Safety Software Engineer - Robotics

Company Description

Algorized is a VC-funded Silicon Valley deep-tech company with Swiss roots building edge-AI models that give robots real-time human awareness using existing wireless sensors, enabling safer human-machine co-presence.

We're looking for a Safety Software Engineer passionate about robotics and functional safety, to help architect the safety envelope around people-sensing systems for stationary and mobile platforms in the industrial and automotive applications under compliant with PLd and SIL2 rating. In this role, you'll be building Algorized's functional safety practice from the ground up, setting the architecture, documentation standards, and certification path that every future safety-rated product will follow.

Key Responsibilities

• Architect the safety envelope for people-sensing software at the application and system level; supervision, plausibility checks, diagnostics, safe-stopping and safe-state logic that stay alive independent of the AI subsystem

• Design the integration path between safety software and the machine: safe I/O, robot/PLC controllers, and industrial safety fieldbuses (EtherCAT/FSoE, CIP Safety, ProfiSAFE, or similar)

• Define safety goals, concepts, and cases covering both functional failure (PLd/SIL2) and functional insufficiency (SOTIF)

• Design and implement robust real-time embedded safety software in C/C++ on edge hardware

• Own safety documentation and the certification path toward PLd / SIL2 certification: requirements specs, architecture docs, FMEA, diagnostic coverage analysis, V&V test plans

• Support integration, commissioning, and maintenance of safety systems, including customer-site travel

• Define the overall safety strategy in close collaboration with the algorithms, software, and product teams

Minimum Requirements

• 5+ years of hands-on experience in safety-critical, embedded, or real-time software development

• MSc in Computer Science, Electrical/Electronics Engineering, or related field

• Strong C/C++ in safety-critical, embedded, or real-time environments

• A safety-first architectural instinct: you design for failure, reason in worst-case rather than average behaviour, and know how to hold a system in a safe state when something breaks

• Experience with functional safety standards such as IEC 61508, ISO 13849, ISO 26262, ISO 21448 (SOTIF), or similar frameworks

• Hands-on experience interfacing software with hardware — I/O, controllers, or fieldbuses — from any safety-critical domain (robotics, industrial automation, automotive, aerospace, medical devices, etc)

• Familiarity with embedded/edge environments (ARM, Linux, RTOS)

• Python for tooling, test automation, or ML pipeline integration

• Strong communication skills across software, hardware, and ML teams

• Comfortable with occasional on-site installation, commissioning, and customer-site travel

Preferred Requirements

• Hands-on functional safety experience developing to ISO 13849 (PL), IEC 61508 / IEC 62061 (SIL), ISO 26262 (ASIL) or an equivalent standard from an adjacent domain

• Practical experience with industrial safety fieldbus protocols and safe I/O integration with robot/PLC controllers (e.g., integrating safety systems with industrial robot controllers)

• Experience producing safety documentation (FMEA, DC analysis, V&V test plans)

• Prior involvement in a formal safety certification process, in any industry

• Working knowledge of MISRA-C and safety-rated MCUs/controllers

• Familiarity with edge-AI SoCs / GPU-based compute platforms; embedded RTOS depth