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Key Responsibilities and Required Skills for a Functional Safety Engineer

💰 $95,000 - $165,000

EngineeringAutomotiveFunctional SafetySystems EngineeringAerospace

🎯 Role Definition

As a Functional Safety Engineer, you will be the cornerstone of our product's safety integrity. You are a subject matter expert and a critical leader responsible for guiding our engineering teams to develop products that are not only innovative but demonstrably safe. This role involves championing a safety-first culture and applying rigorous engineering principles to identify, mitigate, and manage risks throughout the entire product development lifecycle. You will be the central point of contact for all safety-related matters, ensuring our systems comply with international standards like ISO 26262 and are safe for our customers.

📈 Career Progression

Typical Career Path

Entry Point From:

  • Systems Engineer
  • Embedded Software or Hardware Engineer
  • Validation & Verification (V&V) Engineer
  • Quality Assurance Engineer

Advancement To:

  • Senior or Principal Functional Safety Engineer
  • Functional Safety Manager or Team Lead
  • Chief Safety Architect
  • Systems Engineering Manager

Lateral Moves:

  • Systems Architect
  • Technical Project Manager
  • V&V Lead or Manager

Core Responsibilities

Primary Functions

  • Lead and perform Hazard Analysis and Risk Assessments (HARA) to identify potential hazards, define safety goals, and determine Automotive Safety Integrity Levels (ASILs).
  • Develop and maintain core safety artifacts, including the Safety Plan, Functional Safety Concept (FSC), and Technical Safety Concept (TSC), in alignment with the overall system architecture.
  • Decompose and allocate safety requirements to various domains (system, hardware, software) and ensure full, bidirectional traceability throughout the development lifecycle.
  • Create, manage, and secure approval for all safety-related work products as mandated by ISO 26262, including the comprehensive Safety Case and the Development Interface Agreement (DIA) with customers and suppliers.
  • Conduct, moderate, and document detailed safety analyses such as FMEA (Failure Mode and Effects Analysis), DFMEA (Design FMEA), and FTA (Fault Tree Analysis) to identify potential failure modes and their effects.
  • Define robust safety mechanisms for fault detection, fault mitigation, and fault control at the system, hardware, and software levels to achieve a safe state.
  • Collaborate intensively with cross-functional engineering teams (Hardware, Software, Mechanical, Systems) to ensure safety requirements are deeply understood and correctly implemented in the design.
  • Define the comprehensive verification and validation (V&V) strategy for all safety requirements and actively review test plans, test cases, and test results for completeness and correctness.
  • Support the integration and testing of safety-critical components and systems, including the planning and execution of fault injection testing to validate safety mechanism effectiveness.
  • Perform detailed hardware safety analyses, including the calculation of key hardware architectural metrics (Single-Point Fault Metric - SPFM, Latent Fault Metric - LFM) and the Probabilistic Metric for Hardware Failure (PMHF).
  • Guide software development teams on safety-oriented design patterns, adherence to coding guidelines (e.g., MISRA C/C++), and ensuring freedom from interference between software components of different ASILs.
  • Serve as the primary technical authority and interface for all functional safety topics with customers, suppliers, auditors, and internal stakeholders.
  • Prepare for, lead, and participate in functional safety audits and formal assessments, both internal and external (e.g., by TÜV, Exida), and drive the closure of any identified findings.
  • Develop and deliver training materials and workshops on functional safety principles, internal processes, and industry best practices to enhance the capabilities of the wider engineering organization.
  • Manage the configuration and versioning of all safety-related work products within a dedicated requirement and configuration management tool (e.g., DOORS, Polarion, Jira).
  • Analyze field data, customer returns, and failure reports to identify potential safety trends or issues and drive continuous improvement of our safety processes and product designs.
  • Author and maintain the definitive Safety Case, which provides a clear and defensible argument, supported by evidence, that the system is acceptably safe for its intended use.
  • Evaluate the impact of proposed system changes and modifications on functional safety and manage the formal change and impact analysis process.
  • Support the formal selection, evaluation, and qualification of software tools used in the development of safety-critical systems, as required by ISO 26262-8.
  • Drive a world-class safety culture within the organization by consistently advocating for best practices, mentoring colleagues, and acting as a visible subject matter expert.
  • Review and formally approve safety-critical design documentation, analysis reports, and test procedures generated by the development and test teams.
  • Interpret and apply relevant safety standards (e.g., ISO 26262, IEC 61508, SOTIF/ISO 21448, UL 4600) to specific and often novel product contexts.
  • Define and track key safety metrics and KPIs to provide leadership with a clear view of the safety status and risks of ongoing projects.

