Staff Safety Engineer - System Architecture and Integration

Who We Are

Aurora (Nasdaq: AUR) is delivering the benefits of self-driving technology safely, quickly, and broadly to make transportation safer, increasingly accessible, and more reliable and efficient than ever before. The Aurora Driver is a self-driving system designed to operate multiple vehicle types, from freight-hauling semi-trucks to ride-hailing passenger vehicles, and underpins Aurora Horizon and Aurora Connect, its driver-as-a-service products for trucking and ride-hailing. Aurora is working with industry leaders across the transportation ecosystem, including Toyota, FedEx, Volvo Trucks, PACCAR, Uber, Uber Freight, U.S. Xpress, Werner, Covenant, Schneider, and Ryder. For Aurora’s latest news, visit aurora.tech and @aurora_inno on Twitter.

Aurora hires talented people with diverse backgrounds who are ready to help build a transportation ecosystem that will make our roads safer, get crucial goods where they need to go, and make mobility more efficient and accessible for all. The Systems Engineering team at Aurora is seeking a candidate with expertise in software architecture, engineering, and integration of safety- and mission- critical software systems. 

Aurora’s Systems Engineers work closely with engineering design teams to develop sound and implementable design concepts and requirements. Collaboration and teamwork are essential for bringing various stakeholders together, and guide implementation decisions across different disciplines.

In this role, you will

• Define the autonomy system architecture:
  • Synthesize information from various sources to define the autonomy system at various abstraction layers
  • Participate in the functional decomposition of the greater Aurora enterprise
  • Collaborate with software subject-matter-experts to identify necessary architecture improvements to achieve safety and performance goals
  • Support design decisions at the architectural level providing critical insight into the broader impact across the autonomy system
• Define the software interfaces with and within our autonomy system:
  • Specify data flow, flow control, timing, memory usage, and message contents to ensure synchronization, correctness, and completeness
  • Collaboratively negotiate new interface contracts between various parts of the autonomy system in partnership with software engineering teams
  • Systematically document the designed interactions of adjacent modules
  • Generate interface requirements
• Establish an integration plan and directly support integration activities to:
  • Incrementally assure safety and performance as modules are combined
  • Identify issues that are not easily discoverable when modules are viewed in isolation or are obfuscated at the system level
  • Communicate and help resolve interface errors to mitigate risks before the release of the final build
• Participate in cross-functional planning for future autonomy and vehicle systems to preemptively identify gaps and/or excesses in expected capabilities or performance

Required Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Systems Engineering, or a related specialized area or field (Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Electrical Engineering) and a minimum of 8 years of relevant experience, or a Master’s degree and a minimum of 5 years of relevant experience.
• Minimum 4 years of experience with software architecture, engineering, and integration in safety- or mission- critical systems
• Familiarity with safety critical systems, particularly with safety-critical software development standards, software safety fault/hazard analysis, and a requirements-driven software verification and validation strategies
• Familiarity with ISO26262, and in particular, Part 6 and 8, pertaining to software safety and supporting processes
• Experience writing testable requirements
• Strong organizational and communication skills; ability to effectively coordinate efforts and requirements across a large number of stakeholders across the organization

Desirable Qualifications

• Experience with Linux kernel and real-time operating systems
• Experience with robotics middleware and distributed messaging frameworks such as ZeroMQ, LCM, and/or gRPC
• Knowledge of both high and low-level communication protocols, from I2C and SPI to CAN and TCP/IP Protocols
• Proficiency in C++ and Python
• Proficiency in JAMA for requi