Safety Systems Software Architect

Career Area: Engineering Job Description: Your Work Shapes the World at Caterpillar Inc. When you join Caterpillar, you're joining a global team who cares not just about the work we do – but also about each other.  We are the makers, problem solvers, and future world builders who are creating stronger, more sustainable communities. We don't just talk about progress and innovation here – we make it happen, with our customers, where we work and live. Together, we are building a better world, so we can all enjoy living in it. The Safety Systems Software Architect provides senior technical leadership for the architecture, design, integration, and lifecycle evolution of safety-critical software used in autonomous and semi-autonomous heavy equipment applications. Operating with a high degree of independence, this role defines and governs software architecture for safety systems, ensuring solutions are robust, scalable, verifiable, and aligned with functional safety and product safety objectives. This individual serves as the software architecture authority for safety systems, translating safety concepts and system requirements into software architecture, interface definitions, fault-handling strategies, degraded-mode behavior, and verification approaches while mentoring engineering teams and influencing technical direction across the organization.

Define and lead the software architecture for operator safety systems, human-machine interaction safety, supervisory control, and safe-state management systems Translate safety goals, system requirements, hazard analyses, and operational design constraints into software architecture, interface contracts, safety mechanisms, and verification strategies Lead architectural trade-off decisions for 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 to integrate safety considerations into product architecture Provide technical leadership across requirements traceability, architecture documentation, design reviews, verification planning, validation evidence, and safety case support Develop and guide production-quality C++ software design patterns, reusable safety components, middleware interfaces, and integration approaches for embedded and edge-computing environments Troubleshoot complex safety-system behavior across simulation, bench, machine, and production environments, including timing, sensor fusion, perception, fault handling, and integration issues Communicate architecture decisions, safety risks, assumptions, constraints, and technical recommendations clearly to engineers, stakeholders, and leadership Mentor engineers on safety-focused software architecture, design quality, review practices, and disciplined development of safety-critical systems What You Have: Safety-Critical Software Engineering:  Expert-level C++ design and implementation experience for embedded, real-time, or safety-critical software systems Experience designing software components with clear ownership, deterministic behavior, testability, fault detection, fault isolation, and recovery mechanisms Strong engineering practices including requirements traceability, design documentation, code quality, debugging, profiling, static analysis, and disciplined change control Ability to apply structured software design techniques to complex, distributed, and safety-relevant autonomy systems Software Safety Architecture:  Demonstrated experience owning architecture for major software products, safety systems, autonomy systems, or distributed embedded platforms Ability to define software architecture alternatives and evaluate trade-offs across safety, performance, reliability, diagnosability, maintainability, and product delivery Experience establishing interface contracts,