Safety Assurance Engineer Lead

Safety Assurance Engineer Lead

The Safety Assurance Engineer Lead plays a critical role in the development of safety-critical transportation systems and products. Working as a key member of the engineering organization, this role ensures that complex hardware, software, and system-level designs meet stringent safety requirements throughout the entire product lifecycle, from concept through deployment and operational support. This position operates within the engineering design process, partnering closely with Systems, Hardware, Software, Test, and Project Engineering teams to identify hazards, assess risk, develop mitigations, and ensure safe product implementation.

It is not an Environmental Health & Safety (EHS) role, but a technically focused engineering position requiring deep experience in safety analysis for safety-critical systems and the ability to evaluate designs at both the system and electronic hardware/component levels.

Responsibilities

• Lead safety assurance efforts for new product development initiatives and customer programs across the full lifecycle, from concept through deployment and operational support.
• Develop, own, and maintain Safety Plans, Safety Cases, and Safety Reports to document the safety approach, evidence, and conclusions for assigned products and systems.
• Perform and thoroughly document safety analyses including Preliminary Hazard Analysis (PHA), System Hazard Analysis (SHA), Subsystem Hazard Analysis (SSHA), Interface Hazard Analysis (IHA), Failure Modes and Effects Analysis (FMEA), Failure Modes, Effects and Criticality Analysis (FMECA), and Fault Tree Analysis (FTA).
• Identify hazards across hardware, software, and system domains, define clear safety requirements, and drive mitigations through verification and closure.
• Own and maintain Hazard Logs, ensuring complete traceability from initial hazard identification through requirement definition, verification activities, and formal closure with objective evidence.
• Participate actively in design reviews and peer reviews to identify potential safety concerns early in the development process and recommend design improvements.
• Collaborate closely with hardware, software, systems, test, and integration teams to ensure that designs satisfy safety objectives and comply with applicable safety standards.
• Evaluate engineering changes and assess the impact of hardware, component, software, and system modifications on overall system safety, including failure propagation and risk levels.
• Support verification, validation, testing, and commissioning activities from a safety perspective, ensuring that safety requirements are adequately tested and demonstrated.
• Interface directly with customers, independent safety assessors, and regulatory stakeholders to communicate safety approaches, respond to questions, and support audits or assessments.
• Present and defend Safety Cases to internal and external stakeholders and support resolution of findings and recommendations from independent safety assessments or certification activities.
• Investigate safety issues arising from fielded systems, support root cause analysis, and define corrective and preventive actions to restore and improve safe operation.
• Provide guidance, coaching, and mentoring to other safety engineers when assigned, and contribute to building safety assurance capability within the engineering organization.
• Review hardware and electronic circuit designs to understand safety implications and confirm that design decisions support safe operation.
• Analyze component-level failure modes and their impacts on system behavior, including the effects of component substitutions or design changes on safety margins.
• Assess failure propagation through complex systems to determine potential hazards, likelihoods, and severities, and to prioritize mitigations.
• Translate identified hazards into actionable, testable engineering safety requirements that can be implemented by hardware, software, and systems teams.
• Work effectively across hardware, software, systems, and integration disciplines to ensure a holistic, system-level approach to safety assurance.

Essential Skills

• At least 5 years of experience…