Principle Systems Engineer - Autonomy Behavior Validation

Location: Sunnyvale, California, United States

Salary: $238,700–$365,700 annual base salary; bonus potential and benefits are also offered.

Company

hirify.global develops automotive products and technologies focused on zero crashes, zero emissions, and zero congestion.

What you will do

• Set the technical strategy and systems engineering approach for autonomy behavior validation across capabilities, programs, and releases.
• Define readiness criteria for autonomous behavior and connect safety claims, hazard analysis, requirements, and evidence to supervised release, driverless launch, and continuous release decisions.
• Diagnose complex behavior issues across perception, prediction, planning, and controls, using fleet and incident data to address behavioral escapes and coverage gaps.
• Design validation strategies combining simulation, road data, closed-course testing, human references, and expert review while balancing coverage, confidence, fidelity, runtime, and cost.
• Guide validation tools, data pipelines, scorecards, and AI-assisted or agentic workflows toward repeatable, scalable products.
• Lead cross-functional technical reviews, mentor engineers, and advance systems engineering and validation practices across the autonomous vehicle organization.

Requirements

• Master’s degree in systems engineering, mechanical engineering, aerospace engineering, electrical engineering, computer science, robotics, or a related field, plus 10 or more years of professional experience in autonomous vehicles, robotics, simulation, systems engineering, or safety-critical validation.
• Proven experience evaluating autonomous vehicles for a self-driving fleet, launch, supervised release, or another high-consequence product decision, including owning or materially shaping a go/no-go recommendation.
• Deep end-to-end expertise in autonomous driving, including how perception, prediction, planning, and controls produce on-road behavior across scenarios, road users, and operating conditions.
• Strong systems engineering fundamentals covering decomposition, ODD definition, requirements strategy, V&V planning, traceability, and simulation evaluation at scale.
• Strong Python and agentic workflow experience, including designing and reviewing production-quality analysis and validation software.
• Demonstrated technical leadership across organizational boundaries, including setting direction adopted beyond one team and clearly explaining results, assumptions, and limitations to engineers and senior leaders.

Nice to have

• Technical leadership experience validating a driverless commercial launch or expansion into new operating domains.
• Experience evaluating learned or end-to-end driving systems, including behavior characterization, regressions, and generalization.
• Experience with human benchmarking, counterfactual or replay methods, and their use in broader validation strategies.
• Experience building or using a safety case; familiarity with STPA, FMEA, fault trees, ISO 21448 (SOTIF), UL 4600, or ISO 26262.
• Experience with risk quantification, risk acceptance, and translating legal or regulatory expectations into a defensible compliance strategy.
• Experience designing validation lifecycles, scorecards, confidence rubrics, or behavior protocols used by multiple engineering teams.

Culture & Benefits

• Full-time employment with health, dental, vision, HSA, FSA, retirement savings, sickness and accident benefits, life insurance, paid vacation and holidays, and tuition assistance.
• Additional employee assistance and GM vehicle discount programs are available.
• Compensation includes potential incentive pay based on company performance, job level, and individual performance.
• Applicants may be required to complete a role-related assessment and pre-employment screening where applicable.
• hirify.global provides reasonable accommodations and supports an inclusive, non-discriminatory workplace.