Exterior Structural Casting Technical Specialist

Ford Motor Company • Dearborn, MI

11d • $115,500 - $218,100 • Hybrid

About The Position

Ford’s Product Development organization is hiring a technical specialist within Exterior Structural Castings, Vehicle Hardware Engineering. The role is responsible for technical content, strategy, and processes related to castings, ensuring robust design and delivery of components and vehicle systems. The specialist leads Ford’s global castings product strategy across concept development, business case approval, supplier and internal manufacturing partnerships, product development, verification and validation, launch and sign-off, ongoing support, and field quality assurance. The role also develops casting team members, oversees foundation documents and prevention of recurrence, and guides standardized tools, methods, and execution.

The position leads casting design and development for structural systems, expands casting technologies across Ford and Lincoln vehicle lines, and oversees simulation and engineering standards for structural castings. It collaborates with product development, manufacturing, packaging, attributes teams, and suppliers to develop efficient large-casting solutions for body-in-white, frame/subframe, and battery structures. The specialist supports performance and quality issue resolution and signs off on designs, parts, and assemblies at specified development and production milestones.

The position is leadership level 6, with a stated salary range of $115,500–$218,100. It is hybrid and requires being onsite four or more days per week. Visa sponsorship is unavailable; candidates must be legally authorized to work in the United States.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering, metallurgical engineering, or a related field.
• At least 10 years of automotive engineering and/or manufacturing experience, or experience in a similar industry, including direct team leadership responsibility for delivering structural castings.
• At least 5 years of engineering experience with high-pressure die-casting design and manufacturing processes, including secondary operations such as trimming, straightening, and quality checks.
• At least 5 years of engineering experience with alloys, especially those used for structural castings and advanced lightweight materials, and associated joining technologies.
• At least 5 years of engineering experience using CAE to guide efficient, robust design and system execution.
• At least 5 years of engineering experience creating and applying DFMEAs, PFMEAs, control plans, standards, requirements, and specifications.

Nice To Haves

• Master’s degree in an engineering discipline.
• Strong written and oral communication skills.
• 8D and 5Why corrective-action and problem-solving skills.
• Experience with DMAIC project methodology.
• Familiarity with MAGMA software.
• Microsoft Office experience.

Responsibilities

• Lead casting design, development, and implementation for Structural Systems Engineering, including body-in-white, frames/subframes, and battery structures.
• Lead and develop a team of casting engineers to expand use of high- and low-pressure die casting, thixo-casting/thixo-molding, and rheocasting across Ford and Lincoln vehicle lines.
• Manage the engineering team responsible for forming simulations of cast designs, evaluating flow, fill, pressure and temperature distribution, and solidification; use simulation data to guide design changes and tooling and process development.
• Lead development and management of engineering specifications, design rules, engineering requirements, virtual test methods, first-pick lists, and modular designs for high-pressure die-cast vehicle structures.
• Identify, develop, and implement technologies to improve the efficiency of structural castings.
• Collaborate with product development, manufacturing, packaging, attributes teams, and suppliers to develop large structural castings for future vehicle applications.
• Guide development of manufacturing-efficient casting solutions that combine features and functions of multiple stamped parts and reduce assembly complexity.
• Support actions to achieve noise, vibration, and harshness, durability, and safety objectives, working with analysis teams to develop efficient solutions to identified problems.
• Support creation of design solutions and development of manufacturing processes to ensure part quality and performance.
• Work with external suppliers and Ford manufacturing teams to meet casting component and final assembly dimensional requirements.
• Sign off on designs before milestone completion and production tooling kickoff to support component and vehicle analysis.
• Sign off on final parts and assemblies before builds, certification testing, and production startup.
• Support troubleshooting of supplier prototype and production processes to address part-quality issues.
• Develop casting team members’ professional capabilities and oversee foundation documents, prevention of recurrence, and standardized casting tools, methods, and execution.

Benefits

• Immediate medical, dental, vision, and prescription drug coverage.
• Paid parental leave, new-parent ramp-up programs, and subsidized backup child care.
• Family-building benefits, including adoption and surrogacy expense reimbursement and fertility treatments.
• Vehicle discount program for employees and family members, and management leases.
• Tuition assistance.
• Employee resource groups.
• Paid time off for individual and team community service.
• Vacation time, sick/personal time, and paid holidays, including the period between Christmas Eve and New Year’s Day.

What This Job Offers

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