Robotics Autonomy Engineer - Safety (Robotics)

Location: Irvine, California, United States. Workplace: On-site.

Salary: $100,000–$230,000 per year.

Company

hirify.global develops embodied AI and field-ready robotic autonomy systems for real-world deployments in unpredictable environments.

What you will do

• Own and evolve an independent safety layer for wheeled, legged, and humanoid robot platforms.
• Build runtime monitors, collision-avoidance backstops, watchdogs, and health monitoring across sensors, compute, communication, and actuation.
• Define safe operating envelopes and enforce speed, zone, terrain, and proximity limits.
• Design fallback and minimal-risk behaviors, including graceful slowdown and safe stop logic.
• Lead hazard analysis and safety case development for new platforms and deployments.
• Verify safety systems through simulation, hardware-in-the-loop testing, and field trials while collaborating with planning, control, locomotion, and integration teams.

Requirements

• Master’s degree or higher in Robotics, Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, or a related field, or a bachelor’s degree with substantial hands-on experience in safety-related autonomous systems.
• At least 2 years of experience developing safety, monitoring, or fallback systems for robots or autonomous vehicles.
• Strong knowledge of classical planning and control, including collision checking and trajectory validation.
• Experience writing deterministic, real-time, resource-bounded C++ and solid Python skills for tooling, analysis, and test automation in Linux.
• Verification mindset focused on assumptions, failure modes, coverage, and evidence.
• Familiarity with mobile robotics safety standards, ROS/ROS 2, LiDAR, depth cameras, and IMUs.

Nice to have

• Functional safety experience in autonomous vehicles, industrial robots, or aerospace.
• Experience with runtime assurance, formal or set-based safety methods, operational design domains, redundant sensing, or safety-rated hardware and communication.
• Experience taking robotic products through safety assessment or certification.
• Experience with legged or humanoid platforms.

Culture & Benefits

• Work with real robots, sensors, and hardware in field deployments.
• Collaborate across AI, software, robotics engineering, product, field deployment, and technical communication teams.
• Contribute to systems designed for unstructured, previously unknown environments.
• Work in an inclusive environment that evaluates candidates and employees based on merit, qualifications, and performance.