IT Product Manager

Ford Motor • Dearborn, MI

2d • Hybrid

About The Position

The IT Product Manager owns the product vision, strategy, and roadmap for user-facing applications, emphasizing user experience, functionality, cross-product integrations, and intuitive front-end solutions. The role represents end users and ensures development meets their needs, while coordinating agency and contracted team members so assigned work is understood and completed.

The position owns the Global Safety and Ergonomics Tool (GSET) and Global Medical Employee Data (GMED) product maps; leads UX direction and supplier design review; and oversees privacy setup, review, and approval for global and regional requirements for the health and safety PDO. It works closely with engineering, architecture, integration partners, designers, end users, and business stakeholders to shape and deliver front-end products.

The manager leads product discovery and requirements definition, backlog prioritization, release planning, Agile ceremonies, user acceptance testing, and product readiness. The role also maintains product documentation, defines and reports on user-focused OKRs and KPIs, and uses user feedback and data to guide product improvements. The position is salary grade 8, with a stated salary range of $115,000–$192,900. Visa sponsorship is not provided; candidates must be legally authorized to work in the United States.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Human-Computer Interaction, Information Systems, Business Administration, Engineering, or a related field, or equivalent practical experience.
• At least 5 years of product management experience managing digital, user-facing applications, front-end software solutions, or web/mobile platforms.
• Demonstrated end-to-end product lifecycle ownership, including product vision, discovery, roadmapping, backlog prioritization, user acceptance testing, and release management.
• Understanding of UX/UI principles, information architecture, wireframing, prototyping, user flows, and usability testing.
• Experience partnering closely with Product Designers and guiding or approving visual and interaction designs.
• Hands-on experience in an Agile or Product Driven Organization (PDO) environment.
• Proficiency writing clear user stories, epics, sagas, and acceptance criteria, such as Gherkin format or BDD.
• Strong working knowledge of Jira or similar Agile project and backlog management tools.
• Experience handling sensitive data, regulatory compliance, or privacy frameworks for global applications.
• Proven ability to manage agency or supplier teams, cross-functional engineering teams, and enterprise business stakeholders.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills for status reports, SARs, executive summaries, and product documentation.
• Leadership, negotiation, and mentorship abilities to guide supplier teams, coordinate with QA and engineering, and align business owners.
• Ability to understand user pain points and turn them into intuitive digital experiences.
• Ability to align feature delivery with organizational digital strategy and business viability.

Nice To Haves

• Background or familiarity with enterprise Occupational Health & Safety or Medical/Employee Data systems.
• Understanding of modern front-end architectures, APIs, and cross-product integration patterns.
• Experience conducting user research, stakeholder interviews, lean experiments, and on-site observational studies such as Gemba walks or sessions.
• Experience defining, tracking, and optimizing product KPIs and OKRs related to user adoption, engagement, usability, performance, and other telemetry.

Responsibilities

• Own and manage the Global Safety and Ergonomics Tool (GSET) product map.
• Own and manage the Global Medical Employee Data (GMED) product map.
• Define and communicate product vision, strategy, and roadmap for front-end applications, aligned with organizational digital strategies.
• Research users, markets, and industry trends to identify opportunities and inform product decisions.
• Develop business cases for new features, sagas, or epics based on user desirability and business viability.
• Approve supplier UX designs and own the end-to-end user experience of the product.
• Lead and support a Product Designer, including mentorship and first-level review of visual and interactive designs.
• Discover and frame user problems through stakeholder and user interviews, concept testing, and usability testing.
• Ideate, test, and iterate solutions using brainstorming, lean experiments, and direct user feedback.
• Lead and own the Ford Privacy process for the health and safety PDO.
• Oversee privacy setup, review, and approval for global and regional requirements, and ensure regional and global reviewers and approvers are identified.
• Collaborate with software engineers, developers, architects, and integrated services or sources on feasibility and design reviews.
• Maintain an understanding of the technical architecture of user interfaces and front-end applications.
• Co-define the release plan and process, and coordinate, implement, and manage Gemba sessions.
• Identify user stories and tasks and provide them to Project Managers for Jira assignment.
• Gather and refine requirements with end users, application teams, and internal business partners.
• Translate requirements into testable sagas, epics, and user stories or tasks, including acceptance criteria such as Gherkin-format criteria.
• Approve supplier-written sagas, epics, user stories, tasks, and test cases.
• Champion the Agile PDO methodology and participate in sprint planning, reviews, retrospectives, and other Agile ceremonies.
• Prioritize deliverables and maintain a healthy Jira product backlog focused on user-facing features and improvements.
• Create and manage Agile ceremony meetings for sprint prioritization, release management, and release communications.
• Work with business partners, engineering, and design teams to define MVPs and balance technical feasibility with user desirability.
• Lead and manage User Acceptance Testing and ensure user-perspective readiness for release.
• Participate in QA testing led by the Testing Engineer.
• Coordinate cross-functional collaboration and communicate product strategy, roadmaps, updates, and expectations to stakeholders.
• Approve assigned project status meetings, SARs, recaps, summaries, follow-ups, and next steps; support governance and ad hoc meetings.
• Create and maintain documentation for user-facing features, including saga and epic documentation, Business Requirement Documents, Solution Design Documents, and business rules.
• Define, track, and report OKRs and KPIs related to user engagement, usability, and front-end performance.
• Engage business owners to support understanding of application and business OKRs and KPIs.
• Create and own user feedback mechanisms, and analyze feedback and data to inform product decisions and identify improvements.

Benefits

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