Operational Strength Attribute Lead, Vehicle Integration

Zoox is hiring an Operational Strength Attribute Lead, Vehicle Integration in Foster City, United States. It pays $224k-$269k a year and Level rates it ; you can apply on Zoox.

Level's read on this job

On Level's scale, this role is Little AI ●○○○: aI is not part of the work.
Level classes it as a lead role.
Zoox has 224 other open roles on Level.
Posted in the last few days.

AI in this role

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).

How we rate this

Operational Strength Attribute Lead, Vehicle Integration at Zoox rates 35 out of 100 for how much of the daily work is AI. That makes it Little AI (AI Level 1 of 4). The level is about AI in the job, not seniority.

Classification

Little AI. AI is not part of the work.

●●●● Builds AI80 to 100
●●●○ Works on AI60 to 79
●●○○ Uses AI40 to 59
●○○○ Little AI0 to 39

Levels come from how often the tools, models and workflows of the role are named in the posting itself. Read the description and count the AI tools, models and workflows it names.

Key facts

Operational Strength Attribute Lead, Vehicle Integration is an open job at Zoox.
Level rates this role AI Level 1 of 4: Little AI.
The listed salary is $224k-$269k a year.
The role is based in Foster City, CA.
The job was posted on November 3, 2026.
Seniority: lead.
Applications are handled by Zoox. Apply on Zoox