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Salary: USD 253,000 - 336,000 / annual
Anduril Industries, a defense technology company, is seeking a Principal System Safety Engineer to serve as a company-wide technical authority on system safety across all divisions. This is a Staff/Principal-level individual contributor role with significant influence and scope.
You will operate across Anduril's entire portfolio—Air Dominance & Strike, Maritime, Ground Systems, Space, Counter-UAS, and Autonomy/Lattice—rather than being scoped to a single program. You will set the safety philosophy, risk acceptance posture, and analytical standards that apply across every division and serve as the person leadership turns to when safety questions are consequential, contested, or without precedent.
Key responsibilities include:
- Serve as company-wide System Safety technical authority, setting direction across all divisions
- Conduct independent, end-to-end safety assessments of any program at any lifecycle phase
- Deploy as a senior technical resource to programs across the portfolio, standing up credible System Safety approaches and leaving behind sustainable baselines
- Prepare programs and engineering teams for formal government safety certification
- Shape Anduril's enterprise technical risk posture by introducing analytical models, hazard framing, and risk acceptance philosophy for leadership decision-making
- Pioneer analysis and verification approaches for emerging technology, including autonomous and AI/ML-enabled systems, where existing frameworks like MIL-STD-882E do not provide sufficient coverage
- Negotiate safety acceptance criteria, alternate means of compliance, and tailored standards with customers, service safety centers, and regulatory authorities
- Drive System Safety philosophy, planning standards, and requirements practice across the enterprise
- Grow Senior and Staff System Safety engineers into recognized experts and create frameworks and training for engineers company-wide
- Represent Anduril externally as a thought leader in industry working groups, standards bodies, and customer safety forums
The role exists to ensure Anduril does not build systems it cannot certify, field, or defend. You will provide independent safety assessments with the same rigor a government weapon system safety review board would apply, engaging programs early before architecture is locked.
REQUIREMENTS:
- Minimum 15 years of industry experience as a System Safety Engineer or equivalent engineering background
- B.S. degree in Mechanical Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, Systems Engineering, or equivalent technical discipline
- Direct experience with government safety review boards (WSESRB, NNMSB, SSSTRP), including building the safety case, presenting it, and achieving board approval
- Deep experience with safety-critical hardware and software systems in defense or aerospace industry, with preference for Weapon Systems, Aircraft, UAS, Maritime, Space, Munitions and Energetics, or Rotorcraft
- Expert-level knowledge of MIL-STD-882E, including judgment to tailor it credibly, and working familiarity with service-level system safety policy and the Joint Software Systems Safety Engineering Handbook (JSSSEH)
- Expert background in safety analysis techniques including FTA, FHA, SCFTA, and FMECA, with judgment to know when each technique is the wrong tool
- Failure investigation and analysis experience with proven track record of solving problems and preventing reoccurrence
- Extensive Design Review experience (PDR, CDR, MRR) and confident presentation skills across all levels of leadership, including executives, customers, and external safety authorities
- Strong analytical and problem-solving skills and excellent communication skills, with ability to build influence across organizations where you have no formal authority
- Willingness to travel between Anduril sites, customer locations, and test ranges
- Eligibility to obtain and maintain a U.S. security clearance
PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS:
- M.S. or Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, Systems Engineering, or equivalent technical discipline
- AI/ML and autonomy safety experience, including run-time assurance and safety implications of DoD autonomous weapon system policy (strongly preferred)
- Experience with Relyence, Teamcenter, JIRA, JAMA, Cameo, and/or Ansys
