Forward Deployed Engineer Advanced Manufacturing, Ford Energy

Ford Motor Company • Dearborn, MI

4d • $115,000 - $192,900 • Hybrid

About The Position

Ford Energy is seeking a hands-on individual contributor to build and deploy custom software for advanced manufacturing environments. The role sits at the intersection of software engineering, manufacturing operations, industrial data, cybersecurity, and business impact. The engineer will embed with plant teams, understand automated manufacturing systems, and develop solutions that improve throughput, uptime, scrap, traceability, production launches, and real-time operational visibility.

The position works across application development, GCP cloud infrastructure, manufacturing data pipelines, IIoT and edge architectures, MQTT messaging, OPC-UA connectivity, MES and automation integrations, secure network and data flows, and operational analytics. The engineer will collaborate with manufacturing, controls, maintenance, quality, process engineering, product, operations, and business teams to identify problems, validate data, understand constraints, and deliver software for real facility conditions.

Ford Energy is developing a software-defined, AI-native manufacturing engineering capability using connected assets, industrial protocols, real-time data, analytics, automation, and applied AI/ML. This is a hybrid position requiring onsite work four or more days per week, reporting to the Software Engineering Manager. The role will initially be employed by Ford and is expected to transition to Ford's wholly owned Battery Energy Storage Systems subsidiary within one year. Salary grade 8, with a stated range of $115,000–$192,900. Visa sponsorship is not available.

Requirements

• At least 5 years of experience as a software engineer, manufacturing systems engineer, industrial software engineer, solutions engineer, or in a similar hands-on engineering role.
• Strong background building production software, integrating systems, and working across application, cloud, edge, and data layers.
• Hands-on experience or familiarity with IIoT architectures, MQTT, OPC-UA, edge gateways, industrial protocols, event-driven architectures, time-series data, sensor data ingestion, and secure plant-to-cloud connectivity.
• Ability to build or support manufacturing analytics for OEE, throughput, downtime, cycle time, bottleneck detection, quality, scrap, traceability, energy consumption, and asset performance.
• Experience with modern software and cloud technologies such as Go, Python, TypeScript, API design, OpenShift, GCP or comparable cloud platforms, containerized services, infrastructure-as-code, CI/CD, observability, and secure production operations.
• Track record of taking ambiguous, high-stakes operational problems from initial discovery to working production software.
• Comfort working onsite in changing manufacturing environments, troubleshooting real systems, and balancing delivery speed with safety, reliability, cybersecurity, maintainability, and uptime.
• Strong communication and relationship-building skills to work across software engineering, controls, operations, quality, maintenance, product, and business stakeholders.
• Ability to work autonomously, take accountability for delivered systems, and operate with significant latitude.
• Legally authorized to work in the United States; employment eligibility will be verified at hire.

Nice To Haves

• Experience in highly automated facilities, controls-adjacent systems, and manufacturing launch or ramp environments.
• Experience working in highly secured environments with identity and access management, secrets handling, vulnerability remediation, audit logging, network controls, and secure deployment practices.
• Experience with data platforms, streaming architectures, and AI/ML-enabled automation.
• Experience turning noisy operational data into trusted metrics, dashboards, alerts, and decision-support tools.

Responsibilities

• Design, develop, and deploy software connecting automated equipment, sensors, PLC-adjacent data, MES workflows, quality and warehouse systems, and cloud platforms.
• Design and operate IIoT architectures, MQTT messaging, OPC-UA connectivity, edge gateways, time-series data, event-driven systems, and manufacturing data models.
• Work directly with manufacturing and related stakeholders to understand production problems and translate needs into deployed software.
• Build analytics and operational intelligence for throughput, uptime, downtime, OEE, quality, scrap, traceability, cycle time, bottlenecks, energy usage, and launch readiness.
• Own delivery across application engineering, cloud infrastructure, edge deployment, integrations, automation, observability, and production support.
• Deliver production-ready systems while accounting for safety, reliability, change control, cybersecurity, secure access, network segmentation, data protection, uptime, latency, data quality, and maintainability.
• Design and operate secure manufacturing solutions involving identity and access control, secrets management, network boundaries, auditability, vulnerability management, and secure software delivery.
• Apply generative AI, machine learning, anomaly detection, predictive analytics, intelligent automation, and AI-assisted development where they offer measurable operational value and can be adopted safely.
• Contribute design and code quality, participate in architecture and code reviews, define industrial integration patterns, and help establish software, data, security, and deployment standards.

Benefits

• Immediate medical, dental, vision, and prescription drug coverage.
• Flexible family care days, paid parental leave, new parent ramp-up programs, and subsidized back-up child care.
• Adoption and surrogacy expense reimbursement and fertility treatment benefits.
• 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.
• 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: Mid Level
• Education Level: No Education Listed