{"id":3297806,"url":"https://alion.io/job/queue-lead-systems-engineer","title":"Lead Systems Engineer","company":{"id":3787073,"name":"Queue","domain":"queue.inc","url":"https://alion.io/company/queue-3","size_band":"11-50","is_staffing_agency":false,"employer_type":"direct","is_intermediary":false,"listed_via":null,"ats_vendor":"Ashby","truth_index":{"grade":"B","score":75,"open_postings":6,"ghost_share":0,"stale_share":1,"repost_share":0,"time_to_fill_p50_days":null,"computed_at":"2026-11-01T06:10:25Z"}},"role":"Industrial Engineering","role_family":"Industrial Engineering","seniority":"lead","employment_type":"full_time","work_mode":"hybrid","remote_scope":null,"remote_scope_basis":null,"remote_working_hours":null,"hiring_geo_confidence":"structured","locations":["Newark, United States"],"countries":["US"],"hiring_countries":[],"hiring_countries_total":0,"salary":null,"salary_estimate":{"min_usd":113000,"max_usd":230000,"period":"year","method":"role_seniority_country_remote_cell","sample_n":1961},"experience_years_min":8,"visa_sponsorship":false,"relocation_package":false,"has_equity":false,"technologies":[{"name":"FMEA","optional":false},{"name":"Human-in-the-Loop","optional":false},{"name":"IEC 62304","optional":true},{"name":"ISO 14971","optional":true}],"status":"live","first_seen_at":"2026-09-19T15:13:17Z","employer_posted_date":"2026-09-19","last_verified_at":"2026-11-01T17:02:48Z","board_verified":true,"closed_at":null,"days_open":43,"trust":{"level":"ok","repost_count":null,"flags":[],"days_open":43},"description":"About Us\nWe're Queue, the world's first fully autonomous robotic pharmacy. We go from sealed wholesale bottles to filled, verified prescription vials with zero human involvement.\nWe built Queue because no one should ever have to wait in line for the medicines they need. One in three US pharmacies has shut down. Pharmacists are overworked to a breaking point. And patients are paying the price. Queue fixes that. Pharmacists get to practice pharmacy again - counseling patients, catching interactions, doing the work only they can do. And patients get their prescriptions in 60 seconds or less, any time, anywhere.\nWe're backed by over $18 million from Alleycorp, Riot Ventures, Ubiquity Ventures, House Capital, and others who believe the pharmacy system is broken and that robotics can fix it. Queue was founded by Nick Desai (6x founder, previously CEO of Heal) and Joshua Liu (previously Tesla, Waymo, and Zipline).\nAbout the Role\nAs Queue's second systems engineer, you'll be a technical leader and a true partner to the Head of Systems Engineering. You'll hold real authority over the architecture, safety, and regulatory direction of a fully autonomous system that dispenses medication to patients - with no human in the loop to catch a mistake.\nThis is a staff / principal level role. Together we'll build Queue's systems engineering culture: how we make decisions, how we define \"safe enough,\" and how we prove it to ourselves, our partners, and the regulators who oversee pharmacy. You'll set the bar others work to, and your judgment will shape the company as we scale from pilot sites to nationwide deployment.\nWhat You'll Own\nTechnical Leadership & Culture\nPartner with the Head of Systems Engineering to define SE processes, standards, tooling, and review practices across the company\n\nOwn critical architectural decisions end to end, with authority to set direction and hold the line on margins, safety, and quality\n\nAct as the technical integrator across hardware, software, autonomy, operations, and pharmacy teams\n\nMentor engineers across disciplines and grow systems thinking throughout the organization\n\nInfluence roadmap and product strategy alongside executive leadership\n\nAutonomy Safety & SOTIF\nDefine and own the system safety strategy for a fully autonomous pharmacy, from hazard analysis through a defensible safety case\n\nApply Safety of the Intended Function (SOTIF) methods to identify and reduce risk from performance limitations, edge cases, and unknown-unsafe scenarios - not just component failures\n\nLead hazard analyses (e.g., STPA, FMEA, FTA) spanning perception, dispensing verification, software, and human interaction\n\nSet safety metrics, acceptance criteria, and residual-risk arguments; build the evidence (simulation, testing, field