Staff Systems Engineer, Functional Safety

About this role

<div class="content-intro"><p>Agility’s commercially deployed humanoids operate alongside teams in warehouses, manufacturing facilities, and distribution centers—tackling physically demanding and repetitive tasks while enabling workers to focus on higher-value work. With industry-leading safety standards and years of proven deployment data, we're pioneering a new era of automation that enhances human potential.</p></div><p><strong>About the Role</strong></p> <p>As a Staff Systems Engineer at Agility Robotics, you'll be the technical leader defining and delivering system-level architecture for our humanoid robot platform, with focus in functional safety requirements integration. Working within a high-impact Systems Engineering team, you'll take ownership of complex safety-critical requirements, cross-functional interfaces, and system-level integration—bringing clarity and structure to incredibly complex safety-critical systems.</p> <p>This role is ideal for a hands-on technical leader with functional safety expertise who thrives in ambiguity, takes initiative without waiting for permission, and has a passion for building real safety-critical systems fast. You'll help shape how Systems Engineering and Functional Safety integration is applied in a fast-moving startup, balancing the rigor of safety standards with the agility and pragmatism needed to ship products.</p> <p><strong>Key Responsibilities</strong></p> <p>Robotics Development </p> <ul> <li>Requirements Management: Define system and subsystem architectures spanning all domains (mechanical, electrical, firmware, and software) with embedded functional safety, and drive trade studies to balance safety, performance, cost, and execution speed.</li> <li>V&V Definition : Define, own, and decompose detailed, verifiable requirements in Jama that can be delivered to Integration and Testing teams for Verification and Validation.</li> <li>Interface Definition: Lead development and maintenance of Interface Control Documents (ICDs), managing implementation-specific details for hardware and software interfaces, including message structures, pinouts, and bolt patterns.</li> <li>Operational Definitions: Define the sequence of operations between major elements and users using narrative Concept of Operations (ConOps), swimlane diagrams, and/or logical flow charts.</li> <li>Test Support: Align system requirements with test plans to ensure coverage across the entire safety system. Drive system-level verification of safety requirements through integration testing and track design differences between test setups and the intended design to determine technical risk.</li> </ul> <p> </p> <p>Operational Support and Technical Leadership </p> <ul> <li>Safety Tracking & Monitoring: Regularly check and confirm that the safety system's performance meets all specified requirements under live operating conditions.</li> <li>Change and Modification Management: Ensure that any modification to the system's hardware or software that impacts safety must be strictly validated to maintain safety integrity and prevent the introduction of new risks.</li> <li>Failure Analysis and Investigation: Actively participate in safety assessments and root cause investigations, collaborating with non-safe software and hardware development teams to prevent systemic faults.</li> <li>Operational Sustainment: Work closely with Commercial and Product teams to ensure that critical safety mechanisms and processes are maintained at customer sites, including emergency stop and human detection.</li> <li>Cross-Functional Alignment and Leadership: Facilitate cross-functional decisions when safety requirements conflict with performance, cost, or schedule constraints, and identify technical and safety risks to influence system decisions.</li> </ul> <p> </p> <p><strong>Qualifications</strong></p> <ul> <li>8+ years of Systems Engineering experience in safety-critical domains: robotics, aerospace, automotive, medical devices, or similar multidisciplinary hardware/software systems</li> <li>3+ years working on system safety or functional safety projects and use of functional safety standards such as ISO 13849, IEC 61508, ISO 26262, IEC 62061, or similar</li> <li>Demonstrated experience leading system-level integration, architecture, and requirement management efforts</li> <li>Previous experience in high-growth, fast-paced environments where self-direction and bias for action are essential</li> <li>Experience with safety-critical robotics or autonomous systems strongly preferred</li> </ul> <p> </p> <p><strong>Technical Skills & Safety Expertise</strong></p> <ul> <li>Understanding of safety lifecycle processes, hazard analysis (HARA, HAZOP, FTA, FMEA), safety integrity levels, and safety architecture principles</li> <li>Expert-level skills in authoring safety requirements, managing traceability, and defining cross-functional safety interfaces</li> <li>Strong familiarity with the V-model approach to safety-critical systems engineering, including how to adapt it for rapid development environments</li> <li>Proficiency in using safety analysis tools (e.g., ANSYS medini analyze, PTC Windchill FTA, ItemIS) and requirements management platforms (Jama, DOORS, Polarion).</li> <li>Ability to collaborate closely with Test Engineering to develop and execute system-level safety verification and validation…