Senior Embedded Controls Engineer, Body Controls

Ford Motor • Palo Alto, CA

1d • Hybrid

About The Position

Body systems play a critical role in delivering the customer experience across a wide range of vehicle features, hardware, and software. Our team develops and integrates controls for seats, tailgates, windows, latches, wipers, mirrors, sensing systems, interior and exterior lighting, and other low-voltage motor-driven systems across vehicle domains. We work closely with Interior, Exterior, Low-Voltage Electrical Architecture, UI/UX, Systems, Hardware, and Software teams to deliver seamless, reliable, and intuitive end-to-end vehicle experiences. We are seeking a highly skilled Embedded Controls Software Engineer to join our Body Controls team. The ideal candidate has a strong background in embedded software development for complex, distributed, safety-critical systems, with hands-on experience developing device drivers and control strategies for low-voltage motors, actuators, sensors, and lighting systems.

Requirements

• Master’s degree in Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Computer Science, or a related field; or equivalent experience with demonstrated technical capability.
• 3+ years of experience in electrical hardware applications, prototype bring-up, and systems development.
• 3+ years of experience with vehicle network protocols such as CAN, LIN, and Automotive Ethernet.
• Strong electrical engineering fundamentals and hands-on experience with electrical test equipment, including oscilloscopes, digital multimeters, signal generators, power supplies, and related tools.
• 3+ years of experience using embedded networking interface tools in automotive, aerospace, or a similar embedded systems environment.
• Working knowledge of systems development, vehicle architecture, battery technologies, software and hardware tool development, motor calibration, OBD calibration, functional safety, networks, and diagnostics processes.
• Experience creating and executing component-level test procedures and owning test results.

Nice To Haves

• Highly collaborative mindset with strong written and verbal communication skills.
• Experience with driver development and RTOS integration.
• Experience with software build tools such as Bazel, SCons, CMake, or similar tools.
• Experience with fundamental PCB hardware components and related analysis tools.
• Ability to develop test scripts using scripting languages such as Python.
• Strong software fundamentals, including software design, maintainability, and code quality.
• Hands-on experience with hardware bring-up, system debugging, and code optimization.
• Knowledge of electrical engineering fundamentals, including circuit analysis and design.

Responsibilities

• Develop control and estimation algorithms for body control features such as window systems, closure systems, lighting, and other actuator-based functions.
• Lead the design, integration, and validation of body controls hardware components on electrical test assets, including benches, bucks, lab cars, and vehicles.
• Collaborate with software integration teams to bring up core functions and translate software-level requirements into electrical hardware and system requirements.
• Apply functional safety principles and participate in safety analyses for complex vehicle subsystems.
• Develop and execute comprehensive test plans to validate firmware functionality, stability, robustness, and performance across operating conditions, including low-power modes.
• Drive body controls feature development cross-functionally with hardware, software, architecture, systems, validation, and program teams.
• Author feature boundary diagrams, subsystem block diagrams, validation strategies, and technical documentation.
• Lead subsystem reviews across all phases of vehicle program development.
• Support early firmware development activities, including hardware validation, lab car testing, and automation framework development for unit, SIL, and HIL testing.

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