging standards such as UL 4600 
• Strong system engineering background 
• Good interpersonal and communication skills with a high level of integrity 
• Experience working within a cross-functional team
• Knowledge of IEEE 2846 “IEEE Standard for Assumptions in Safety‐Related Models for Automated Driving Systems “
• Expert knowledge of ISO 21448 
• Good knowledge of AVSC best practices
• Proven track on development and implementation of SOTIF safety concepts 
• Lead with confidence – thought leaders who empower those around them 
• Proven track on safety analysis methods (FTA, FMEA, STPA) 
• Preferably proven track on technical leadership 
• Feature expert on autonomous L0-L3 driving such as LKA, AEB, ACC, LCC 
• Application specific component expert such as RADARS, Camera, Driver Monitor, or Compute Platform 
• Knowledge and experience in Object Sensing / Detection and Path Prediction 
• Knowledge and experience in Map and Localization 
• Knowledge and experience in Vehicle Dynamics for Autonomous Vehicles 
• Expert on system and vehicle simulations 

Educational Requirements

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, or related field and 6+ years of Systems Engineering or related work experience required. 

Master's degree in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, or related field and 5+ years of Systems Engineering or related work experience preferred.

PhD in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, or related field and 4+ years of Systems Engineering or related work experience highly preferred.

Supervisory Responsibilities:

This position has no direct supervisory responsibilities but does serve as a coach and mentor to other positions across all US sites. 

Physical Demands

While performing the duties of this job, the employee is frequently required to sit, stand talk, or hear; use hands and fingers,  handle, or feel; reach with hands and arms. The employee must occasionally lift and move up to 25 pounds.

Working Environment

The work environment characteristics described here are representative of those a team member encounters while performing the essential functions of this job.  Reasonable accommodation may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions.

The job operates in a combination of a professional office environment or work from home (remote) and the garage where company vehicles are stored and repaired.  This role routinely uses standard office equipment such as computers and phones.  While performing some duties of this job, the employee might be occasionally exposed to vehicle related fumes or airborne particles, moving vehicles and noise levels vary depending on the location within the building.  

Motional AD LLC is an Equal Employment Opportunity employer and we welcome all qualified applicants.  All applicants will receive impartial consideration without regard to race, sex, color, national origin, age, disability, veteran status, genetic data, religion, gender identity, sexual orientation or other legally protected status.  Motional AD LLC is a Drug-free workplace.