Senior Automotive Occupant Safety CAE Engineer

Senior Occupant Safety Engineer

Troy, Michigan, United States

We're ALTEN Technology USA, an engineering company helping clients bring groundbreaking ideas to life—from advancing space exploration and life-saving medical devices to building autonomous electric vehicles. With 3,000+ experts across North America, we partner with leading companies in aerospace, medical devices, robotics, automotive, commercial vehicles, EVs, rail, and more.

As part of the global ALTEN Group—57,000+ engineers in 30 countries—we deliver across the entire product development cycle, from consulting to full project outsourcing.

When you join ALTEN Technology USA, you'll collaborate on some of the world's toughest engineering challenges, supported by mentorship, career growth opportunities, and comprehensive benefits. We take pride in fostering a culture where employees feel valued, supported, and inspired to grow.

Bachelor's degree in Mechanical Engineering, Automotive Engineering, Biomechanics, or related discipline.

Minimum 8-10 years of experience in Occupant Safety Engineering, Crash worthiness, or Automotive CAE Safety Analysis.

This position is focused on the development, validation, and optimization of virtual occupant protection systems for frontal and side impact crash performance.

The role involves developing and maintaining high-fidelity LS-Dyna occupant safety models, evaluating occupant injury performance, and optimizing restraint systems and interior components to achieve regulatory, consumer information, and internal safety targets.

The engineer will collaborate closely with Safety Structures, Interior Systems, Chassis, Testing, Design Release Engineers (DREs), and suppliers to ensure occupant protection performance is achieved throughout vehicle development.

This position requires deep expertise in automotive occupant safety, restraint systems tuning, crash simulation methodologies, and North American safety regulations, along with the ability to drive cross-functional technical decisions throughout the product development lifecycle.

• Develop and maintain occupant protection CAE models using LS-Dyna
• Support frontal and side impact simulation activities throughout vehicle development
• Ensure CAE models accurately reflect the latest vehicle design and CAD releases
• Maintain correlation between component-level and system-level CAE models
• Assess occupant injury performance across all required crash configurations
• Evaluate vehicle performance against internal safety targets, FMVSS requirements, US-NCAP, and IIHS protocols
• Analyze simulation results and identify opportunities for performance improvements
• Develop recommendations to improve occupant protection outcomes
• Optimize airbags, seatbelts, steering columns, seats, instrument panels, and interior trim systems
• Tune restraint systems to achieve regulatory compliance and top consumer ratings
• Develop occupant protection strategies across multiple crash scenarios
• Support development of occupant safety scorecards and performance targets
• Work closely with DREs and suppliers to ensure component models are properly correlated
• Support integration of restraint and interior component models into complete vehicle simulations
• Collaborate with Safety Structures teams when vehicle structural performance impacts occupant safety targets
• Partner with Interior, Chassis, and other engineering organizations to resolve performance gaps
• Support crash test planning and execution activities
• Collaborate with testing teams to ensure simulation assumptions align with physical testing results
• Participate in test reviews and correlation activities
• Refine simulation models based on physical test data
• Support occupant safety development throughout all program phases through SOP
• Maintain quality and accuracy of occupant protection models
• Provide technical guidance regarding occupant safety performance and simulation methodology
• Support resolution of complex safety and crash worthiness challenges

• Experienced occupant safety engineer with strong crash simulation and restraint system expertise
• Analytical problem solver capable of translating simulation results into engineering decisions
• Stro…