System Verification and Validation Engineer - Fail Operational Systems

Zoox is on an ambitious journey to develop and safely deploy a full-stack autonomous mobility solution for cities.

We are seeking a Senior / Staff Systems V&V Engineer to join the Platform Safety Assurance team within the System Design and Mission Assurance (SDMA) team, applying sound systems and verification engineering to fail-safe and fail-operational behaviors to realize this mission.

At Zoox, we take systems engineering seriously and know that your efforts will be critical for delivering a driverless robotaxi service at scale. In this role, your work will directly impact our fleet’s reliability and fail-operational capabilities through your efforts on the compute-platform safety case.

In this role, you will

Understand and review vehicle response strategies for fault conditions from all potential sources

Develop and manage test planning and execution for safety and fail-operational responses

Design and direct system-level V&V campaigns, establish novel testing methodologies, establish robust testing metrics, and ensure the robotaxi meets end-to-end safety and fail-operational requirements for Zoox milestones including for highway driving

Work and collaborate closely with system safety, perception, firmware, vehicle controls, and planning engineering teams to understand and review requirements, vehicle response strategies, and secure buy-in for new processes for fault conditions

Analyze, track, and report complex test results to drive platform improvements, documenting new methodologies and V&V reports

Apply expertise in verification and validation to the compute-platform safety case, accelerating new platform development, and establishing robust fail-safe and fail-operational behaviors.

Qualifications

BS or higher degree in a technical field, such as Electrical, Computer or Systems Engineering.

5+ years of specialized experience, including demonstrable experience in one or all of the following:

Verification and Validation (V&V): Deep experience in V&V processes and methodologies, particularly within the context of safety-critical systems and safety cases.

Functional Safety & Diagnostics: Expertise in fault detection, mitigation systems, and verifying diagnostic coverage.

System and Component Testing: Strong background in system-level testing, its requirements, and its relationship with component-level and unit testing.

Hardware-in-the-Loop (HIL) and Vehicle Testing: Experience executing and assuring capabilities using HIL and physical vehicle-level testing.

Proficient in Python for data analysis.

Basic proficiency with probability and statistics

Data Analysis and Metrics: Lead data collection and analysis campaigns, defining and validating system performance metrics, driving automation initiatives for analysis and process optimization.

Bonus Qualifications

Risk and Reliability: Experience with quantitative risk analysis or statistical reliability analysis.

Fault Protection: Fault protection system design and validation.

Functional Safety Standards: Familiarity with ISO 26262, ARP 4754, ARP 4761, or IEC 51511.