data) that supports them\n\nEstablish safety monitoring and incident-learning loops as the fleet grows\n\nRegulatory Strategy\nOwn the regulatory strategy for autonomous dispensing across state Boards of Pharmacy and relevant federal authorities\n\nTranslate regulator objectives (patient safety, accuracy, traceability, accountability) into system requirements and verifiable evidence\n\nRepresent Queue's engineering case directly with regulators, pharmacy partners, and standards bodies\n\nHelp shape emerging regulatory frameworks for pharmacy automation, working with legal, pharmacy, and business leadership\n\nArchitecture & Model-Driven Tradeoffs\nOwn system requirements, interfaces, and performance, reliability, and safety budgets\n\nBuild and maintain system-level models for throughput, reliability, safety, and cost; use them to drive quantitative trade studies\n\nResolve ambiguity through first-principles analysis and clear, well-documented decisions\n\nArchitect for scale, serviceability, and field reliability, updating assumptions as manufacturing and field data arrive\n\nQualifications / Experiences\nMust Have:\n8-12+ years of engineering experience on complex, safety-critical products, including senior technical leadership of system architecture or system safety\n\nTrack record of shipping systems with real safety, operational, and economic consequences. Direct robotics experience isn't required; we welcome candidates from autonomous vehicles, aerospace, medical devices, and industrial automation\n\nDeep expertise in system safety for autonomous or software-intensive systems, including SOTIF (ISO 21448) and hazard analysis methods (STPA, FMEA, FTA)\n\nExperience building and defending safety cases or equivalent risk arguments with external stakeholders\n\nDeep expertise in system architecture, requirements definition, interface design, and design trades\n\nFluency across hardware, software, and operations, with depth in at least one of: autonomy/perception, embedded or distributed software, electronics, or mechatronics\n\nDemonstrated ability to set technical direction and influence without formal authority across teams and leadership\n\nFirst-principles thinker who is data-driven, decisive under uncertainty, and operates with high ownership and low ego\n\nNice to Have:\nExperience with autonomy and functional safety standards such as UL 4600, ISO 26262, IEC 61508, or ISO 10218\n\nExperience with medical device or aerospace safety frameworks (e.g., ISO 14971, IEC 62304, ARP4754A/ARP4761)\n\nDirect experience engaging regulators (e.g., state agencies, NHTSA, FAA, FDA, DEA, Boards of Pharmacy) on novel technology\n\nExperience shaping standards, policy, or regulatory frameworks for emerging technology\n\nExperience building an engineering function or processes at an early-stage company\n\nExperience scaling autonomous systems from pilot to fleet deployment\n\nHow We Hire\nRecruiter Screen: (30 min)\n\nManager Interview/Technical (90 min)\n\nTechnical Interview: (60 min)\n\nLeadership Interview: (60 min)\n\nWhat We Offer\nEarly-stage equity in automated pharmacy dispensing at scale\n\nDirect impact - your work helps put medication safely in patients’ hands\n\nSmall team, zero bureaucracy, high trust\n\nHard problems: distributed systems, safety-critical software, regulatory compliance, real-time hardware integration\n\nCompensation & Benefits\nCompetitive salary\n\nMeaningful early-stage equity\n\nHealth, 401(k), unlimited PTO\n\nWhy Join Us Now?\nImpact & Growth\nDirect Patient Impact: Your work will improve healthcare outcomes for millions of patients\n\nMarket Leadership: Ground-floor opportunity to define an entirely new category of healthcare technology\n\nTechnical Innovation: Work on genuinely novel problems at the intersection of AI, robotics, and healthcare\n\nCareer Acceleration: High-visibility role with significant growth potential as the company scales\n\nTeam and Culture\nWorld-Class Team: Work alongside exceptional engineers, AI researchers, and healthcare experts\n\nReports to the Head of Systems Engineering with significant autonomy and influence\n\nInnovation Focus: Culture that prioritizes breakthrough thinking and rapid experimentation\n\nMission-Driven: Team united around the goal of transforming healthcare through technology\n\nOur Values\nServant Leadership: Make those around you better. We serve our teams the way Queue serves communities: 4,000 pharmacies close each year and deserts are spreading - we’re here to reverse that.