Autonomous Mobility Product Manager

Ford • Redford Charter Twp, MI,US

1d • $115,500 - $218,100 • Hybrid

About The Position

Ford's ATP Forge team is building the future of advanced robotics and automation for industrial systems. We are seeking an Autonomous Mobility Product Manager & Product Development Leader to own and grow the strategy, roadmap, and delivery of Ford's Autonomous Mobility product family — spanning Automated Vehicle Marshalling (AVM), Autonomous Mobile Robots (AMR), and Autonomous Mobile Monitoring (AMM). This role sits at the intersection of product strategy and hands-on technical leadership: you will define what we build and why, lead a team that builds and integrates it, and drive it from pilot through scaled deployment across Ford manufacturing sites. This is a rare opportunity to build a product family from the ground up, own its P&L-style outcomes, and lead a growing team of engineers and technologists shaping the future of autonomous manufacturing at Ford.

Requirements

• Bachelor's degree in engineering, robotics, computer science, or a related discipline (or equivalent experience).
• 10+ years of experience spanning product management and/or technical engineering delivery for complex and safety-critical technical products (hardware/software/system + operational deployment), with a focus on automation, robotics, or autonomous mobility.
• At least 2 years of experience in a manufacturing environment.
• Demonstrated ability to lead and align cross-functional teams at scale, driving decisions and outcomes through influence.
• Strong requirements and execution discipline: ability to translate ambiguous problems into crisp scope, measurable success criteria, and release plans.
• Experience using data and operational feedback to prioritize, iterate, and improve product performance over time.
• Excellent communication skills, able to engage effectively with both executive stakeholders and engineering teams.

Nice To Haves

• 5+ years of leadership experience, with demonstrated ability to lead technical teams.
• Experience delivering robotics systems in real-world deployments (e.g., AMRs/AGVs, vehicle marshalling, robotics navigation, fleet management, autonomy behaviors, HMI/operator workflows, teleoperation).
• Experience taking products from discovery to prototype to pilot to scaled multi-site rollout, including change management and operational readiness.
• Experience applying Manufacturing Readiness Level (MRL) or similar technology/manufacturing maturity frameworks (e.g., TRL) to manage staged product development and de-risk scale-up decisions.
• Familiarity with robotics platform concepts: localization/mapping, motion planning, safety behaviors, teleoperation, fleet orchestration, edge compute, and industrial networking/integration.
• Strong understanding of reliability/serviceability practices (telemetry, failure modes, spares strategy, maintainability, support playbooks).
• Experience with industrial safety processes and standards (risk assessments, safe operating procedures, change control).
• Vendor/supplier management experience (RFx support, supplier scorecards, roadmap alignment, performance management).
• Knowledge and experience with Ford Production Systems and standards.
• MBA or Master's degree in engineering, robotics, computer science, or a related field.

Responsibilities

• Own the product vision, strategy, and multi-release roadmap for the Autonomous Mobility product family (AVM, AMR, AMM), balancing near-term plant wins with long-term platform scalability and architecture.
• Lead discovery with plant and operations partners to identify high-value use cases; define personas, workflows, constraints, and measurable outcomes across the product family.
• Own creation and quality of product requirements (PRDs, user stories, acceptance criteria) spanning robotics behavior, integration, safety, and operational readiness.
• Manage the product development process using the Manufacturing Readiness Level (MRL) framework (MRL 0 to MRL 10), establishing clear gate criteria and evidence requirements at each stage to objectively assess technology and manufacturing maturity before advancing the product family from concept through full-rate deployment.
• Define and track product KPIs such as uptime/availability, MTTR, throughput/cycle-time impact, deployment lead time, safety incident reduction, and total cost of ownership.
• Create a forward path for platform evolution (e.g., vision-guided navigation, fleet orchestration across product lines) while ensuring near-term decisions don't block future capability.
• Lead a team of engineers responsible for system design, integration, validation, and deployment of the Autonomous Mobility product family.
• Drive cross-functional execution with engineering: prioritize backlogs, define scope, manage tradeoffs, and deliver releases that perform reliably in real industrial environments.
• Provide technical leadership to assess technology capability, ensure delivery of system performance, and apply project management discipline to achieve program timing.
• Teach, coach, and mentor employees, peers, and leadership; document technical knowledge and establish engineering and product standards.
• Use MRL assessments to govern pilot-to-scale decisions, ensuring all Autonomous Mobility products only progress to broader plant rollout once risk, reliability, and production-process criteria are met; drive corrective action plans for programs that stall at a given MRL gate.
• Oversee delivery of tangible automation enablers that improve cost, quality, and efficiency across plant operations.
• Collaborate with cross-functional teams — ATP Core, ATP Sight, Global Manufacturing Engineering, Material Planning and Logistics, Manufacturing IT, Purchasing, Safety, and plant operations — to ensure successful, safe project delivery.
• Partner with Purchasing and suppliers to evaluate solutions, shape vendor roadmaps, and benchmark new advanced technologies; establish clear performance expectations and accountability mechanisms.
• Influence technical and business decisions across stakeholders — aligning on architecture choices, sourcing approaches, and the operating model (support, monitoring, maintenance).
• Ensure identification and application of lessons learned across the product family.

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