Director, System Safety

About the role

The Director, System Safety leads May Mobility's day-to-day product safety function - driving the L4 safety case, the Driver-Out (DO) gated deployment plan with strategic ride-hail partners, and the Safety Management System (SMS) build-out. Reporting to the VP, Safety & Validation, the role manages a multi-disciplinary team across systems and programs, test execution, and safety risk and process. The Director partners with the VP on external regulatory and partner relationships and is the primary internal owner of the safety roadmap. This role inherits a mature roadmap and bench, and will execute the next 18 months of L4 commercial expansion across the US and Japan. You will define and enforce safety policies that align with ISO 26262 and functional safety best practices while ensuring traceability from hazard analysis to runtime monitoring. You will translate complex technical safety concepts into clear narratives for regulators, partners, and internal stakeholders to build trust and enable scalable deployments. You will foster a culture where safety is a shared responsibility across engineering, validation, and operations teams. Your work will directly influence how autonomous vehicles are deployed in real urban environments and shape the future of mobility safety standards.

Key facts

What you'll do

Lead a multi-disciplinary team across systems, test execution, and safety risk and process/SMS to ensure coherent safety execution.

Drive the Driver-Out (DO) gated deployment plan with strategic ride-hail partners such as Lyft and Uber, managing internal gating, partner safety onsites, and recommendation packages for go/no-go decisions.

Own the Safety Case Framework for May's L4 systems, including HARA, FTA, FMEA, and runtime-monitor coverage for the MPDM-based decision-making stack with ML-aware safety analysis.

Build out and operationalize the Safety Management System (SMS), including incident risk assessment processes, risk register automation, recall response plans, safety gating test suites, and the Product Safety Competency Register.

Define the safety architecture in partnership with Autonomy, Validation, and Hardware teams to ensure safety-by-construction across future releases, including scalable runtime monitoring, ODD enforcement, and Driver-Anomaly response systems.

Execute on May's L4 Japan compliance plan by collaborating with the Systems & Japan Programs Manager and the Japan Regulatory Safety Engineer on partner engagement and bilingual regulator response cadences.

Co-lead strategic partner safety onsites, such as Uber Safety Onsite cadences, with the VP, Safety & Validation, and own the technical narrative in OEM, ride-hail, and regulator forums.

Hire and onboard the open safety roles while developing existing leaders in the organization to strengthen the overall safety capability.

Establish traceability between system requirements, safety analyses, and verification activities to ensure robust validation of autonomous behaviors.

Analyze incident data and near-miss reports to continuously update safety models, risk assessments, and deployment constraints in a rapidly evolving operational environment.

Champion the use of simulation and closed-loop testing to validate safety mechanisms and edge-case scenarios before field deployment.

Collaborate with cross-functional stakeholders to align safety milestones with product, operations, and regulatory timelines.

Maintain and evolve safety documentation to support audits, certifications, and external reviews from regulatory bodies and partners.

Promote transparency and rigorous decision-making by clearly documenting safety rationales, assumptions, and trade-offs for high-stakes deployment choices.

Requirements

The candidate must have a Bachelor's degree or equivalent practical experience in a relevant technical field such as engineering, computer science, or a related discipline.

Candidates must possess a strong background in functional safety, particularly experience with ISO 26262 processes and safety case development for complex systems.

You must have demonstrated experience in safety-critical domains, including automotive, aerospace, or robotics, with a clear understanding of hazard analysis and risk assessment methodologies.

You should have hands-on experience with HARA, FTA, FMEA, and other safety analysis techniques, as well as familiarity with runtime monitoring and fail-safe strategies for autonomous systems.

You must have managed or contributed to safety-critical system validation and verification activities, including test planning, scenario coverage, and regression analysis.

You must be comfortable working with machine learning components within safety-critical stacks and understand how to assess and mitigate risks associated with ML-based decision-making.

You must have experience engaging with external regulators, partners, or standards bodies, and be comfortable preparing technical responses to regulatory inquiries and audits.

You must be able to manage multiple priorities in a fast-paced environment while maintaining meticulous attention to detail and documentation.

Nice to have

Experience in the autonomous vehicle industry, particularly with L4 driverless deployments in urban environments.

Familiarity with Japanese regulatory frameworks and processes for autonomous vehicle deployment.

Background in ride-hail or shared mobility operations and safety oversight at scale.

Experience leading safety teams and developing safety professionals within a high-growth technology organization.

Practical notes

This is a full-time role.

This role may involve occasional travel to meet partners, conduct onsites, or attend industry and regulatory meetings.

Candidates must be eligible to work in the country where the role is based, with no visa sponsorship provided for this position.

The role reports to the VP, Safety & Validation and is based remotely.

This role will execute the next 18 months of L4 commercial expansion across the US and Japan.