Secondary Functions

  • Support ad-hoc data requests and exploratory data analysis related to system reliability and field performance.
  • Contribute to the organization's technology and product strategy and roadmap from a safety perspective.
  • Collaborate with business units to translate customer safety needs and expectations into concrete engineering requirements.
  • Participate in sprint planning, retrospectives, and other agile ceremonies within the project teams.
  • Mentor junior engineers on functional safety concepts, methodologies, and tools.
  • Stay abreast of evolving safety standards, industry best practices, and emerging technologies.

Required Skills & Competencies

Hard Skills (Technical)

  • Deep, demonstrable expertise in automotive functional safety standards, particularly ISO 26262 (all parts). Experience with SOTIF (ISO 21448), IEC 61508, or DO-178C is a plus.
  • Proven proficiency with a wide range of safety analysis techniques, including HARA, FMEA, FMEDA, and FTA.
  • Hands-on experience with industry-standard safety analysis and modeling tools such as Medini Analyze, Ansys medini, Isograph Reliability Workbench, or similar.
  • High proficiency with requirements management and traceability tools, such as IBM DOORS, Polarion ALM, or Jama Connect.
  • Solid understanding of automotive systems, including EE architecture and communication protocols like CAN, CAN-FD, Automotive Ethernet, and LIN.
  • Strong knowledge of embedded systems, microcontroller architectures (e.g., ARM, TriCore), and System-on-Chip (SoC) safety features.
  • Experience with AUTOSAR concepts, especially related to safety mechanisms like Watchdog Manager (WdgM), End-to-End (E2E) Protection, and memory partitioning.
  • Working knowledge of C/C++ for embedded systems and a clear understanding of safety-critical coding standards like MISRA C/C++ and static analysis tools.
  • Experience with configuration management and change management tools and processes (e.g., Git, PTC Integrity, Jira).
  • Ability to perform hardware reliability calculations and analysis (e.g., FIT rate estimation, PMHF).
  • Competence in reading and interpreting complex hardware schematics, software architecture diagrams, and system-level block diagrams.

Soft Skills

  • Meticulous attention to detail and a systematic, process-oriented approach to problem-solving.
  • Exceptional analytical and critical thinking skills to decompose complex problems and evaluate risks.
  • Excellent written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to articulate complex technical concepts to diverse audiences.
  • Strong influencing and negotiation skills to guide cross-functional teams and stakeholders toward safe solutions.
  • A high degree of personal integrity, responsibility, and commitment to upholding safety standards.
  • A collaborative mindset and the ability to build strong working relationships across different departments and levels of the organization.
  • Resilience and the ability to remain objective and assertive under project pressure.

Education & Experience

Educational Background

Minimum Education:

  • Bachelor's Degree

Preferred Education:

  • Master's Degree or higher in a relevant engineering discipline.
  • Functional Safety Certification (e.g., CFSP, CFSE, or TUV certification).

Relevant Fields of Study:

  • Electrical Engineering
  • Computer Engineering
  • Systems Engineering
  • Mechatronics Engineering
  • Computer Science

Experience Requirements

Typical Experience Range:

3-10 years of experience in a relevant engineering field (e.g., systems, embedded software, hardware).

Preferred:

  • 5+ years of direct, hands-on experience in a functional safety role within the automotive, aerospace, or a similar safety-critical industry.
  • A proven track record of successfully guiding at least one product through a full development lifecycle to a successful safety-assessed launch (e.g., Job 1).
  • Direct experience in negotiating safety requirements and DIAs with automotive OEMs or Tier 1 suppliers.
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