Lead Functional Safety Engineer (Robotics)

Location: Redwood City, California, United States; on-site

Annual base salary: $130,000–$192,000 USD

Company

hirify.global builds intelligent robots and Physical AI systems for complex industrial logistics workflows, including trailer loading, unloading, and airport baggage handling.

What you will do

• Lead the complete functional safety lifecycle for industrial robots, autonomous mobile systems, and motion-control and drivetrain architectures.
• Create the Functional Safety Management Plan and integrate safety activities, reviews, approvals, corrective actions, and audits into the QMS.
• Perform machinery risk assessments, hazard analyses, safety-case analyses, and failure-mode investigations, translating results into traceable safety requirements.
• Design and review safety architectures for emergency stops, protective stops, Safe Torque Off, safe stopping, limited speed, brake control, restart prevention, and protective sensing.
• Plan and execute verification and validation for stopping performance, sensor and encoder faults, drive faults, communication loss, restart behavior, and defined safe states.
• Support certification bodies, test laboratories, external assessors, engineering teams, customers, and customer-site safety procedures.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, or a related discipline.
• 10+ years of functional safety experience in robotics, autonomous systems, industrial automation, automotive, aerospace, or other safety-critical machinery domains.
• Hands-on experience with servo drives, inverters, motor controls, encoders, brakes, safety PLCs, safety I/O, and safety-rated networks.
• Experience with ISO 12100, ISO 13849-1/-2, IEC 62061, IEC 61508, IEC 60204-1, NFPA 79, ISO 10218, and applicable robotics and machinery regulations.
• Experience with Structured Text, Ladder Logic, and/or Function Block Diagram, PLCs, microcontrollers, and safety-related embedded systems.
• Ability to quantitatively justify and demonstrate required PL/SIL through analysis, implementation, and validation; willingness to travel domestically and internationally.

Nice to have

• Functional safety certification such as TÜV Functional Safety Engineer, CFSE, CFSP, or CMSE.
• Experience with PROFIsafe, CIP Safety, EtherCAT/FSoE, PROFINET, EtherNet/IP, and industrial network interfaces.

Culture & Benefits

• Work within a diverse, multidisciplinary engineering team focused on passion, trust, and dedication.
• Medical, dental, and vision benefits.
• Potential equity as part of the total rewards package.
• Opportunity to support industrial robot deployment across North American, European, and Japanese markets.