General Motors

Vehicle Active Safety and Autonomous Systems

Vehicle Active Safety and Autonomous Systems

Systems Safety Engineer for Super Cruise™ 

Automatic Parking Assist Validator

ASIL Safety Planning Across Suppliers

ISO 26262 Compliance Leader 

Real-World Integration Contributor

Project Overview / MIssion Objectives

As part of General Motors’ push toward advanced driver-assistance systems (ADAS) and full autonomy, the company developed and deployed cutting-edge features like Super Cruise™ (hands-free highway driving) and Automatic Parking Assist (self-parking in tight urban spaces).

These systems combined sensors, real-time processing, control logic, and human-machine interface layers, all underpinned by rigorous safety engineering to ensure reliable performance in dynamic environments. The mission: make autonomy trustworthy and transparent, through careful system design and standards-aligned safety planning.

Roles and Responsibilities

I served as a Systems Safety Engineer and technical contributor for GM’s active safety features, with deep involvement in the design validation and risk analysis of both Super Cruise™ and Automatic Parking Assist systems.

Key responsibilities included:

  • Leading hazard analysis, DFMEA, and FTA processes for lateral/longitudinal control modules used in Super Cruise and parking features

  • Developing and reviewing System Safety Plans (SSPs) and safety goals in alignment with ISO 26262 for ASIL-rated subsystems

  • Coordinating with Tier 1 suppliers to ensure component-level safety compliance and end-to-end traceability

  • Supporting software-hardware integration reviews and failure mode diagnostics during simulation and on-vehicle testing

  • Contributing to real-time risk mitigation strategies, including system fallback logic and driver handoff detection under edge cases

Legacy

My work at General Motors lives in the systems drivers now trust every day—hands-free highway cruising, self-parking in urban environments, and quiet, behind-the-scenes safety features that prevent accidents before they happen.

Helping bring Super Cruise™ and Automatic Parking Assist to production taught me what it means to engineer for human-machine interaction at scale. These weren’t just proof-of-concept systems—they had to perform reliably in the real world, across millions of miles and unpredictable edge cases.

I left GM with a sharpened command of structured safety engineering, a deeper appreciation for system-level coordination, and the experience of helping deliver autonomy that doesn’t just work—but works safely, transparently, and repeatedly.

Highlight: Engineering Safety for Hands-Free Driving & Parking Autonomy

The challenge of systems like Super Cruise™ and Automatic Parking isn’t just functional—it’s philosophical. How do you design for the edge case, the unpredictable, the handoff between machine and human?

I played a lead role in safety architecture and design validation for both features, ensuring:

  • Fault-tolerant behavior in critical edge cases, such as sensor dropouts or localization drift

  • Safe fallback and alert protocols for loss-of-tracking events or manual override failures

  • Failure mode propagation modeling across hardware/software interface layers

  • Audit-ready safety documentation that traced system behavior back to ASIL-classified safety goals

  • Supplier engagement to align independent control modules into a cohesive, fault-aware system

These were not experimental technologies—they are on the road now. My work helped ensure they got there safely and predictably.

Casey Hoffman ©2025

Casey Hoffman ©2025

Casey Hoffman ©2025