Functional Safety Lead Engineer

POSITION SUMMARY

BWI Group is a premier chassis supplier that designs and manufactures brake and suspension systems for the global transportation market. BWI Group is seeking a Functional Safety Engineer Lead to work on site at the primary North American technical center of a major automotive OEM in support of BWI controlled brakes products.

We are a Tier 1 supplier specializing in braking and chassis control systems, delivering safety-critical products to global OEM customers. We are looking for a Functional Safety Engineer Lead to own and drive ISO 26262 compliance across the full development lifecycle of our brake and chassis control systems - from concept phase through software release and customer delivery.

This is a senior individual contributor role with broad technical leadership responsibilities. You will serve as the internal authority on functional safety process, guide engineers across systems, software, and hardware disciplines, coordinate compliance across our Tier 2 supply chain, and own all customer-facing safety deliverables. You will lead through deep expertise and influence - not through direct management - and you will be held accountable for the quality and completeness of every safety output the program delivers.

Safety Planning and Process Ownership

• Author, maintain, and update the Safety Management Plan at each development phase, ensuring alignment with ISO 26262 lifecycle objectives and program milestones
• Serve as the internal process authority - provide definitive guidance to engineers, architects, and project leads on compliant versus non-compliant practice across all applicable ISO 26262 parts
• Guarantee functional safety process compliance within the organization and across the development program.

Safety Concept and Analysis

• Lead the definition of the item, hazard and risk assessment (HARA), functional safety concept (FSC), and technical safety concept (TSC)
• Define safety measures including mitigation strategies, safety functions, and safe states; support implementation of those measures in the production and system design
• Oversee and coordinate all safety analysis activities including HARA, D-FMEA, FMEDA, FTA, and DFA - reviewing, challenging, and approving outputs across systems, software, and hardware disciplines.

Confirmation Measures and Compliance

• Execute confirmation measures including work product reviews, internal audits, and independent assessments; serve in an I3 capacity on projects outside your direct ownership where independence is required per ISO 26262 Part 2.
• Proactively identify safety issues, process non-conformances, and unresolved anomalies; own escalation and drive items through to closure.

Verification, Validation, and Release

• Support verification and validation activities to confirm that risk-reducing solutions are sufficient and that required safety goals have been achieved
• Author and own the safety case and safety argumentation, including constructing justification strategies such as proven-in-use, SEooC, and prior use; sign off the safety case prior to software release.

Customer and Supplier Interface

• Own and deliver all customer-facing safety artifacts including RAM reports, safety case, safety plan, DIA, and all other ISO 26262-required deliverables to OEM customers.
• Act as the primary technical safety interface between the internal safety team and OEM customers; support vehicle-level discussions on degraded mode behavior, fallback strategies, and system-level safety goal coverage
• Coordinate with Tier 2 suppliers to ensure compliance with allocated safety requirements; support supplier selection activities from a functional safety standpoint and integrate supplier safety measures into the production design.

Cross-Functional Leadership

• Act as the main knowledge bridge between the safety team and internal engineering disciplines including project engineering, systems and software engineering, supplier relations, verification, and homologation.
• Guide and technically influence cross-functional teams without direct management authority; set the quality bar for safety outputs and hold the program accountable the requirements.