Staff Functional Safety Engineer
Ford Motor Company
full-time
Posted on:
Location Type: Hybrid
Location: Palo Alto • California • United States
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Salary
💰 $146,520 - $276,600 per year
Job Level
About the role
- As a Staff Functional Safety Engineer, you will be responsible for ensuring the safety of complex electronic control features.
- You will lead the end-to-end safety lifecycle from initial concept through production, ensuring full compliance with ISO 26262.
- This role requires a unique blend of deep hardware-level analytical rigor, system-level architectural thinking, and the leadership presence to drive a robust safety culture across cross-functional engineering teams.
- You will be responsible for defining the safety architecture, steering technical design decisions, and ensuring program readiness through rigorous quantitative risk assessment and the implementation of advanced fail-operational strategies.
Requirements
- Bachelor's degree or higher in Electrical Engineering, Computer Science, Physical Sciences, or equivalent combination of relevant education and experience.
- Minimum of 4+ years of functional safety engineering experience in safety-critical systems within the automotive, aerospace, or industrial sectors.
- Deep expertise in the application and assessment of ISO 26262:2018 and familiarity with ISO 21448 (SOTIF).
- Extensive experience leading and performing complex safety analyses (HARA, FMEA, FTA, DFA, STPA) for autonomous or highly complex E/E systems.
- Strong understanding of failure mode analysis for complex electrical designs, ASICs, and advanced electrical circuits.
- Demonstrated technical project management skills with the ability to manage multiple parallel, cross-functional safety-critical projects.
- Deep understanding of embedded control system development, embedded software, and verification and validation (V&V) processes.
- Background in data science and statistics with a focus on analyzing performance for quantitative risk reduction and safety assessment.
- Proven leadership experience working with external partners, suppliers, and regulatory bodies or auditors.
- Excellent communication skills with a track record of leading technical meetings with leadership teams and providing mentorship to engineering peers.
Benefits
- Immediate medical, dental, vision and prescription drug coverage
- Flexible family care days, paid parental leave, new parent ramp-up programs, subsidized back-up child care and more
- Family building benefits including adoption and surrogacy expense reimbursement, fertility treatments, and more
- Vehicle discount program for employees and family members and management leases
- Tuition assistance
- Established and active employee resource groups
- Paid time off for individual and team community service
- A generous schedule of paid holidays, including the week between Christmas and New Year’s Day
- Paid time off and the option to purchase additional vacation time.
Applicant Tracking System Keywords
Tip: use these terms in your resume and cover letter to boost ATS matches.
Hard Skills & Tools
functional safety engineeringISO 26262ISO 21448HARAFMEAFTADFASTPAembedded control system developmentverification and validation
Soft Skills
leadershipcommunicationtechnical project managementmentorshipanalytical thinkingcross-functional collaborationrisk assessmentproblem-solvingorganizational skillsstakeholder engagement