Safety Expert - Robotics & Drones

Safety Expert, Robotics & Drones

We are Aptiv - a global technology company with 200,000 specialists in 48 countries. We develop innovative software and build the hardware to bring autonomous driving cars, advanced driver‑assistance systems, connected vehicles and smart cities to life in a way that only we can. We work in partnership with almost all car manufacturers. Our sensors, systems and software can already be found in almost all passenger cars today.

Aptiv is building a new Robotics business focused on Autonomous Mobile Robots (AMRs) and Drones for warehouses, industrial, and adjacent markets. Safety is foundational to this effort. As a Robotics Safety Architect, you will be the technical authority for robotic system safety, owning the definition, realization, and validation of end‑to‑end safety concepts for autonomous robots operating alongside people and industrial equipment.

You will define how functional safety, autonomy, and system architecture come together, ensuring that Proofs of Concept evolve into certifiable, scalable, and reusable safety‑compliant platforms deployable across multiple customers, applications, and form factors.

You will work cross‑functionally with product management, system safety, hardware/SoC teams, software engineering, Dev Ops, and external partners to deliver safe‑by‑design robotic architectures across the entire product lifecycle.

• Own the end‑to‑end robotics safety architecture for AMR and drone platforms, spanning sensors, perception, localization, planning, control, actuation, human–machine interaction, and connectivity.
• Define and maintain the system‑level safety concept, including functional safety architecture, safety goals, safe operating states, degraded modes, and fault response strategies.
• Architect safety mechanisms and patterns, including:
  
  Safety monitors and supervisors
  
  Redundant and diverse sensing and compute paths
  
  Watchdogs and heartbeat mechanisms
  
  Safe motion and emergency stop behaviors
  
  Diagnostics, fault containment, and recovery
• Partition safety‑critical and non‑safety workloads across SoCs, MCUs, safety MCUs, and offboard services, with clear freedom‑from‑interference strategies.
• Define clear interfaces, safety contracts, and assumptions between perception, localization, planning, control, safety functions, fleet systems, and cloud components.
• Ensure that the software and system architecture meets all derived safety, performance, timing, moding, and availability requirements.

• Lead software and system architecture alignment with applicable robotics and machinery safety standards, including (as applicable):
  
  IEC 61508
  
  ISO 13849
  
  ISO 10218
  
  ISO 3691-4
  
  ISO 12100
• Collaborate with system safety engineers to:
  
  Define hazard analyses and risk assessments (HARA)
  Perform and review FMEAs, FTAs, and fault injection strategies
  
  Develop and maintain structured safety cases and safety arguments
• Drive architectural decisions that enable certification, audits, and third‑party assessments.
• Establish traceability from hazards -> safety goals -> technical safety requirements -> architecture -> implementation -> verification.

• Serve as the technical authority for robotics safety architecture decisions, including trade‑offs between safety, performance, cost, and complexity.
• Lead architecture and safety design reviews across programs.
• Provide technical direction to teams developing perception, autonomy, control, and safety software.
• Mentor engineers on:
  
  Safety‑oriented design patterns
  
  Defensive programming and diagnostics
  
  Fault‑tolerant robotics systems
  
  ROS 2 usage in safety‑constrained systems

• Define how simulation and digital twins (Gazebo, Isaac Sim, Webots, or custom platforms) support:
  
  Hazard validation
  
  Scenario‑based safety testing
  
  Regression testing of safety behaviors
• Shape testing and validation strategies including:
  
  Fault injection and robustness testing
  
  Safety regression and release qualification
• Collaborate with Dev Ops and tooling teams to ensure CI/CD pipelines support safety evidence generation.