At Zoox, we have set the goal of providing our customers with the highest level of safety while using our fully autonomous vehicles. You will work with a team of world-class engineers with diverse backgrounds in robotics, control, and vehicle engineering to deliver vehicle performance. As an Operational Strength Attribute Lead, you will ensure that vehicle structures, systems, and components operate safely, reliably, and efficiently throughout their intended lifespan. You will be responsible for evaluating the structural integrity, stiffness, strength, and fatigue resistance of vehicle architectures—such as Body-in-White (BIW), chassis, suspension, closures, and battery enclosures—against real-world operating environments for a robotaxi operating in a dense-urban environment. This role spans the entire product development cycle, balancing requirements definition, computer-aided engineering (CAE) simulations with physical laboratory and track validation to optimize performance and prevent structural failures.
In this role, you will:
- Target setting: Define and own robot-level targets for strength and durability together with internal stakeholders and cascade those targets to the system teams.
- Structural & Fatigue Analysis: Work together with the CAE team to assess static strength, stiffness, dynamic loading, and fatigue behavior of complex mechanical systems.
- Design Optimization: Collaborate early with cross-functional design engineers to develop practical and cost-effective structural solutions that meet vehicle attribute requirements.
- Test-to-Simulation Correlation: Analyze vehicle road load data and correlate findings with simulations to continuously improve model accuracy and establish standardized methodologies.
- Validation & Testing Support: Translate customer usage profiles into laboratory test specifications, design accelerated fatigue life testing cycles, and lead physical component-level or full-vehicle validation programs.
- Complete vehicle lifetime durability performance: lead cross-functional teams to deliver lifetime durability requirements for the complete vehicle.
- Failure & Root-Cause Investigation: Direct laboratory teardowns, conduct root-cause analysis on structural components that fail during physical testing or field service, and verify engineering countermeasures.
- Manufacturing Feasibility: Assess structural designs for manufacturing and assembly capability, checking for bolted joint slippage, door sag, weld performance, and stamping limitations.
- Documentation and Reporting: Provide regular Strength and Durability status updates and generate technical reports as needed.
- Technical Leadership: Share technical knowledge and communicate best practices and performance expectations to cross-functional teams and junior engineers.
Qualifications
- Possess a Master's degree with 10+ years of hands-on experience in automotive Strength and Durability Engineering.
- Demonstrate system and vehicle level testing experience in laboratory and automotive proving ground environments.
- Demonstrate proficiency with durability simulation and analysis software tools (e.g., ANSYS, ABAQUS, ADAMS, nCode).
- Demonstrate familiarity with automotive requirements and validation sign-off standards.
- Demonstrate excellent written, presentation, and verbal communication skills with the ability to create visualizations of KPIs and program risks.
Bonus Qualifications
- Demonstrate proficiency in tools and processes required to manage complex projects (e.g., JIRA, Confluence).
