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.

Responsibilities

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.

Requirements

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.

Nice to have

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.