Cloud Solution Architect

Ford • Dearborn, MI

16h • Remote

About The Position

At Ford Motor Company, we believe freedom of movement drives human progress. We also believe in providing you with the freedom to define and realize your dreams. With our incredible plans for the future of mobility, we have a wide variety of opportunities for you to accelerate your career potential as you help us define tomorrow’s transportation. If you’re looking for the chance to leverage advanced technology to redefine the transportation landscape, enhance the customer experience, and improve people’s lives: this is the opportunity for you. Join us and challenge your IT expertise and analytical skills to help create vehicles that are as smart as you are. To meet the growing needs of the Customer analytics business, the team is looking for a self-motivated, technically proficient individual to craft and shepherd coherent solutions. This will require collaboration with a range of stakeholders to clarify requirements, establish pragmatic approaches, and support and articulate decisions over time. You will join a cloud architecture team that works closely with engineering teams and other architects across the organization.

Requirements

• Extensive experience with Google Cloud Platform (GCP), specifically BigQuery, Vertex AI, Dataflow, Dataproc, Cloud Run, CloudSQL, Spanner and Apigee.
• Strong understanding of cloud security protocols, IAM, encryption, and complex network topologies.
• Proficiency in Enterprise Data Platforms, Data mesh architecture and data-driven architectural patterns.
• Hands-on experience with GitHub, SonarQube, Checkmarx, and FOSSA.
• Strong background in building Web Services and maintaining Clean Code standards.
• Requires a bachelor’s or foreign equivalent degree in computer science, information technology or a technology related field
• 5+ years of Software engineering experience using Java or Python developing services (APIs, REST, etc.)
• 2+ years of experience with Google Cloud Platform or other cloud service provider (AWS, Azure, etc.) and associated cloud components.
• Experience designing/architecting and running distributed systems in a production environment
• STRONG communications skills and cognitive agility - ability to engage in deep technical discussions with customers and peers, become a trusted technical advisor, and maintain good documentation

Nice To Haves

• AI development tools and frameworks (e.g., LangChain, LangGraph, or Agent Dev Kit) to accelerate the delivery of intelligent applications.
• Lead the architectural design of Agentic AI systems (multi-agent orchestration) and Generative AI solutions, including Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) patterns and LLM integration.
• Kubernetes (GKE): Experience managing containerized workloads at scale.
• Kafka/Event-Driven Design: Experience with high-throughput messaging and event-driven architectures.
• MLOps: Familiarity with the end-to-end lifecycle of machine learning models in production.
• Certifications: Google Professional Cloud Architect or Professional Machine Learning Engineer.
• Master’s degree in computer science, electrical engineering or a closely related field of study
• Familiarity with a breadth of programming languages, platforms, and systems
• Experience with asynchronous messaging and eventually consistent system design
• An agile, pragmatic, and empirical mindset
• Critical thinking, decision-making and leadership aptitudes
• Good organizational and problem-solving abilities
• MDM, Entity Resolution, Customer Analytics and Marketing Analytics experience is a huge plus.

Responsibilities

• Work with engineering teams to refine system designs, evangelizing for horizontal scalability, resilience, and Clean Code compliance.
• Partner with Product Managers to decompose complex business needs into incremental, production-ready user stories within an Agile/Sprint methodology.
• Assess and document the rationale and tradeoffs for technical decisions; contribute to the broader Cloud Architecture team to improve global practices.
• Utilize and improve CI/CD pipelines using GitHub and automated testing/security tools to maximize deployment efficiency and minimize risk.
• Serve as the primary architect for cloud solutions, ensuring "Secure-by-Design" principles are applied across Google Cloud services (Dataflow, Dataproc, CloudRun, CloudSQL, Spanner).
• Design and optimize cloud networking configurations, including VPCs, Service Controls, Load Balancing, and Private Service Connect to ensure high availability and low latency.
• Integrate security scanning and compliance into the architecture (utilizing Checkmarx, SonarQube, and FOSSA). Proactively address vulnerabilities in distributed systems and AI models (e.g., OWASP Top 10 for LLMs).
• Bolster "Data as a Product" practices by enforcing strict API standards and data contracts to ensure seamless, secure interoperability between services.
• Drive fiscal responsibility by right-sizing GCP resources and optimizing Generative AI architectures (token management/model selection) to maximize ROI.
• Apply Site Reliability Engineering principles to ensure high availability, minimize system latency, and lead root-cause analysis for complex, distributed system failures.
• Integrate security automation into CI/CD pipelines to ensure "Secure-by-Design" deployments while solving complex architectural trade-offs between speed, scale, and risk.
• Stay at the forefront of AI research, specifically regarding autonomous agents, prompt engineering etc

Benefits

• Immediate medical, dental, and prescription drug coverage
• Flexible family care, parental leave, new parent ramp-up programs, subsidized back-up child care 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: Senior