Staff AV Safety Engineer - Human Factors (GPSSC)
- Location
- Sunnyvale
- Type
- Full time
- Posted
- 3H AGO
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About the role
Job Description
At General Motors, our product teams are redefining mobility. Through a human-centered design process, we create vehicles and experiences that are designed not just to be seen, but to be felt. We’re turning today’s impossible into tomorrow’s standard —from breakthrough hardware and battery systems to intuitive design, intelligent software, and next-generation safety and entertainment features.
Every day, our products move millions of people as we aim to make driving safer, smarter, and more connected, shaping the future of transportation on a global scale.
The Safety Assurance for Effective Autonomous Driving Software (SAFE-ADS) department is part of GM’s Global Product Safety, System, and Certification (GPSSC) organization. Our mission is to help GM deliver trusted automated driving products. SAFE-ADS brings together technical and operational expertise to help ensure the safe development, testing, launch, and continuous improvement of automated driving systems (ADS).
GM’s vision is zero crashes, zero emissions, and zero congestion—and autonomous vehicle safety is essential to achieving that vision.
The Role
The Staff AV Safety Engineer, Human Factors, provides technical leadership to help ensure human factors concepts are appropriately studied, analyzed, and implemented throughout the design, development, validation, deployment, and operation of GM’s automated driving systems. The role serves as a technical expert on the interaction between the automated driving system, the vehicle, and the driver or safety operator. The role assesses human performance, human error, workload, attention, comprehension, trust, misuse, and automation limitations into actionable human factors safety requirements, design guidance, research plans, operational controls, and defensible safety-case evidence.
This position works across safety, systems engineering, human factors, design/user experience, product, legal and regulatory, and external research organizations. Highly qualified candidates will bring depth in human factors analysis and research, with particular experience in automation systems.
What You’ll Do
- Serve as a recognized human factors safety expert to advance development and best practices, influence the AV safety strategy, and convert complex human factors issues into clear conclusions and actionable recommendations
- Apply highly specialized knowledge and independent judgement to lead or support complex, cross-functional hazard analyses of features and components considering human factors areas such as driver-automation interaction, operator performance, human error, mode confusion, and loss of situational awareness
- Derive traceable requirements, mitigations, validation activities, and operational controls from human factors hazard assessments
- Provide safety technical direction for human-machine interface (HMI) features and components including moding, visual and non-visual alerts, escalations, driver monitoring systems, and driver displays
- Evaluate whether automated-system interactions support appropriate understanding, attention, decision-making, response, and recovery under normal, degraded, and failure-related conditions
- Independently define research questions and execution strategies; select appropriate methods and evaluation criteria; convert study results into safety requirements and best practices
- Integrate research, field and test-vehicle data, incident reviews, operator feedback, and industry evidence into benchmarks, performance thresholds, safety recommendations, and validation needs
- Lead structured human factors analysis of incidents, safety events, operational deviations, and emerging concerns to identify human error causal factors and improve system design, procedures, training, or other controls
- Provide human factors input to operator training, qualification, fatigue management, and performance-monitoring programs
- Own or contribute to human factors safety-case claims and evidence; identify gaps, assess change impacts, and support closure through reviews, audits, launch-readiness activities, and assurance forums
Your Skills & Abilities (Required Qualifications)
- Bachelor’s degree in Human Factors, Systems Engineering, Industrial Engineering, or a related technical field
- 10+ years of experience applying human factors engineering principles to safety-critical transportation systems (e.g., automotive, aviation, marine, etc....)
- Demonstrated experience analyzing human interactions with complex automation systems
- Demonstrated expertise in leading or contributing to structured hazard analysis such as System Theoretic Process Analysis (STPA), Fault Tree Analysis (FTA), Failure Modes, Effects, and Criticality Analysis (FMECA), etc.
- Experience translating human factors findings into safety requirements, design recommendations, operational controls, training guidance, or validation criteria
- Experience planning, reviewing, executing, or interpreting human factors research or human-in-the-loop studies
- Demonstrated ability to analyze operational events, incidents, near misses, or operator performance to identify human-error causal factors using event data, video, telemetry, or anecdotal evidence
- Strong technical writing, presentation, facilitation, and cross-functional communication skills to frame ambiguous problems, provide clear technical rationale, and defend decision-making
- Proven ability to build trust and confidence with stakeholders and influence broad areas of the organization
What Will Give You a Competitive Edge (Preferred Qualifications)
- Advanced degree in Human Factors, Systems Engineering, Industrial Engineering, or a related technical degree
- Experience in the automated vehicle industry
- Experience working with research institutions, external vendors, and/or multidisciplinary academic and engineering teams
- Experience with functional safety, safety of the intended functionality (SOTIF), operational safety, safety management systems, safety cases, and other safety standards or frameworks
- Familiarity with requirement tools such as JAMA or DOORS
Company Vehicle: Upon successful completion of a motor vehicle report review, you will be eligible to participate in a company vehicle evaluation program, through which you will be assigned a General Motors vehicle to drive and evaluate. Note: program participants are required to purchase/lease a qualifying GM vehicle every four years unless one of a limited number of exceptions applies.
Compensation: The compensation information is a good faith estimate only. It is based on what a successful applicant might be paid in accordance with applicable state laws. The actual base salary a successful candidate will be offered within this range will vary based on factors relevant to the position, as well as geography of the selected candidate.
- The salary range for this role is $160,200 - 246,300. The actual base salary a successful candidate will be offered within this range will vary based on factors relevant to the position.
- Bonus Potential: An incentive pay program offers payouts based on company performance, job level, and individual performance.
Benefits:
- Benefits: GM offers a variety of health and wellbeing benefit programs. Benefit options include medical, dental, vision, Health Savings Account, Flexible Spending Accounts, retirement savings plan, sickness and accident benefits, life insurance, paid vacation & holidays, tuition assistance programs, employee assistance program, GM vehicle discounts and more.
About GM
Our vision is a world with Zero Crashes, Zero Emissions and Zero Congestion and we embrace the responsibility to lead the change that will make our world better, safer and more equitable for all.
Why Join Us
We believe we all must make a choice every day – individually and collectively – to drive meaningful change through our words, our deeds and our culture. Every day, we want every employee to feel they belong to one General Motors team.
Benefits Overview
From day one, we're looking out for your well-being–at work and at home–so you can focus on realizing your ambitions. Learn how GM supports a rewarding career that rewards you personally by visiting Total Rewards resources.
Non-Discrimination and Equal Employment Opportunities (U.S.)
General Motors is committed to being a workplace that is not only free of unlawful discrimination, but one that genuinely fosters inclusion and belonging. We strongly believe that providing an inclusive workplace creates an environment in which our employees can thrive and develop better products for our customers.
All employment decisions are made on a non-discriminatory basis without regard to sex, race, color, national origin, citizenship status, religion, age, disability, pregnancy or maternity status, sexual orientation, gender identity, status as a veteran or protected veteran, or any other similarly protected status in accordance with federal, state and local laws.
We encourage interested candidates to review the key responsibilities and qualifications for each role and apply for any positions that match their skills and capabilities. Applicants in the recruitment process may be required, where applicable, to successfully complete a role-related assessment(s) and/or a pre-employment screening prior to beginning employment. To learn more, visit How we Hire.
Accommodations
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