AI Program Manager

Ford • Dearborn, MI

1d • $132,800 - $250,800 • Hybrid

About The Position

In this role, you will champion our AI Big Bets program and lead workflow reimagination across the enterprise. You will fundamentally redefine how work gets done across engineering, manufacturing, and after-sales services by embedding AI to accelerate every step. While you do not need to be a hands-on coder or machine learning engineer, you must be a passionate, hands-on practitioner of AI tools. You should already use AI in your daily workflows to automate tasks, analyze data, and accelerate your own productivity. If you are ready to orchestrate matrixed teams, redesign complex business processes, automate program management using cutting-edge AI, and make high-stakes, rapid-fire decisions to scale or sunset AI experiments, we want to talk to you.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree in Engineering, Computer Science, Data Science, Business, or a related technical field.
• 6+ years of experience in program management, process engineering, product management, or technical leadership roles within a large, matrixed corporate environment.
• AI Practitioner Mentality: Deep, hands-on familiarity with modern AI tools (e.g., ChatGPT, Claude, Copilot, prompt engineering, AI-assisted project management, or workflow automation tools). You must be able to demonstrate how you use AI to optimize your own daily productivity.
• Experience in process mapping, baselining workflows, and driving enterprise change management.
• Proven track record of defining, collecting, and executing against leading and lagging KPIs.
• Exceptional executive-level communication skills, with the ability to distill complex technical concepts into clear, actionable business strategies.

Nice To Haves

• Bias for Action & Pragmatism: You run toward ambiguity. When handed a complex challenge, your instinct is to build a quick prototype, outline a framework, or draft a proposal first. You prefer a fast decision over a perfect one and pivot quickly when data dictates.
• Advanced degree (MBA or MS in a technical field).
• Experience managing enterprise-scale AI programs, digital transformation initiatives, or large-scale workflow re-engineering.
• Demonstrated experience conducting external benchmarking and competitive market analysis to inform strategic roadmaps.
• Familiarity with cloud platforms, FinOps, data pipelines, and AI experimentation toolchains.
• Experience in automotive, manufacturing, or supply chain sectors.
• Matrix Leadership skills: The ability to lead through influence rather than formal authority, fostering a culture of high accountability and psychological safety.

Responsibilities

• Conduct External Benchmarking & Market Analysis: Continuously monitor the external AI landscape, evaluating industry trends, competitor advancements, and best-in-class AI applications. Translate these external benchmarks into actionable insights to inform roadmaps across our AI Big Bets and internal capabilities.
• Lead Workflow Reimagination: Identify new AI opportunities by baselining and prioritizing existing workflows. You will build "reimagined" domain process maps that fundamentally redefine processes with AI, establishing clear business outcomes and identifying the specific AI enablers needed to accelerate each step.
• Drive Roadmaps: Develop the strategic roadmaps for AI Big Bets and capabilities based on the target-state vision for Ford to operate as a best-in-class enterprise
• Drive Enterprise-Level Change Management: Proactively plan and execute initiatives to drive adoption of newly reimagined workflows and central AI capabilities; co-create central training and playbooks to scale AI literacy and hands-on capability
• Drive Rapid Experimentation & Funnel Governance: Partner with business sponsors to capture problem statements, set up sandbox environments, and lead the rapid testing of AI concepts. You will own the process to decide whether an idea progresses into the AI development funnel and you will inform build-buy-partner decisions on AI solutions.
• Automate Program Management: Practice what you preach by applying AI productivity tools, LLMs, and automation platforms to streamline your own workflows (e.g., automated status reporting, meeting synthesis, risk flags, and task tracking).
• Build Intelligent Dashboards: Own and maintain highly transparent, automated program dashboards that track leading/lagging metrics, program status, and projected ROI for senior leadership. Serve as a trusted partner to AI FinOps teams to establish visibility on AI spend, ensuring transparency on ROI in the dashboards.
• Resolve Blockers & Unblock Teams: Proactively identify dependencies, surface trade-offs to leadership, and secure resources to keep development moving at a rapid pace across engineering, data science, manufacturing, quality, and supply chain.
• Deliver Executive Storytelling: Translate complex, technical AI initiatives into concise, high-impact executive communications that clearly outline business value and risk-adjusted paths forward.
• Evolve the AI Operating Model: Define and refine how the Central AI team engages with business units across intake, prioritization, funding, and support, and codify this as clear ways of working

Benefits

• 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 Year’s Day
• Paid time off and the option to purchase additional vacation time.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Manager