Staff Systems Engineer – Operational Readiness & Field Safety

About the role

Waabi is looking for a practical and decisive systems engineer to bridge AI development and trucking operations, leading field safety and operational readiness for autonomous vehicle deployments.

Key responsibilities

• Lead Field Safety by establishing escalation processes, reacting to fleet issues, and owning incident response.
• Define and conduct operational readiness testing, creating evidence for the readiness framework.
• Collaborate with operations and software teams to define protocols for nominal and off‑nominal situations such as severe weather, sensor degradation, and connectivity outages.
• Create processes for ongoing field safety monitoring and develop leading and lagging safety indicators.
• Analyze operational trends and past field events to drive systemic safety enhancements.
• Support the Operations team in incident response training and operational preparedness activities.
• Interface with regulatory bodies and contribute to industry standards on AV operational safety validation.

Required profile

• Undergraduate degree in Robotics, Mechanical Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, or related field; advanced degree preferred.
• 7+ years of experience in safety‑critical system development, validation, or operations.
• Strong understanding of systems engineering principles, requirements decomposition, V&V processes, and hazard analysis techniques.
• Excellent technical communication and project management skills.

Required skills

• Hazard analysis techniques: HAZOP, FMEA, FTA, STPA.
• Safety standards familiarity: ISO 26262, ISO 21448/SOTIF, UL 4600.
• Experience designing and executing test plans for autonomous or robotic systems.