Autonomous Driving System Safety Lead

Autonomous Driving System Safety Lead

Mountain View, California (HQ)

Nuro is a self-driving technology company on a mission to make autonomy accessible to all. Founded in 2016, Nuro is building the world's most scalable driver, combining cutting-edge AI with automotive-grade hardware. Nuro licenses its core technology, the Nuro Driver™, to support a wide range of applications, from robotaxis and commercial fleets to personally owned vehicles. With technology proven over years of self-driving deployments, Nuro gives the automakers and mobility platforms a clear path to AVs at commercial scale—empowering a safer, richer, and more connected future.

About the Role

As the Autonomous Driving System Safety Lead on the Systems Engineering team, you will own and author safety claims in the forward-facing ADS safety case for onboard and offboard software, a large fraction of which is AI components. You will work closely with the autonomy software, data platform, operations, and legal teams to coordinate system requirements, AI architecture, and evidence in support of these claims. You will be responsible for ensuring that the cross-functional team creates a safety case for onboard and offboard software that is comprehensive and that potential gaps are identified and mitigated.

About the Work

• Manage safety claims by understanding the ADS design, interfaces, and technical capabilities of the system and by working closely with Autonomy Robotics and Software Infrastructure leads.
• Generate atomic claims through claim decomposition, delegating to the cross-functional teams where appropriate and managing quality where delegated.
• Generate counter-arguments (challenges) to claims, and ensure that they are either addressed or mitigated.
• Review and assess evidence from evaluation and validation as arguments for safety case claims, and by working closely with V&V test teams.
• Develop processes for and coordinate the tracking of safety performance indicators, as available from various Systems Engineering and Software Evaluation teams, to monitor driverless (driver-out L4) deployment.
• Escalate functional and technical risks, and missing work items such as test gaps, ADS design risks, and AI architecture insufficiencies to senior leadership and propose mitigations.
• Support safety research, identify appropriate technical standards and best practices that support the safety case, and apply them effectively.
• While this role starts as an individual contributor, there is opportunity to grow a team after the initially defined technical milestones.

About You

• 5+ years of technical work experience in a relevant area, of which 3+ years should be in robotics software.
• Bachelor's Degree, Master's Degree, or Doctoral Degree in Computer Science, Math, Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Robotics, Physics, or related field.
• Working knowledge of and ability to apply systems engineering concepts of requirements, verification, and validation, with a deep understanding of how robotic systems work.
• Experience working in a safety-critical industry (e.g. robotics, automotive, aviation/aerospace, medical devices) for a complex robotic system.
• Hands-on experience with ISO 21448 and familiarity with ISO 8800.
• Highly collaborative in nature with strong abilities to think and communicate analytically and effectively, and the ability to build good working relationships.

Bonus Points

• Background in autonomous vehicles ideally with L4 AV deployment.
• Experience writing safety claims and system requirements for SAE L2/L3/L4 systems to operate safely.
• Experience with ISO 8800.
• Experience with naturalistic driving data and human benchmarking analysis.
• Experience with simulation of autonomous vehicles applied to verification and validation.
• Technical and strategic management experience with a small team.

At Nuro, your base pay is one part of your total compensation package. For this position, the reasonably expected base pay range is between $213,480 and $319,720 for the levels at which this job has been scoped. Your base pay will depend on several factors, including your experience, qualifications, education, location, and skills. In the event that you are considered for a different level, a higher or lower pay range would apply. This position is also eligible for an annual performance bonus, equity, and a competitive benefits package.

At Nuro, we celebrate differences and are committed to a diverse workplace that fosters inclusion and psychological safety for all employees. Nuro is proud to be an equal opportunity employer and expressly prohibits any form of workplace discrimination based on race, color, religion, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, national origin, age, genetic information, disability, veteran status, or any other legally protected characteristics.