Senior System Safety Engineer

The Senior System Safety Engineer will own the safety assessment process for Neon’s aerospace systems, executing and governing ARP4761/ARP4761A analyses in support of ARP4754A/B development assurance and customer certification programs. This role is responsible for establishing Neon’s safety process, producing safety deliverables, and integrating safety requirements, analyses, and evidence into Neon’s requirements, MBSE, and PLM environment.

Working closely with the Systems Engineering Architect, the Senior System Safety Engineer will embed safety into Neon’s system development process from concept through certification and serve as Neon’s primary technical safety interface to customers and their certification teams.

Key Responsibilities

• Safety Assessment
  • Lead the development of system-level Functional Hazard Assessments (FHA), Preliminary System Safety Assessments (PSSA), and System Safety Assessments (SSA), consistent with the customer’s aircraft-level safety assessment.
  • Perform and review Fault Tree Analyses (FTA), Failure Modes and Effects Analyses (FMEA), and Failure Modes and Effects Summaries (FMES).
  • Conduct Common Mode Analyses and provide inputs to customer Zonal Safety and Particular Risks Analyses.
  • Develop and manage failure rate analysis tools to predict and monitor product.
• Development Assurance & Safety Requirements
  • Derive safety requirements from hazard and failure analyses and allocate them to system, hardware, and software items, with traceability in Neon’s requirements management tool.
  • Assign and justify Function and Item Development Assurance Levels (FDAL/IDAL) in accordance with ARP4754A/B and ARP4761A.
  • Evaluate architectural mitigations, redundancy, and independence for catastrophic and hazardous failure conditions, and drive design changes where required.
  • Ensure DO-178C and DO-254 planning reflects assigned IDALs and safety-derived requirements.
• Safety Process & Digital Thread
  • Establish Neon’s system safety program plan, work instructions, and analysis templates aligned with ARP4761A.
  • Integrate safety analyses with Neon’s MBSE and PLM environment so that failure conditions, safety requirements, and verification evidence remain traceable and current as designs change.
  • Drive adoption of model-based safety analysis (MBSA) practices linked to Neon’s system models.
  • Coordinate with product cybersecurity on the interaction between safety and airworthiness security assessments.
• Customer & Certification Support
  • Align with customers on aircraft-level FHA allocations, safety requirements, and safety data deliverables.
  • Prepare safety deliverables for design reviews and certification data packages.
  • Present safety analyses and rationale to customers and support their engagement with certification authorities (FAA, EASA).
• Leadership & Mentorship
  • Serve as Neon’s subject matter expert in aerospace system safety.
  • Mentor systems and design engineers in safety-driven design and the application of safety analysis results.
  • Collaborate cross-functionally with design, test, reliability, and certification teams to ensure alignment.

Required Qualifications:

• Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Aerospace, Electrical, Mechanical, Systems, or Reliability Engineering, or related field.
• 8+ years of experience in aerospace system safety, including direct authorship of ARP4761 analyses on certified programs.
• Deep expertise in ARP4761/ARP4761A methods (FHA, PSSA, SSA, FTA, FMEA/FMES, CCA) and their integration with ARP4754A/B development assurance.
• Working knowledge of 14 CFR XX.1309 and 23.2510 safety objectives and associated advisory material.
• Experience assigning development assurance levels and deriving safety requirements for hardware and software items developed to DO-254 and DO-178C.
• Hands-on experience with quantitative fault tree and reliability analysis tools.
• Demonstrated ability to present and defend safety analyses with customers or certification authorities.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Experience with flight control, electromechanical actuation, or propulsion control systems.
• Familiarity with safety and reliability tools such as Isograph Reliability Workbench, Ansys medini analyze, or Cameo Safety and Reliability Analyzer.
• Experience with model-based safety analysis linked to SysML architectures.
• Familiarity with Flow and Siemens Teamcenter.
• Experience with MIL-STD-882E system safety programs.
• Familiarity with DO-326A/ED-202A airworthiness security processes.
• Experience working in startups or fast-paced environments where processes must be built from scratch.
• Knowledge of AI/ML applications in safety and systems engineering.

Why Join Neon

• Work alongside elite engineering talent and innovators from across aerospace and tech.
• Build the foundations of a digital-first aerospace company.
• Work at the cutting edge of model-based engineering and digital thread integration.
• Shape Neon’s system safety discipline and grow into a senior leadership role as the company scales.
• Competitive compensation - including equity participation, growth opportunities, and full benefits (health, dental, vision, 401k) designed to support you in and out of work

This is the expected compensation range for this role. Final compensation will be based on role scope, experience, skills, internal equity and location. This role may also be eligible for bonus/equity/benefits, if applicable. 110000 - 137500 USD