---
title: 'Staff Systems Engineer, Embedded Safety & Architecture at Waabi'
canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/staff-systems-engineer-embedded-safety-architecture-waabi-san-francisco-bp1gpada9v42'
type: 'job'
last_seen: '2026-09-10'
---

# Staff Systems Engineer, Embedded Safety & Architecture at Waabi

- **Company:** Waabi
- **Location:** San Francisco, CA
- **Employment:** full-time
- **Work type:** hybrid
- **Posted:** 2026-08-04
- **Last confirmed live:** 2026-09-10
- **Apply:** https://jobs.lever.co/waabi/5ab34a8a-9205-47dd-9e54-b155fee7daa8

## Job description

Waabi, founded by AI visionary Raquel Urtasun, is the leader in Physical AI. With a world-class team, we're unlocking the next era of autonomous transportation with technology that's powering commercial autonomous trucks and robotaxis. Waabi is backed by and partners with world leaders in AI, automotive, logistics, and deep tech.

With offices in Toronto, San Francisco, Dallas, and Pittsburgh, Waabi is growing quickly and looking for diverse, innovative and collaborative candidates who want to impact the world in a positive way. To learn more visit: www.waabi.ai

Waabi builds generative AI for the physical world, starting with autonomous trucks. The intelligence only ships if the system underneath it is safe by design — and that safety has to be carried all the way down, from the vehicle-level safety concept into the embedded platform's requirements, architecture, and interfaces. As a Systems Engineer on our Embedded Systems team, you'll own that translation. Our overarching systems and safety group defines the vehicle-level safety concept — the hazard analysis, the safety goals, the functional safety concept. You'll be their embedded counterpart: taking that concept and decomposing it into an embedded architecture and technical safety requirements that our electrical engineering and embedded software groups can build against. You'll live on the left side of the ISO 26262 V at the embedded level, turning a functional safety concept into technical requirements and a hardware/software architecture the whole team can trust — and you'll be the person who keeps the embedded org fluent in the wider world of automotive standards. You Will… Partner with the systems and safety group. Take the vehicle-level safety concept, safety goals, and functional safety requirements as your inputs, and feed embedded expertise back into their hazard analysis and concept work. You're the bridge between their concept and our hardware and firmware. Own the embedded technical safety concept. Derive technical safety requirements from the functional safety concept allocated to the embedded system, and allocate each to the right architectural element. Architect across hardware and software. Define the embedded system architecture and the hardware/software partition, including the hardware-software interface (HSI), so both groups design against one coherent picture. Manage requirements and traceability. Maintain bidirectional traceability from the safety goals handed down to you all the way to hardware and software requirements, and keep the work products that feed the safety case. Steward automotive standards for the embedded org. Stay current on the standards that apply to our work — functional safety, SOTIF, cybersecurity, autonomous-product safety, process and component qualification — and fold them into how the embedded team designs, documents, and works day to day. Set up the right side of the V. Your requirements and architecture define what verification and validation later prove. You'll partner closely with the V&V effort — and support Development Interface Agreements (DIAs) with OEM partners and suppliers — without owning the downstream test execution yourself.

## Qualifications

BS/MS in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Systems Engineering, or a related field — or equivalent hands-on experience. 8+ years in embedded systems, with real depth spanning both hardware and software. Strong ISO 26262 experience concentrated on the system-design phase (Part 4) and its handoffs to hardware (Part 5) and software (Part 6): deriving technical safety requirements from a functional safety concept, system architectural design, and hardware/software allocation. Working familiarity with the broader automotive standards landscape — and the judgment to operationalize it — including SOTIF (ISO 21448), automotive cybersecurity (ISO/SAE 21434), autonomous-product safety cases (UL 4600), Automotive SPICE (ASPICE), and component/coding standards such as AEC-Q10. Fluency with requirements management and traceability — you've lived in a tool like Polarion and know why traceability matters when the safety case is questioned. Enough range to read a schematic and reason about embedded C/C++/Rust, so your hardware/software partitioning is grounded in what each side can actually implement. A clear grasp of the full V, so the left-side work you produce genuinely sets the right side up to succeed. Nice-to-haves Experience standing up or maturing a standard (ASPICE, 21434, or similar) inside an engineering org, not just complying with one. SysML or model-based systems engineering. AV, ADAS, or other complex safety-critical domain experience. Direct experience authoring or negotiating DIAs with an OEM.

