Controls Engineer

Ford • Redford Charter Twp, MI,US

34d • Onsite

About The Position

Ford Motor Company is undergoing a historic industrial shift, transforming manufacturing by scaling EVs, integrating advanced technologies like humanoid robotics, additive manufacturing, AI vision, and digital platforms into a seamless operating system. The Advanced Industrial Technology & Platforms (AITP) organization is leading this transformation, focusing on building scalable systems and platforms that deliver enterprise business value. The Advanced Industrial Technology and Platforms (ATP) team is a new, centralized organization designed to accelerate Ford's digital evolution and manufacturing excellence. This team integrates directly into manufacturing sites, partners across various teams, and drives innovation from concept to implementation. The Sight Vertical within AITP is responsible for building an end-to-end business around AI/ML anomaly detection products, operating through two product families: Sight.Sense (parametric data anomaly detection) and Sight.Vision (image data anomaly detection). These products converge on the Sight Anomaly Platform, built on Ford's Core Systems layer, aiming for scalable delivery of quality assurance and zero-downtime, zero-defect manufacturing. The Sight Vertical operates through cross-functional product teams, with Product Managers defining problems and priorities, and Engineers and Product Designers delivering solutions. Engineering Managers are responsible for people, capacity, technical systems, and engineering health. This role is a vertical-level position working across both product families, with priorities agreed upon by the Heads of Product and their Engineering Managers. ATP Core provides essential non-product engineering expertise, including enterprise standards, architecture, industrial controls, cybersecurity, and platform guidance. This role has a matrix reporting line into ATP Core to ensure alignment with these standards and access to expertise.

Requirements

• Bachelor's degree in Electrical, Electronic, Controls, Automation or Mechatronics Engineering, or a related technical field, or equivalent demonstrable experience.
• Typically 8+ years of hands-on industrial controls engineering experience in manufacturing, including delivery on capital equipment programmes.
• Strong PLC programming and diagnostic capability across at least one major platform (Siemens TIA Portal/S7, Rockwell/Allen-Bradley Studio 5000, or equivalent), plus HMI and SCADA experience.
• Demonstrable hands-on experience integrating machine vision or camera-based inspection systems with controls — capture triggers, part-present and cycle signals, lighting control, reject handling and station interlocks.
• Solid grasp of industrial networking and protocols — Profinet, Ethernet/IP, OPC-UA, Modbus — and of plant network architecture.
• Hands-on experience moving plant-floor data into applications and platforms using MQTT and structured message formats such as JSON, including configuration of industrial middleware or integration tooling — for example DeviceWise, Node-RED, Ford crossPLC, HiveMQ or equivalent .
• Ability to read, review and approve electrical, pneumatic and hydraulic drawings and control panel designs.
• Practical experience of machine build, run-off, installation and commissioning, including issue resolution under launch pressure.
• Demonstrated experience applying, governing or authoring engineering standards and specifications, and handling deviation and waiver decisions.
• Working knowledge of OT cybersecurity requirements for plant-floor compute across both Windows and Linux-based systems — segregation, hardening, patching and access control.
• Strong safety discipline on live manufacturing equipment, including lockout (ECPL), permits, risk assessment and machine safety requirements.
• Demonstrable experience mentoring engineers and influencing without authority across engineering, plant, IT and supplier stakeholders.
• Willingness and ability to travel internationally to plants, OEMs and equipment run-off.
• Fluent professional English.

Nice To Haves

• Master's degree in a controls, automation or systems engineering discipline.
• Familiarity with Ford controls standards and systems — FAST, OMS, MIDAS, OPIC, OneSpot, GPDS, QWX, WMA, QLS-CM, M/FIS.
• Experience of Virtual Commissioning tooling and practice.
• Experience deploying industrial PCs, DXD, edge compute and sensor instrumentation into live production environments.
• Experience integrating AI/ML, condition monitoring, gauging or quality systems with controls.
• Experience of energy monitoring and reduction initiatives on new and retool programmes.
• Additional European language (Spanish or German).

Responsibilities

• Support the ATP Core Industrial Controls team in the implementation of FAST and OMS standards for Sight-related programme engineering activity, and ensure alignment with the global Bill of Process (BOP) and Bill of Design (BOD).
• Own and administer the controls-related procedures and specifications applying to Sight products, keeping them current, proportionate and usable.
• Review programme deviations and waiver requests from OEMs and plants against FAST and OMS, and provide practical guidance towards compliant solutions.
• Represent the Sight Vertical on relevant subcommittees, and support global supplier follow-up, communication and feedback.
• Monitor the use of structured software specifications, and support GDME-led training for plant teams and OEMs so code is consistent and maintainable.
• Define the standard controls interface patterns by which Sense and Vision products acquire data and return outputs — tag and data-array structures, handshakes, event and polled acquisition, image capture triggers, part-present and cycle signals, reject handling and interlocks, and HMI interaction.
• Specify controls and instrumentation requirements for new and retooled equipment so that monitoring and inspection capability is designed in at source rather than retrofitted, working with programme teams and OEMs — including camera mounting provision, lighting supply and network drops for Vision products.
• Provide senior controls expertise to complex or first-of-type deployments, including legacy equipment with limited instrumentation, no camera provision or constrained networks.
• Conduct programme approvals and detailed review of electrical, pneumatic and hydraulic drawings, and participate in equipment PROTAG reviews, follow-ups and sign-off.
• Lead controls issue resolution during product, installation and commissioning, and support fresh-eyes reviews on other programmes.
• Lead and support Virtual Commissioning of controls software for Sight-related systems with GME and OEMs, validating logic virtually to protect timing.
• Enable the plant-floor data flows Sight products depend on — MES and IIoT interfaces such as FIS, QWX, WMA, QTS/QLS-CM and equivalent systems — including the middleware and message layer that carries data from controls to platform, using MQTT, structured payloads such as JSON, and tooling including DeviceWise, Node-RED, Ford’s crossPLC and HiveMQ.
• Identify power drop and electrical infrastructure requirements for Sight hardware with facilities teams, ensuring correct sizing and connection provision.
• Support and evidence cybersecurity compliance for CPN, MPN and non-OA plant-floor PCs used by Sight products, including industrial PCs, DXD, edge compute and GPU inference nodes.
• Implement and govern OT security protocols across both Windows and Linux-based plant-floor systems — hardening, patching, network segregation, remote access and identity — protecting manufacturing assets while keeping products operable.
• Act as the primary technical liaison with IT to resolve interface issues and ensure reliable connectivity between shop-floor hardware and enterprise systems.
• Coordinate and communicate cybersecurity updates and issues affecting Sight deployments, and make compliance status visible.
• Support the global controls obsolescence effort, maintaining a structured migration path for legacy automation and plant-floor compute hardware that Sight products depend on.
• Reduce controls engineering effort per deployment by developing reusable standard programmes, function blocks, configuration templates and acceptance criteria.
• Support product strategies and specifications, and provide cost inputs into product P&Ls where controls scope is required.
• Support plants with troubleshooting and resolution of production-related downtime associated with Sight products — PLC programmes, HMI screens, network and device faults.
• Coach the Product Launch and Deployment Engineer and software engineers in controls fundamentals, plant realities and safe working practice.
• Build and share reusable technical guidance — standards, Single Point Lessons, reference programmes and commissioning checklists.
• Actively reduce single-person dependency, ensuring controls knowledge critical to Sight products is documented and held by more than one person.
• Bring plant and controls reality into product discovery and architecture decisions early, so designs are deployable before they are committed.

What This Job Offers

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