Systems Engineer (Robotics)

Location: Palo Alto, United States; Onsite

Company

hirify.global builds physical AI and generalized robotic systems for safe, adaptive work in real-world industrial environments, starting with factory-floor deployment.

What you will do

• Own the robot system requirements baseline, translating high-level behaviors and performance targets into measurable subsystem requirements, budgets, interfaces, and verification traceability.
• Define software requirements and contribute to architecture decisions covering communication protocols, control strategies, and hardware-software partitioning.
• Manage cross-subsystem interfaces and requirement changes across mechanical, electrical, firmware, controls, and software teams.
• Lead system-level failure mode, hazard, and risk analysis and derive safety requirements and verification activities.
• Drive system verification and validation, including bench and field test plans, acceptance criteria, requirements coverage, diagnostics, telemetry, and health monitoring.
• Lead readiness reviews, sign-off, post-launch monitoring, and conversion of integration findings into requirement, interface, and design changes.

Requirements

• Degree in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Systems Engineering, Robotics, or equivalent experience.
• 5+ years of systems engineering experience on complex electromechanical, robotic, or autonomous products, including at least one product taken through field deployment.
• Experience writing, decomposing, and managing requirements so that high-level system behaviors are measurable and testable, with traceability from requirements to design and verification.
• Hands-on experience with hazard and risk analysis, including DFMEA/FMEDA, HARA, or FTA, and converting results into requirements and test cases.
• Working knowledge of functional safety standards and concepts such as IEC 61508, ISO 13849, IEC 62061, or ISO 26262.
• Strong hardware and software fundamentals, including electrical schematics, embedded communication protocols, firmware architecture, and system-level debugging.
• Proficiency in data analysis and scripting for validating or challenging requirements using hardware and field data.
• Clear written and verbal communication, with specifications that mechanical, electrical, and firmware teams can build and test against.
• Comfort with ambiguity, rapid execution, and understanding the complete system beyond an individual area of ownership.

Nice to have

• Experience with Jama, Polarion, DOORS, or similar requirements management tools, or with model-based systems engineering using SysML.
• Experience supporting product safety certification as a technical contributor, including NRTL or notified-body processes.
• Experience specifying or validating systems with learned or ML-based components.
• Background in robotics, EV powertrains, drones, aerospace, or other dense electromechanical systems.
• Exposure to manufacturing self-test design or service diagnostics.

Culture & Benefits

• Hands-on work with physical AI and robotic systems for industrial deployment.
• Cross-functional collaboration with software, mechanical, electrical, firmware, controls, integration, reliability, and manufacturing teams.
• Ownership of system behavior, safety, verification, and readiness from concept through field deployment.