Senior Data Scientist / ML Engineer

Ford • Redford Charter Twp, MI,US

14h • $132,800 - $250,800 • Onsite

About The Position

This role focuses on designing and evolving Ford's data mesh architecture, establishing federated computational governance, and championing next-generation technologies. It involves transforming raw data into high-quality data products, defining data product standards, and building pipelines for ingestion, transformation, and publishing. The position also requires designing data structures and semantic layers for AI agents, developing data models, and partnering with teams to translate use cases into data requirements. Additionally, it involves driving the adoption of cloud services like GCP, evaluating metadata management and data catalog solutions, and establishing monitoring and observability for data products. The role also entails owning and evolving the federated governance framework, implementing automated policy enforcement, and partnering with various teams to ensure compliance with data security, privacy, and regulatory requirements.

Requirements

• Master’s degree in computer science, Information Systems, Data Engineering, or a related field, or equivalent combination of relevant education and experience.
• 5+ years of experience in data architecture, data engineering, or advanced database design/modeling, including designing or implementing databases, data warehouses, or data marts — with exposure to large-scale manufacturing or industrial data environments.
• 15+ years of experience leading, managing, or mentoring technical teams (direct people leadership, matrixed leadership, or lead/owner roles directing cross-functional teams).
• Hands-on experience creating data models using data modeling tools.
• Deep, hands-on experience with GCP technologies including BigQuery, Cloud Storage, Dataform, Data Fusion, Astronomer, or similar cloud data engineering tools.
• Demonstrated experience designing or implementing data mesh or domain-oriented data architectures.
• Understanding of AI/ML capabilities, with experience modeling semantic layers, knowledge graphs, or ontologies for a data platform.
• Knowledge of data governance, data quality, and data product marketplace enablement practices.
• Proficiency in SQL, Python, and modern data pipeline/orchestration tools.
• Strong stakeholder management skills, with the ability to work across plant floor operations teams and enterprise IT/analytics functions.
• Candidates for positions with Ford Motor Company must be legally authorized to work in the United States. Verification of employment eligibility will be required at the time of hire.

Nice To Haves

• You may not check every box, or your experience may look a little different from what we've outlined, but if you think you can bring value to Ford Motor Company, we encourage you to apply!

Responsibilities

• Design and evolve Ford's data mesh architecture across manufacturing and enterprise domains — defining domain boundaries, data product contracts, and interoperability standards.
• Establish and maintain federated computational governance policies (schema standards, data quality SLAs, security classifications, lineage and retention requirements) applied consistently across decentralized domain teams.
• Champion adoption of next-generation technologies and cloud-native patterns (GCP, Vertex AI, agentic AI/LLM orchestration) to modernize legacy data workflows and drive measurable business impact.
• Lead the transformation of raw data landing in cloud platforms from Manufacturing systems, into curated, documented, high-quality data products.
• Define and enforce data product standards: ownership, schema versioning, SLAs for freshness/completeness/accuracy, discoverability, and access controls.
• Oversee the build-out of ingestion, transformation, and publishing pipelines (batch and streaming) that convert raw operational data into standardized, reusable data assets.
• Design and build data structures and semantic layers (ontologies, knowledge graphs) that enable AI agents to interpret enterprise data consistently and with minimal human intervention.
• Design and develop data models (enterprise, conceptual, logical, and physical) for assigned domains; manage and maintain models in a shared repository.
• Partner with product and analytics teams to translate use cases into data requirements, providing architecture guidance, data models, and design reviews.
• Establish and enforce data architecture principles, standards, and best practices across the team's data products (catalog, lineage, observability, security, interoperability).
• Drive data quality initiatives: profile source-system data, define data quality requirements and metrics, and guide monitoring, measurement, reporting, and remediation.
• Drive adoption of cloud services like GCP as the technical backbone of the data mesh and data product ecosystem.
• Evaluate and implement metadata management and data catalog solutions to support discoverability and trust across the mesh.
• Establish monitoring, observability, and SLA-tracking for published data products.
• Own and evolve the federated governance framework, balancing global standards with domain-level autonomy, ensuring compliance with Ford's data security, privacy, and regulatory requirements.
• Implement automated policy enforcement (schema validation, access control, metadata cataloging, lineage tracking) via GCP-native and third-party tooling.
• Partner with cybersecurity, legal, and compliance teams to classify and protect sensitive manufacturing and enterprise data.
• Ensure development patterns support Ford's data security requirements and global privacy regulations (privacy and compliance by design).

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 and more
• Family building benefits including adoption and surrogacy expense reimbursement, fertility treatments, and more
• 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.

What This Job Offers

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