Senior Electronics Engineer – Functional Safety

RIVR, part of Amazon is a robotics company pioneering Physical AI through real-world doorstep delivery. Founded in 2024 as an ETH Zurich spin-off, RIVR developed wheeled-legged robots designed to operate in complex, unstructured environments such as stairs, gates, doors, and uneven urban terrain. We believe that achieving general physical intelligence requires solving real customer problems in the real world, where robots can learn from rich operational data at scale.

Following our acquisition by Amazon in March 2026, we are continuing this mission with greater reach and speed. By combining custom robot hardware, onboard autonomy, and cloud-based coordination, RIVR, part of Amazon is building the next generation of safe, reliable autonomous robots for last-mile delivery.

Job Description
As a Senior Electronics Engineer – Functional Safety, you will own the hardware-level Functional Safety design for our robots’ custom electronics. You will design fault-tolerant circuits at the schematic and PCB level — implementing redundant architectures, hardware diagnostics, and safe-state mechanisms — and perform the quantitative reliability analysis to substantiate that your designs meet the required Safety Integrity Level. This is a hands-on circuit design role, not a systems-level safety concept or process management position.

What You’ll Be Doing

• Design fault-tolerant circuits for safety-critical subsystems, selecting appropriate safety architectures (e.g., 1oo2, 1oo2D) based on the required SIL target.

• Implement hardware diagnostic and monitoring mechanisms to detect dangerous failures.

• Design circuits that enforce a defined safe state when a fault is detected.

• Apply Common-Cause Failure mitigation techniques at the component and PCB level.

• Perform FMEDA on your own schematics — identifying failure modes per component and calculating Safe Failure Fraction (SFF) and Diagnostic Coverage (DC).

• Build Reliability Block Diagrams and compute SIL metrics to verify your designs meet the target.

• Select and derate components based on failure rate data, mission profiles, and expected lifetime.

• Advise system architects on hardware safety constraints and review PCB layouts for safety compliance.

• Collaborate with electronics, firmware, and systems engineering teams to integrate safety functions into the overall robot design.

• Create and maintain Functional Safety documentation for your hardware modules.

What You Must Have

• Master’s degree or higher in Electrical Engineering, Electronics, or a closely related field.

• 5+ years designing electronics hardware for Functional Safety–certified products.

• Proven work under IEC 61508 (preferred), ISO 13849, or ISO 26262.

• Delivered PCB-level hardware that achieved SIL 2 or SIL 3 (or equivalent PL d/e, ASIL B–D) certification.

• Background in analog, power, and/or mixed-signal circuit design .

• Hands-on experience implementing safety architectures in schematics — not just block diagrams.

• Ability to perform FMEDA and SIL metrics calculations on your own designs.

• Understanding of failure rate data sources and component derating for reliability.

• Strong problem-solving skills and ability to debug fault-tolerant hardware.

• Comfortable working cross-functionally with firmware, mechanical, and systems teams.

Get Some Bonus Points

• Experience with safety-rated ICs (safe supply supervisors, safety MCUs, smart drivers with diagnostic feedback).

• Has contributed to or authored a Safety Manual for a hardware module.

• Familiar with Proven-in-Use argumentation for off-the-shelf components.

• PCB layout skills relevant to safety (creepage/clearance, redundant channel routing).

• Experience with circuit simulation (SPICE) to verify fault response behaviour.

• Experience in robotics, automotive, aerospace, or medical device sectors.

• PhD degree in a relevant engineering discipline.

RIVR, part of Amazon is committed to building a diverse and inclusive team that values every perspective. If you’re passionate about driving innovation in robotics and creating meaningful impact, we encourage you to apply and bring your unique self to our team.

We believe the best work is done when collaborating and therefore require in-person presence in our office locations.

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Source: Arbeitnow (https://www.arbeitnow.ch/jobs/companies/rivr/senior-electronics-engineer-functional-safety-zurich-197977)