Functional Safety Specialist Hengelo (OV) • Thales

In Hengelo, Netherlands, the company develops advanced radar and combat management systems. The safety engineering team plays a key role in designing these high-end products. As a functional safety specialist, you will focus on the behavior of complex combat systems on naval ships, ensuring safety through analyses and collaboration with engineers and architects. Find out why this role offers more than just a job.

Location: Hengelo, Netherlands

About the team
In Hengelo, The Netherlands, Thales develops advanced radar and combat management systems. The System Engineering department is responsible for the design of new products and for managing software and hardware development. Within this department, specialists from the system safety/product HSE engineering team are involved in all development projects, from bid phase until system delivery. Our safety team currently consists of 18 specialists.

About your future job

Safety engineering is an important and integral part of the design process of our high-end products and systems-of-systems. Our safety specialists are part of the engineering teams and their contribution is essential since they perform safety analyses and collect evidence regarding safety for our end users, maintenance staff, Thales staff and environment during the system’s operational life.

Being a functional safety specialist, you will be focusing on the functional behavior of the mission system and its subsystems. We are talking here about complex combat systems on naval ships where many of the safety relevant functions have been implemented by software or are in some way closely related to software.

Our customers often have explicit requirements regarding functional safety, like the expected safety level or the international standards to adhere to. By performing functional hazard analyses, you will identify safety relevant system parts, derive and allocate safety requirements, maintain a hazard log, assemble the safety case and support the implementation teams in making the right design choices.

You will interact with system architects, safety specialists, system engineers and others who are system safety stakeholders in the organization. You will be in contact with your engineering colleagues very closely and will support them in understanding safety engineering, what it means for them and what their contribution is.

The main tasks are

• Set-up a safety management plan for your scope of activities;
• Analyze, assess and allocate customer and system safety requirements;
• Perform hazard analyses, manage safety issues, and maintain a hazard log;
• Support the engineering teams in understanding safety;
• Report, advise and decide on integral safety issues and safety strategies in the project;
• Collect safety evidence and build the safety case.

We are looking for a new colleague who

• Has a relevant master or polytechnic engineering degree;
• Has at least 5 years’ experience as a technical safety specialist, preferably in a complex product engineering context;
• Is experienced in applying techniques HAZID, HAZOP, FMEA, FTA, FHA and especially in functional safety engineering in safety critical software solutions;
• Has knowledge of and experience in applying safety standards like IEC 61508, MIL-STD-882, JSSSEH, ISO 26262, and/or EN 50126/50128/50129.
• Is familiar with system engineering, electrical engineering, mechanical engineering, software engineering and system/software verification principles;
• (preferred) Is a certified functional safety expert, like TÜV-certified functional safety engineer, or functional safety certified professional, or functional safety expert;
• Has the ability to see the big picture, and is also capable to do a deep dive;
• Has well-developed analytical and conceptual skills;
• Has good communication skills to effectively interact with engineers and architects;
• Has the ability to communicate clearly in English (Dutch and German are an advantage).

What's in it for you

• Become part of a great team in a high tech, innovative international organization;
• (International) opportunities for growth in tech-, management- and commercial roles;
• Attention for personal development and own initiative;
• A nice workplace in a modern building, where we value a good work-life balance and flexibility;
• 40 leave days per year, travel expenses and a flexible benefits à la carte package with options like purchase/sale of leave hours, internet costs, bicycle plan, company fitness, trade union contribution or relocation costs.