Safety Engineer / Functional Safety Lead - Berlin

You will be responsible for shaping the functional safety journey for an early-stage startup team building a new sensor-fusion product for the robotics and automation sector. You will own the safety case end-to-end across individual components, product, and integration into robot cells. You will ensure that early customer deployments are certifiable under the CE marking and comply with the EU Machinery Regulation 2023/1230.

You will be responsible for turning that safety case into a defensible certification package by running FMEDA, FTA, HAZOP, and STPA across product deployments, communicating with regulators, defining safety goals, functional safety requirements, technical safety requirements, and the traceability that connects them. You will be the technical authority in safety discussions with customers, integrators, and regulators, and you will shape how the company proves compliance in real industrial applications.

This position is in a startup environment. You should be ready for ambiguity, tight schedules, shifting priorities, rapid iteration, working directly alongside the CTO, and assuming wider responsibility for decisions that shape the final product-market fit.

Visa: Visa sponsorship is available

Equity: ESOP available, will be discussed individually

Work arrangement: hybrid/on-site

Work location: Berlin (ideally). Munich, Stuttgart, and North Rhine-Westphalia are also options. Belgium (Brussels/Flanders) is also an option.

Responsibilities

• Own functional safety strategy and safety case end-to-end.
• Lead FMEDA, FTA, HAZOP, and STPA for each deployment and translate findings into design actions.
• Define safety goals, derive functional and technical safety requirements, and maintain bidirectional traceability from hazards to architecture, implementation, and verified evidence.
• Build the safety evidence case required for a certifiable industry-grade product.
• Lead acquisition of CE marking under the EU Machinery Regulation 2023/1230 with the regulators.
• Serve as the technical safety authority in conversations with customers, integrators, and regulators.

Main requirements

• 6–10 years in functional safety engineering with at least one shipped SIL2 or PLd system.
• Proven ownership of a safety case through to certification or equivalent external assessment.
• Proficiency in IEC 61508 and ISO 13849 (SIL/PL determination, lifecycle, DC, MTTFd, CCF).
• Hands‑on experience with FMEDA, FTA, HAZOP, and/or STPA, including outputs translated into real requirements and design changes.
• Experience defining safety goals, decomposing into functional and technical safety requirements, and maintaining auditable traceability.
• Proven experience interacting with notified bodies, assessors, or regulators.
• Ability to act as the technical authority in safety decisions and defend them externally.

Other requirements

• Working knowledge of IEC 62998 and EU Machinery Regulation 2023/1230 conformity assessment.
• Experience in robotics, industrial automation, or sensor-based safety systems.
• Practical experience with tools like Sistema, Ansys medini analyze, ISOGraph, Polarion, DOORS, LDRA, or Vector.

Nice to have, but not mandatory

• Experience building safety documentation packages for CE marking.
• Familiarity with integrating safety into embedded/software development workflows (e.g., MISRA, AUTOSAR contexts).
• Ability to structure safety processes for a growing team (templates, workflows, review gates).
• Conversional German.
• Conversional Farsi.
• Potential support with relocation to Berlin.