The US yearly salary range for this role is: $160,000 - $260,000 USD in addition to competitive perks & benefits. Waabi (US) Inc.’s yearly salary ranges are determined based on several factors in accordance with the Company’s compensation practices. The salary base range is reflective of the minimum and maximum target for new hire salaries for the position across all US locations.  Note: The Company provides additional compensation for employees in this role, including equity incentive awards and an annual performance bonus.

Perks/Benefits: Competitive compensation and equity awards. Health and Wellness benefits encompassing Medical, Dental and Vision coverage (for full-time employees only). Unlimited Vacation. Flexible hours and Work from Home support. Daily drinks, snacks and catered meals (when in office). Regularly scheduled team building activities and social events both on-site, off-site & virtually. As we grow, this list continues to evolve!

Waabi is a technology start-up building technologies to transform the way the world moves. Join our talented team to be a part of the future and to make an impact!

Waabi is an equal opportunity employer. We celebrate diversity and are committed to creating a supportive, inclusive, and accessible workplace for all our employees. We seek applicants of all backgrounds and identities, across race, color, ethnicity, national origin or ancestry, age, citizenship, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, military or veteran status, marital status, pregnancy or parental status, caregiver status, disability, or any other characteristic protected by law. We make workplace accommodations for qualified individuals with disabilities as required by applicable law. If reasonable accommodation is needed to participate in the job application or interview process please let our recruiting team know.

## About Waabi

## Company Overview
- **One-liner**: Waabi is pioneering Physical AI for autonomous vehicles, starting with self-driving trucks and expanding into robotaxis, using a breakthrough interpretable AI model and the industry's most realistic neural simulator.
- **Entity Type**: Private (Series C, $1B total funding)
- **Headquarters**: Toronto, Ontario, Canada
- **Founded**: 2021
- **Founders**: Raquel Urtasun

## Core Business
- **Primary industries**: Autonomous vehicle technology, truck transportation, logistics, robotaxi services
- **Target customers**: B2B – trucking fleets, logistics providers, and eventually ride-hailing operators; enterprise partnerships with OEMs and transportation companies
- **Mission**: To empower humanity to build a better tomorrow by fundamentally rethinking how autonomous vehicles are developed, deployed, and scaled – safely and efficiently.

## Products & Services
- **Waabi Driver**: An end-to-end, interpretable and verifiable AI system that enables self-driving capabilities for trucks and, soon, robotaxis. The system is designed to be scalable and safe by leveraging a next-generation neural simulator (Waabi World) for validation before deployment on public roads.
- **Waabi World**: The industry’s most realistic neural simulator, used for testing and training the Waabi Driver in millions of scenarios, dramatically reducing the time and resources needed to bring autonomous vehicles to market.

## Market Standing
- **Valuation/Market Cap**: Not disclosed (private company)
- **Key Metrics**: Annual Revenue: $11.2M (est., from private data providers); Total Funding: ~$1B across four rounds; Headcount: 271 employees (+51% YoY)
- **Notable Investors/Partners**: Khosla Ventures (lead in Series B & C), Uber, Volvo Group Venture Capital, Radical Ventures, NVentures (NVIDIA’s venture arm)
- **Growth Signals**: 
  - Raised $750M Series C in January 2026 (led by Khosla Ventures)
  - Expanding from autonomous trucks into robotaxi market (hired Ryan Wallace as GM of Robotaxi in Sept 2026)
  - 52 active job postings (+62% YoY job posting growth)
  - Talent influx from Cruise, Aurora, Uber, Waymo, TuSimple, NVIDIA

## Competitive Advantages
- **Interpretable & verifiable AI**: Unlike black-box systems, Waabi’s end-to-end model is designed to be transparent and auditable, increasing trust and regulatory viability.
- **Neural simulator (Waabi World)**: Enables massive-scale virtual testing that accelerates development while maintaining safety – a key moat over rivals that rely on costly real-world miles.
- **Founder-led**: Raquel Urtasun is a world-renowned AI researcher (former Uber ATG chief scientist) with deep expertise in computer vision and autonomous systems.

