Hardware Development Engineer-Sight Vertical

Ford Motor • Redford, MI

2d • Onsite

About The Position

Ford Motor Company is undergoing a historic industrial shift, transforming from building vehicles to building scalable systems. The Advanced Industrial Technology & Platforms (AITP) organisation is leading this change by integrating EVs, robotics, additive manufacturing, AI vision, and digital platforms into a seamless operating system. The Sight Vertical within AITP focuses on AI/ML anomaly detection products, encompassing both parametric data (Sight.Sense) and image data (Sight.Vision). This role is crucial for owning the hardware backbone of these manufacturing intelligence products, ensuring standardization and scalability across Ford's global plant floors. The Hardware Engineer will be responsible for cameras, sensors, edge compute devices, power supplies, and network infrastructure, from specification and sourcing to testing, certification, and fleet management.

Requirements

• Bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Mechatronics or a related field, or equivalent practical experience.
• 5+ years of hands-on experience specifying, testing, or deploying industrial cameras, machine vision hardware, industrial sensors and data-acquisition hardware, or edge compute devices.
• Working knowledge of industrial networking concepts (Ethernet/GigE, network switches, jumbo frames, packet-level troubleshooting).
• Working knowledge of protocols including Dynamic DNS, DHCP, and TCP/IP.
• Familiarity with safety and regulatory certification processes (UL, cUL, CE) for electrical and electronic hardware.
• Experience with messaging and integration protocols common in industrial vision systems (e.g., MQTT) and PLC interfacing concepts.
• Strong cross-functional communication skills; comfortable working with software engineers, product managers, and plant-floor personnel.
• Experience retrofitting hardware onto in-production manufacturing equipment without disrupting output.
• Fluent professional English.

Nice To Haves

• Direct experience with industrial PCs and NVIDIA products for AI applications.
• Experience supporting hardware fleets at scale across multiple manufacturing sites.
• Familiarity with cloud image storage and retention pipelines (e.g., GCP) as they relate to hardware warranty and data lifecycle policy.
• Manufacturing or automotive plant-floor experience.
• Experience developing and governing hardware standards (device, BOM, installation standards).
• Experience with parametric condition monitoring (vibration, current, temperature, pressure, energy metering) and its acquisition hardware.
• Familiarity with OT network segmentation and plant-floor connectivity constraints.
• Additional European language (Spanish or German).

Responsibilities

• Own end-to-end camera specification for vision inspection stations, including resolution, lens, field-of-view, working distance, and lighting requirements.
• Evaluate and qualify camera vendors and models against plant-floor environmental conditions.
• Define and maintain hardware bill-of-materials (BOM) standards for repeatable, scalable station builds.
• Own end-to-end specification for sensing and signal-acquisition hardware, including sensor selection, mounting, signal conditioning, and acquisition rate.
• Evaluate and qualify sensor and data-acquisition vendors against plant-floor environmental conditions.
• Define and maintain hardware BOM standards for repeatable Sense installations, including retrofitting onto existing equipment.
• Establish hardware patterns to minimize bespoke plant engineering for Sense deployments.
• Specify, test, and validate edge compute devices (industrial PCs and edge boxes) for vision inference and parameter acquisition.
• Own hardware-side network requirements, specification, and validation, including Ethernet connectivity, GigE configuration, and packet-loss testing.
• Apply working knowledge of networking protocols including Dynamic DNS, DHCP, and TCP/IP.
• Specify and test the hardware side of controls interfaces, partnering with software engineering on PLC integration.
• Specify power supply mechanisms, power drops, and supporting infrastructure.
• Manage edge device procurement requests and lifecycle, including requisitioning, provisioning, and refresh cycles.
• Develop hardware strategies for standalone and joint Sight Vision/Sense deployments.
• Lead hardware validation and test protocols prior to plant rollout.
• Own UL, cUL, and CE certification requirements and compliance documentation.
• Support Cyber Security, OGC, and Corporate Ergonomics review and sign-off processes.
• Provide hardware evidence for TRL and MRL maturity gates.
• Establish and maintain fleet management practices for deployed hardware.
• Define hardware-side capture, buffering, and egress requirements for data storage.
• Serve as the hardware escalation point for plant-floor issues.
• Drive recurring hardware failure modes out of the fleet through standard changes.
• Maintain focus on Sight.IQ hardware specification and Sense hardware standardization.
• Extend hardware engineering support to other Sight vision products.
• Collaborate with leads to translate product and algorithm requirements into hardware specifications.

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
• Family building benefits including adoption and surrogacy expense reimbursement, fertility treatments
• 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.
• Visa sponsorship IS available for this position.
• Relocation assistance IS provided for this position.

What This Job Offers

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