Senior Systems Engineer, Fail Operational Safety Strategy
Zoox · Foster City, MI
$185,000–$291,000
Jul 14, 2026
Foster City, MI
Jul 21, 2026
What this job asks for AI summary
This role centers on defining and maintaining fail-operational safety strategies as an autonomous robotaxi system expands into new operating environments. The work involves designing fault detection and response frameworks, setting resilience metrics, and using data analysis and AI tooling to drive continuous improvement. It suits a systems engineer with deep experience in fault tolerance, safety analysis, and cross-functional collaboration in complex technical programs.
Senior level · 8+ years · San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, CA · Bachelor's required · Full-time
Pay in the description: $185,000–$291,000
“or” means any one of them counts — you don't need all of them.
We read this from the posting text with AI. Skim the description below before ruling yourself out.
How this req sits in the market our data
Roughly 150 people in the San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, CA area plausibly meet what this posting asks for (computer systems analysts). range 110–190
Applicant volume Moderate — A normal amount of company. The rare requirements below are what will separate a shortlisted application from the rest.
What the occupation pays Median $160,596 (middle half $124,008–$198,593). This posting is about at that midpoint.
Estimated from BLS employment for this occupation and area, per-skill prevalence across our listing corpus, and published wage benchmarks — as of Jul 28, 2026. It is a model, not a headcount.
Why we read it this way (8)
This role sits at the intersection of systems engineering, safety architecture, and autonomous vehicle development — it does not map cleanly to a single SOC. 15-1211 (Computer Systems Analysts) was chosen as the best fit given the emphasis on system architecture, requirements management, fault strategy design, and cross-functional analysis; 15-1299 (Computer Occupations, All Other) is a plausible runner-up given the specialized safety-engineering focus.
Zoox is headquartered in Foster City, CA (San Francisco Bay Area / San Jose CBSA). The posting does not mention remote work.
The B.S. degree requirement is a hard gate ('B.S. or higher degree … with 8+ years of relevant experience'). An advanced degree (M.S. or Ph.D.) is listed under Bonus Qualifications and is preferred only.
LLMs appear in the required qualifications section ('Leverage the latest AI and LLM tools to accelerate the analysis work'), so it is treated as a hard gate despite being a broad capability rather than a specific product.
Polarion and DOORS are listed as interchangeable examples under Bonus Qualifications ('e.g., Polarion, DOORS'), so they are preferred and captured as alternatives of each other.
Databricks, BigQuery, Looker, and Grafana are all listed together under Bonus Qualifications as data analysis tools; they are treated as alternatives of each other since any one would satisfy the preference.
The posted salary range ($185,000–$291,000/year) explicitly covers multiple levels; actual compensation will vary by level and location per the posting.
Ignored 4 non-technology phrase(s) as skills (responsibilities/concepts, not named tools): systems engineering, requirements management, fault detection, isolation, and recovery, system safety analysis.
Read the full posting
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