Systems engineering & functional safety learning
Targeted training and learning resources for the development of fundamental engineering skills, with a focus on Systems Engineering and Functional Safety. Taught by practising engineers and designed to provide you with the knowledge you need to hit the ground running on your next project.
The problem
You've heard about requirements traceability, MBSE or safety integrity levels in a meeting and nodded along.
You've been handed a requirements specification or a hazard log and been left to work it out.
You're expected to be competent on a live project, and nobody has the budget or time to give you the knowledge you know you need to deliver.
What Peak SSE does
Clarity
From requirements and interfaces to risk and safety integrity, each topic is broken down from first principles, and every term is explained before it is used.
Experience
Written and taught by practising engineers, using real-world examples to show what is at stake when it goes wrong.
Payoff
Every course is built around tasks you meet on real projects, so the benefit shows up in your work immediately.
What we teach
We believe Systems Engineering and Functional Safety provide a solid basis from which to build your engineering career in any industry, including safety-critical applications.
How complex systems are specified, modelled, integrated and proven to work: requirements, models, interfaces, and verification and validation, in any engineering domain.
How electrical, electronic and programmable systems are kept safe when things go wrong: risk, safety integrity levels, safety instrumented systems, the safety lifecycle and how it is all managed.
Courses
A growing library, starting with the foundations of functional safety.
A clear grounding in hazards and risk, the safety instrumented function, safety integrity levels, safety instrumented systems, the safety lifecycle and functional safety management, so you can follow, question and contribute to the safety work on your project.
Industries
Every sector has its own rules and vocabulary. We aim to give you the fundamental knowledge you need, whatever your chosen domain.
Free learning
Written guides and case study videos on systems engineering and functional safety, free to read and watch.
A safety instrumented system (SIS) brings a process to a safe state when danger arises. How IEC 61511 defines it, and what the Buncefield fire shows.
Read the guide
Interface management explained: what an interface is, why interfaces fail, interface control documents (ICDs) and the Mars Climate Orbiter units error.
Read the guide
IEC 61508 explained: the functional safety standard for electrical, electronic and programmable electronic safety-related systems, its parts and lifecycle.
Read the guide
Two safeguards on paper, none working on the night: what failed at Buncefield, and the lessons for safety instrumented systems.
Watch on YouTube
One file, two teams, two units: how an interface error lost a spacecraft, and what interface management is for.
Watch on YouTubeNews
News from across systems engineering and functional safety in plain terms: what changed, why it matters, and where it came from.
ISO/IEC/IEEE 21839, 21840 and 21841, the international standards on systems of systems, have all been under publication since 28 September 2026. Each will replace its 2019 edition.
Read more
NASA-HDBK-1004A, dated 26 October 2026, gives sample contract language for acquiring models and engineering data, and is free to download.
Read more
A new open-access paper in INCOSE's Systems Engineering journal sets out reusable patterns for using large language models across the life cycle, and lists its own limits.
Read more
Course updates
Leave your email and you'll hear when enrolment opens for each course, starting with Introduction to Functional Safety in November 2026, plus new guides and videos as they're published.
