Safety Systems Software Architect
Caterpillar1 day ago
Irving, TX, USASenior
Base Salary
$128k - $209k/yr
Responsibilities
- Define and lead software architecture for operator safety, human-machine interaction safety, supervisory control, and safe-state management systems.
- Translate safety goals, system requirements, hazard analyses, and operational constraints into architectures, interface contracts, safety mechanisms, and verification strategies.
- Lead trade-off decisions involving real-time performance, determinism, fault containment, diagnostics, monitoring, redundancy, graceful degradation, and maintainability.
- Partner with systems engineering, functional safety, cybersecurity, controls, perception, positioning, validation, and product teams.
- Provide technical leadership for requirements traceability, architecture documentation, design reviews, verification planning, validation evidence, and safety case support.
- Develop and guide production-quality C++ design patterns, reusable safety components, middleware interfaces, and integration approaches for embedded and edge-computing environments.
- Troubleshoot safety-system behavior across simulation, bench, machine, and production environments.
- Communicate architecture decisions, safety risks, assumptions, constraints, and recommendations to technical and leadership stakeholders.
- Mentor engineers in safety-focused architecture, design quality, review practices, and safety-critical development.
Requirements
- Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field, or commensurate industry experience.
- Expert-level C++ design and implementation experience for embedded, real-time, or safety-critical software systems.
- Experience designing software with deterministic behavior, testability, fault detection, fault isolation, and recovery mechanisms.
- Experience with requirements traceability, design documentation, debugging, profiling, static analysis, code quality, and disciplined change control.
- Experience owning architecture for major software products, safety systems, autonomy systems, or distributed embedded platforms.
- Ability to evaluate architecture alternatives across safety, performance, reliability, diagnosability, maintainability, and delivery.
- Experience with interface contracts, data flows, safety monitors, watchdogs, degraded-mode strategies, and safe-state behavior.
- Experience facilitating architecture reviews, design walkthroughs, failure-mode discussions, and cross-disciplinary technical alignment.
- Working knowledge of functional safety practices, hazard analysis, risk assessment, safety requirements decomposition, and verification expectations.
- Extensive experience as a software architect, technical lead, or senior development engineer for safety-critical, autonomous, robotic, or machine-control systems is preferred.
- Experience with operator safety, human-machine interaction, remote or autonomous operation safety, perception integration, positioning, controls, or supervisory safety functions is preferred.
- Experience with monitoring, plausibility checks, diagnostics, redundancy management, fault containment, degraded operation, and safe-state transitions is preferred.
- Experience with presence detection, proximity sensing, cameras, radar, LIDAR, GNSS/GPS, inertial sensors, or other perception and positioning inputs is preferred.
- Experience with real-time controllers, embedded Linux, edge computing, robotics middleware, simulation environments, or hardware-in-the-loop validation is preferred.
- Experience in construction, mining, off-highway, automotive, aerospace, industrial automation, or other regulated safety-critical industries is preferred.
Benefits
- Medical, dental, and vision benefits.
- Paid time off, including vacation, holidays, and volunteer time.
- 401(k) savings plans, Health Savings Account, and Flexible Spending Accounts.
- Health lifestyle programs, Employee Assistance Program, voluntary benefits, and employee discounts.
- Career development, incentive bonus, disability benefits, life insurance, parental leave, adoption benefits, and tuition reimbursement.
- Work onsite five days per week at the Irving, Texas office; relocation assistance is not available.
- The position may require up to 30% travel.
- Posting dates are September 10, 2026 through September 27, 2026.
About Caterpillar
Caterpillar Inc. designs, manufactures, and services construction and mining equipment, diesel and natural gas engines, industrial gas turbines, and diesel-electric locomotives for infrastructure, resource, and energy customers. The public company, founded in 1925 and headquartered in Irving, Texas, sells primarily through an independent worldwide dealer network and provides equipment financing. It operates through Construction Industries, Resource Industries, and Energy & Transportation segments, with shares traded on the NYSE and Euronext Paris.