Director, IVI Systems & SW Product Engineering
Dearborn, MI - USA
Job Summary
The Director of IVI Systems and Software Product Engineering is the primary architect of the execution path for Fords next-generation digital cockpit. This role serves as the technical glue for the organization leading a high-performing global team that transforms visionary UX intent into high-quality customer-ready software. Operating at the intersection of deep technical expertise and product ownership the Director is responsible for the end-to-end engineering lifecyclefrom early feasibility and architectural definition to production release and over-the-air (OTA) enhancements. By scaling the SPE framework this leader ensures that every feature is technically sound safe and delivered with the rigor required for zero field failures.
Responsibilities
You Will...
- Strategic Feature Lifecycle Management: Own and drive the end-to-end technical execution of the IVI portfolio. Ensure technical feasibility integration and quality across all vehicle milestones maintaining a deep architectural understanding of system behaviors (SOA CAN and cloud extensions).
- High-Level Design & Traceability: Lead the translation and traceability between Product Systems and UX. Oversee the creation of Feature HLDs and system APIs ensuring they align with platform constraints and vehicle configurations.
- Technical Collaboration & Product Truth: Act as the engineering lead within the Triad partnership (Product Design Technical Strategy). Institutionalize architecture and design reviews to confirm specification completeness and technical alignment before implementation begins.
- Partner & Ecosystem Engineering: Serve as the executive technical liaison to external technology partners. Oversee API integration feature contract negotiations and compliance with internal architectural standards.
- Agile Governance & PI Planning: Lead the technical input for Program Increment (PI) Planning. Coordinate development OKRs document engineering commitments and ensure that technical gaps or open architecture issues are visible and tracked at the leadership level.
- Risk Engineering & Mitigation: Proactively identify and mitigate architecture-level and integration risks. Lead Change Request (CR) impact assessments providing technical cost/timing estimates and risk analysis across affected ECUs and software layers.
- Defect Triage & Quality Strategy: Establish the strategy for defect root cause isolation. Prioritize and assign complex defects based on platform impact and customer experience ensuring the backlog is technically scoped and prioritized for the engineering teams.
- Full-Stack Validation & Sign-Off: Accountable for the technical sign-off of feature releases. Ensure robust validation across simulated environments (HIL/SIL) and in-vehicle testing covering everything from UI responsiveness to middleware and actuator-level outputs.
- Continuous Improvement & OTA Strategy: Lead the delivery of over-the-air (OTA) enhancements and performance improvements utilizing platform diagnostics and customer data to drive post-launch excellence.
- Executive Visibility & Metrics: Maintain technical dashboards that track feature coverage architecture readiness and open risks. Report to senior leadership with a focus on engineering-level gaps and proposed technical mitigations (Sagas/Epics/Stories).
Qualifications
Youll Have...
- Education: Bachelors degree in Computer Science Electrical Engineering or a related technical field.
- Experience: 10 years in automotive software or consumer electronics with a focus on vehicle embedded development HMI and Infotainment systems.
- Leadership: Proven success as a Leader of Leaders managing large engineering organizations through high-stakes vehicle program deliveries.
- Technical Breadth: Deep expertise in embedded systems architecture cloud interactions and the translation of UX intent into implementation tasks.
- Systems Engineering: Mastery of requirement decomposition API contract negotiation and cross-stack integration.
- Communication: Exceptional ability to align senior stakeholders across Design Product and Safety (ASO) on technical execution paths.
You may also have...
- Data-Driven Prioritization: Experience using DTUX or similar analytics to drive engineering prioritization and feature enhancements.
- Safety Expertise: Advanced knowledge of Functional Safety (FuSa) and ISO 26262 standards.
- Advanced Degree: Masters degree in Engineering or an MBA.
- Ecosystem Experience: Direct experience managing technical relationships with major silicon or software ecosystem partners.
What youll receive in return
As part of the Ford family youll enjoy excellent compensation and a comprehensive benefits package that includes generous PTO retirement savings and stock investment plans incentive compensation and much more. Youll also experience exciting opportunities for professional and personal growth and recognition.
Our benefits summary can be found here:
As an established global company we offer the benefit of choice. You can choose what your Ford future will look like: will your story span the globe or keep you close to home Will your career be a deep dive into what you love or a series of new teams and new skills Will you be a leader a changemaker a technical expert a culture builderor all of the above No matter what you choose we offer a work life that works for you including:
Immediate medical dental vision and prescription drug coverage
Flexible family care days paid parental leave new parent ramp-up programs subsidized back-up child care and more
Family building benefits including adoption and surrogacy expense reimbursement fertility treatments and more
Vehicle discount program for employees and family members and management leases
Tuition assistance
Established and active employee resource groups
Paid time off for individual and team community service
A generous schedule of paid holidays including the week between Christmas and New Years Day
Paid time off and the option to purchase additional vacation time.
This position is a leadership level 4.
Visa sponsorship is not available for this position.
Candidates for positions with Ford Motor Company must be legally authorized to work in the United States. Verification of employment eligibility will be required at the time of hire.
We are an Equal Opportunity Employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race religion color age sex national origin sexual orientation gender identity disability status or protected veteran the United States if you need a reasonable accommodation for the online application process due to a disability please call 1-.
Onsite work of up to three days per week may be required for candidates within commuting distance of a Ford hub location. #LI-Remote #LI-MB3
Required Experience:
Director
Key Skills
About Company
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