\n\nDo the Hard Things: Healthcare, hardware, and company-building are all hard. We do them anyway. Convenience for us is life-changing for those we serve.\n\nOwn Your Work: Be accountable; take pride in what you ship. Queue lives and dies by what you do - own it fully.\n\nDefault is Now: There’s never a better time than today. Default to action: what can we prove, learn, or simplify right now?\n\nContact: If you have any questions, please contact us ","description_format":"text","description_chars":7680,"description_truncated":false,"requirements":{"experience_years_min":8,"management_years_min":null,"team_size_min":null,"manages_managers":false,"education":null,"security_clearance":false,"languages":[]},"benefits":["Equity","Unlimited PTO"],"hiring_locations":[{"name":"United States","iso":"US","kind":"country"}],"hiring_excludes":[],"relocation_offered":false,"industries":["Industrial Robotics","Laboratory & Pharmaceutical Robotics"],"lifecycle":[{"event":"open","at":"2026-10-26T22:23:58Z"}],"visa":[],"liveness":{"score":29,"band":"fade","label":"Fading","p_open":1,"p_active":0.64,"p_room":0.45,"age_days":42,"expected_fill_days":27,"reasons":["conf:1","win:tail"],"computed_at":"2026-11-01T06:10:25Z"},"pay":null,"html_url":"https://alion.io/job/queue-lead-systems-engineer","json_url":"https://alion.io/job/queue-lead-systems-engineer.json","meta":{"generated_at":"2026-11-01T18:04:06Z","cache_seconds":300,"methodology":"https://alion.io/methodology","terms":"https://alion.io/terms","contact":"https://alion.io/contact","api":"https://alion.io/developers","about":"Alion is a live layer of people, companies and AI agents: who they are, whether they are real and active right now, what they do and how to work with them, readable by people and by agents and paid per call.","catalog":"https://alion.io/catalog.json","usage":{"tier":"crawler_verified","counted_by":"address","units_charged":1,"used_today":27640,"day_limit":null,"remaining_today":null,"minute_limit":300,"resets_at":"2026-11-02T00:00:00Z"}},"offers":[{"id":"company.slices","title":"One company in depth, by slice","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.02,"usd":0.002,"plus_per_slice":{"credits":0.05,"usd":0.005}},"unit":"per company, plus each slice with data","note":"the employer in depth","call":{"mcp_tool":"get_company","arguments":{"id":3787073},"rest":"https://alion.io/mcp/rest/get_company?id=3787073"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.slices&for=job%2Fqueue-lead-systems-engineer"},{"id":"market.stats","title":"A market slice: pay, demand and time to fill","status":"live","price":{"credits":1,"usd":0.1},"unit":"per slice","note":"pay, demand and time to fill for this role and place","call":{"mcp_tool":"market_stats"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=market.stats&for=job%2Fqueue-lead-systems-engineer"},{"id":"job.search","title":"Open jobs by role, technology, place, pay and visa","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.02,"usd":0.002},"unit":"per posting in a list","note":"similar open postings","call":{"mcp_tool":"search_jobs"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=job.search&for=job%2Fqueue-lead-systems-engineer"},{"id":"company.verify","title":"Is this company real and active right now","status":"pilot","price":null,"unit":"per company","request":{"url":"https://alion.io/catalog/request","method":"POST","body":"{\"offer\": \"company.verify\", \"for\": \"job/queue-lead-systems-engineer\", \"note\": \"what you need it for\"}"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.verify&for=job%2Fqueue-lead-systems-engineer"}],"agent":{"mcp":"https://alion.io/mcp/jobs","mcp_open":"https://alion.io/mcp/open","next":[{"tool":"get_job","arguments":{"id":3297806}},{"tool":"search_jobs","arguments":{"company":"queue.inc","detail":"compact"}},{"tool":"match_people","arguments":{"job_id":3297806},"note":"people open to offers who fit this vacancy"}],"note":"The same data through MCP tools: https://alion.io/mcp/open needs no sign-in (compact searches, postings, people); https://alion.io/mcp with an Alion account has everything. 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