Sr. Systems Engineer

<div class="content-intro"><p></p> <p></p> <p>In today's dynamic worksites, seamless collaboration between people and machines is essential. FORT's platform ensures safe, secure, and dynamic control that surpasses legacy systems and next-generation AI capabilities.</p> <p>While autonomous machines offer significant advantages, they also introduce new safety challenges. FORT addresses these concerns by providing solutions such as the Wireless E-Stop, which allows operators to instantly stop any machine from a safe distance, enhancing safety during emergencies.</p> <p>Additionally, FORT's Safe Remote Control enables operators to manage heavy machinery remotely, reducing the risk of accidents and improving visibility.</p> <p>By ensuring communications integrity across any network, FORT empowers customers to protect their most valuable assets—people, data, and machines—ensuring they remain safe and secure.</p> <p></p> <p></p></div><p>As a Systems Engineer, you will join a small, focused team responsible for defining and managing system-level requirements across hardware, firmware, and cloud software for FORT's Pro Series platform. The processes are established — your focus will be execution: driving rigorous requirements definition, ensuring traceability, and collaborating cross-functionally to make sure every feature is fully specified from happy path to edge cases before development begins.</p> <p><strong>This is a hands-on role for someone who thrives in a fast-moving, iterative environment and takes pride in producing requirements that support development &amp; test engineers, and end customers.</strong></p> <h2>Responsibilities</h2> <ul> <li><strong>Requirements Definition: </strong>Work cross-functionally with Development and Test teams to define a complete set of system-level requirements — including happy path, unhappy path, regulatory, safety, and security requirements — for platform and product features.</li> <li><strong>Cross-Functional Collaboration:</strong> Engage Hardware, Firmware, Cloud Software, and Product teams to ensure requirements reflect the desired system behavior and attributes, and to identify gaps before they become problems downstream.</li> <li><strong>Requirements Management: </strong>Author, organize, and maintain requirements in the requirement database (Jama) and steer cross-functional review cycles.</li> <li><strong>Requirement-to-Test Traceability: </strong>Partner with Test Engineering to ensure every requirement maps to a test case and that coverage is complete before release. Leverage automation where possible to expedite tracing and ensure comprehensive coverage.</li> <li><strong>Trade Studies: </strong>Conduct trade studies to evaluate technical options and provide clear recommendations to Engineering Leadership with supporting rationale.</li> <li><strong>Impact Analysis: </strong>Support impact analysis for proposed changes, assessing scope across hardware, firmware, software, and safety domains, to identify any ripple effects of an engineering change.</li> <li><strong>Test Plan Review:</strong> Review test plans to verify alignment with requirements and flag gaps or ambiguities.</li> <li><strong>Regulatory &amp; Safety Requirements: </strong>Identify and incorporate applicable regulatory, functional safety, and cybersecurity requirements into the requirements baseline.</li> <li><strong>Agile Execution:</strong> Operate effectively within iterative release cycles — decomposing requirements into sprint-ready work, participating in planning and review, and adapting to change without sacrificing requirements rigor.</li> </ul> <h2>Qualifications</h2> <h3>Experience</h3> <ul> <li>3–7 years of experience in systems engineering, with a focus on requirement definition for complex hardware-software systems.</li> <li>Demonstrated ability to develop comprehensive, testable requirements — including edge cases, error handling, and failure modes — not just nominal behavior.</li> <li>Experience working cross-functionally with development and test teams in an agile or iterative development environment.</li> <li>Background in one or more of the following domains: embedded systems, wireless/IP communications, cloud software, user interface design, or robotics and autonomous systems.</li> </ul> <h3>Technical Skills</h3> <ul> <li>Proficiency with requirements management tools such as Jama or equivalent; strong understanding of traceability best practices.</li> <li>Working knowledge of communication protocols, including IP networking and radio communications (ISM, BLE, Wi-Fi, or similar).</li> <li>Familiarity with embedded systems and hardware-software integration.</li> <li>Experience conducting trade studies and documenting technical decisions.</li> <li>Preferred: knowledge of functional safety standards (IEC 61508, ISO 13849, or similar) and/or system safety (MIL-STD-882 or similar); experience supporting safety certifications or compliance efforts is a plus.</li> </ul> <h3>Competencies</h3> <ul> <li>Methodical, detail-oriented approach to requirements — you close loops and don't leave ambiguity on the table.</li> <li>Strong written and verbal communication skills; able to translate technical complexity into clear, precise requirement statements.</li> <li>Collaborative by nature — you build good working relationships with engineers and know how to facilitate productive cross-functional conversations.</li> <li>Comfortable working in a small team where you own your domain end-to-end.</li> </ul> <h3>Education</h3> <ul> <li>B.S. in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Computer Science, Systems Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, or a related field preferred.</li> <li>Master’s degree in Systems Engineering preferred.</li> </ul> <h3>Work Style</h3> <ul> <li>Hybrid, with a preference for local candidates who can work from our Philadelphia office at least three days per week.</li> </ul>