Senior Sensor Hardware Safety Engineer - CA, Santa Clara, United States
$184,000 - $356,500 USD yearly
Originally posted 24 August 2026 by the employer.
About the role
This role involves defining and driving hardware safety for sensor systems, specifically focusing on cameras, LiDAR, radar, inertial measurement units (IMUs), and other sensors across NVIDIA’s physical AI platforms.
What you'll do
- Own the end-to-end sensor hardware safety strategy for cameras, LiDAR, radar, IMUs and other sensors used in NVIDIA automotive systems.
- Support sensor supplier selection through technical and safety evaluations of sensor architectures, safety concepts, safety analysis, and integration assumptions.
- Define and manage sensor hardware safety requirements, including requirements for sensor power, interfaces, timing, synchronization, data integrity, fault detection, and fault response.
- Perform and review safety cases & analyses, including FMEA, FMEDA, DFA, and FTA, and use the results to guide architecture decisions and design improvements.
- Develop clear safety documentation, integration guidance, analysis reports, and user-facing safety information for internal teams and customers.
What you'll need
- Bachelor's degree in electrical engineering, computer engineering, computer science, or a related engineering field, or equivalent experience.
- 8+ years of relevant experience in automotive sensors, hardware systems, functional safety, or a related field.
- Understanding of automotive sensor technologies such as cameras, radar, LiDAR, or IMUs, including their hardware architectures and system interfaces.
- Knowledge of safety analysis methodologies, including FMEA, FMEDA, DFA, and FTA.
- Ability to work effectively with sensor suppliers and multidisciplinary engineering teams from concept through integration and verification.
Skills: sensor hardware, functional safety, FMEA, FMEDA, ISO 26262, automotive
This role has been open 51 days — well below the 69-day median for Automotive/Functional Safety Engineering roles.
Automotive/Functional Safety Engineering · Automotive Safety
|
Open roles in category
125
|
Median days open
69 d
|
Median salary
$233k
|
See the full market breakdown ▾Category comparison, skills in demand, and who else is hiring
| Metric | NVIDIA | All employers we track in this specialty (125 roles · 26 employers) |
|---|---|---|
| Open roles in this specialty | 18 | 125 |
| Median days open | 54 d | 69 d (−15 d vs this employer) |
| Median salary (USD postings) | — | $233k |
Skills observed across this category: sensor hardware, functional safety, FMEA, FMEDA, ISO 26262, automotive
Who's hiring in this category
- NXP Semiconductors · 28 open roles · median 44 d
- NVIDIA (this employer) · 18 open roles · median 54 d
- Infineon Technologies · 13 open roles · median 45 d
- Arm Holdings · 10 open roles · median 83 d
- Qualcomm · 9 open roles · median 189 d
- Renesas Electronics · 8 open roles · median 50 d
How we counted: 125 open Automotive/Functional Safety Engineering (Automotive Safety) roles from 26 employers tracked in the SemiconductorJobs index, counted 15 Oct 2026. Specialty figures count only roles carrying this exact specialty label, so an employer's related work in neighbouring specialties is not included there. Figures refresh nightly.