## Strategic Focus
- **Scale the Waabi Driver** for commercial trucking operations and simultaneously **enter the robotaxi market**.
- **Deepen OEM and strategic partnerships** (e.g., with Volvo and Uber) to integrate technology into production vehicles.
- **Continue aggressive hiring** of AI researchers, software engineers, systems engineers, and policy experts across North America.

## Why Work Here
- **Culture**: Values safety, efficiency, data-driven decision-making, and a "virtuous cycle of innovation." Emphasis on real-world impact and personal growth.
- **Remote/Hybrid**: Offers remote flexibility with 5 offices across North America (Toronto, San Francisco, Dallas, Phoenix, Pittsburgh). Many roles are hybrid or remote.
- **Engineering culture**: Technical stack includes Python, PyTorch, TensorFlow, CUDA, ROS, Linux, Kubernetes, and proprietary simulation tools. 43% of employees are in technical roles, 15% in research.
- **Perks**: Not explicitly listed, but strong employer rating (4.6/5 on third-party reviews) and high compensation (e.g., Staff Software Developer median ~$151K USD, Systems Engineer ~$124K).
- **Growth opportunities**: 51% YoY headcount growth, many leadership hires; career progression from intern to director roles is common.

## Sources
1. [waabi.ai/careers](https://www.waabi.ai/careers)
2. [waabi.ai/company](https://waabi.ai/company)
3. [jobs.lever.co/waabi](https://jobs.lever.co/waabi)
4. [linkedin.com/company/waabi](https://www.linkedin.com/company/waabi)
5. [cbinsights.com/company/waabi](https://www.cbinsights.com/company/waabi)

## Other roles at Waabi

- [Vehicle Reliability Engineer - Night Shift](https://feeny.ai/job/vehicle-reliability-engineer-night-shift-waabi-dallas-3e8r7gae8dfc) — Dallas, TX
- [Senior Product Designer, Autonomy Data & Tooling](https://feeny.ai/job/senior-product-designer-autonomy-data-tooling-waabi-toronto-rm8emj4m9qcv) — Toronto, Canada
- [Staff Planner SW Quality Architect](https://feeny.ai/job/staff-planner-sw-quality-architect-waabi-us-rtftjrfsqkj1) — US &, Canada
- [Staff Systems Engineer - Operational Readiness and Field Safety](https://feeny.ai/job/staff-systems-engineer-operational-readiness-and-field-safety-waabi-united-ww24dedpeqtv) — United States
- [Applied AI Security Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/applied-ai-security-engineer-waabi-united-states-yqfqwngpexaz) — United States
- [Test & Evaluation Operator](https://feeny.ai/job/test-evaluation-operator-waabi-phoenix-7cts9eejextc) — Phoenix, AZ
- [Hardware-in-the-Loop (HIL) Software/Firmware Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/hardware-in-the-loop-hil-software-firmware-engineer-waabi-pittsburgh-n3m7g0gzdfb4) — Pittsburgh, PA
- [Hardware-in-the-Loop (HIL) Team Lead](https://feeny.ai/job/hardware-in-the-loop-hil-team-lead-waabi-pittsburgh-36jhb2942yj2) — Pittsburgh, PA
- [Bringup Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/bringup-engineer-waabi-pittsburgh-0p9szxz048d8) — Pittsburgh, PA
- [Shift Supervisor - Day Shift](https://feeny.ai/job/shift-supervisor-day-shift-waabi-dallas-yvd80qd56k96) — Dallas, TX