Head of Validation and Systems Engineering (Robotics)

Location: San Francisco, CA; hybrid

Company

hirify.global is a startup deploying autonomous systems on heavy construction equipment at customer sites to improve job-site safety and accelerate critical infrastructure projects.

What you will do

• Lead validation, verification, and systems engineering as an integrated discipline for unsupervised autonomous machine deployments.
• Define safety metrics, scenario libraries, coverage models, readiness criteria, and evidence standards across machine types, tasks, and sites.
• Own requirements decomposition and traceability from mission-level intent through subsystems, using validation findings to improve system design.
• Set the V&V strategy and infrastructure across log playback, closed-loop physics simulation, proving-ground testing, and on-site work.
• Validate sensing, compute, actuation, and functional-safety readiness as hardware is ported to new platforms.
• Build a multidisciplinary organization and provide KPI-based reporting for leadership, customers, and insurers.

Requirements

• Degree in engineering, physics, or another technical field, or equivalent practical experience.
• 10+ years of test planning and experimental design for safety-critical autonomous or robotic systems.
• Experience building and leading multidisciplinary teams spanning software, systems, hardware, test, and data science.
• Depth in cameras, lidar, radar, GNSS, IMUs, edge compute, and embedded controllers.
• Fluency in data analysis and test automation using Python and C/C++.
• Experience taking driverless or unsupervised systems through real deployment and personally owning readiness gates.

Nice to have

• Experience scaling validation across heterogeneous fleets, multiple sites, or successive hardware generations.
• Experience authoring or leading formal safety cases or contributing to UL 4600, ISO 26262, ISO 21448, or equivalent off-road safety standards.
• Functional-safety experience with vertically integrated or custom hardware.
• Familiarity with excavators, articulated dump trucks, dozers, wheel loaders, or motor graders.
• External technical contributions through publications, keynotes, standards bodies, or research leadership.

Culture & Benefits

• Startup environment combining rapid execution with uncompromising safety standards.
• Work alongside construction specialists and engineers on physical-world problems that simulations cannot fully capture.
• Roles are often flexible, with consideration for candidates in other locations, especially locations with offices such as San Francisco or New York.
• Commitment to an inclusive workplace and accessible hiring process with reasonable accommodations.