Job statistics for Functional Safety Architect - SoC / ASIC
- Days open
- 15 days
- Expected tenure
- 5.5 years
- Estimated salary
- $142,000
- Based on Senior seniority, the Automotive industry and United States market rates.
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Functional Safety Architect - SoC / ASIC
Job description
About the role
Teradar is developing the world’s first automotive-grade terahertz vision sensor, delivering high-resolution imaging in any weather condition.
Founded in Boston, Teradar’s solid-state, chip-scale technology is designed to unlock safer, smarter vehicles and open new possibilities in mobility, defense, and industrial sensing. For more information, visit teradar.com.
We are seeking a senior-level Architect to lead the architectural definition and safety execution of our hardware and software systems. This is an engineering-heavy systems and silicon role, rather than a compliance-checking position.
You will ensure our sensing platform meets applicable safety requirements throughout its lifecycle - bridging the gap between macro-level System Architecture and custom ASIC/Silicon design in alignment with ISO 26262 Parts 4, 5, and 11.
This role is ideal for a technical expert who thrives in a startup environment, takes end-to-end design ownership, and can collaborate closely with systems, IC design, software, and teams to establish novel safety concepts for a new perception modality.
Key Responsibilities
- Architectural Safety Leadership: Own and define the end-to-end Functional Safety architecture, bridging complex system-level goals with custom ASIC/silicon-level safety mechanisms.
- Safety Concept Derivation: Lead the development and maintenance of Functional Safety Concepts (FSC) and Technical Safety Concepts (TSC), focusing on Safety Element out of Context (SEooC) strategies for automotive Tier-1s and OEMs.
- Core Safety Analysis: Conduct and review safety analyses at both the system and silicon levels, including , DFMEA, , (FTA), and Dependent Failure Analysis (DFA).
- Cross-Functional Design Partnership: Serve as the primary safety architecture expert to support development teams with hardware/software interface (HSI) definitions and design recommendations.
- Traceability & Alignment: Define safety requirements and collaborate with the V&V team to ensure rigorous traceability across system, ASIC, and software levels (ISO 26262 Parts 4 & 5).
- Ecosystem & Audit Management: Act as the technical lead interfacing with external assessors, certification bodies, and global OEM customers to support safety audits, assessments, and the final .
- Culture & Mentorship: Establish modern engineering workflows for safety and mentor engineering teams on advanced functional safety practices.
Required Qualifications
- Education: Master’s, or Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Systems Engineering, or a related technical field.
- Experience: 7+ years (10+ preferred) of experience in automotive functional safety architecture or systems engineering for safety-critical embedded platforms.
- System + Silicon Bridge: Proven track record working on both system-level safety concepts and ASIC/chip-level safety features (understanding of ISO 26262 Part 11 guidelines for semiconductors is essential, whether SoC or standalone ASIC).
- Standards Expertise: Comprehensive, hands-on mastery of ISO 26262 processes, work products, and safety case development.
- Advanced Safety Analysis: Expert-level proficiency with quantitative and qualitative safety analyses (DFMEA, FMEDA, FTA, DFA).
- Communication: Exceptional ability to distill complex architectural safety concepts and trade-offs clearly to both technical and non-technical stakeholders, including IC designers, software leads, executive leadership, and OEM partners.
Preferred Qualifications
- Leadership: Experience managing safety teams or acting as the designated for major production programs.
- Sensor Expertise: Familiarity with safety considerations for advanced perception systems (Radar, LiDAR, Camera, SoC, or Multi-Chip Modules).
- : Knowledge or certification in ISO 21448 (SOTIF), particularly surrounding performance limitations and functional insufficiencies in perception systems.
- Tools: Experience with specialized safety analysis tools (e.g., Ansys Medini Analyze or equivalent).
- Certification: Functional Safety Certified Automotive Engineer/Expert credentials (e.g., TÜV, exida).
Why Join Us
- High Impact & Ownership: Serve as the safety architectural anchor for a novel, category-defining hardware technology.
- Collaborative Environment: Work daily alongside founders, engineering directors, and cross-functional design leads.
- Industry Influence: Help define how the automotive ecosystem handles functional safety for the untapped terahertz spectrum.