Senior Software Product Engineer

Ford • Dearborn, MI

13h • $80,000 - $154,000 • Hybrid

About The Position

The Software Product Engineer (SPE) is a senior feature delivery leader within in-vehicle infotainment, responsible for translating product vision and design intent into executable software backlogs and driving end-to-end delivery across the in-vehicle digital experience. This includes the User Interface (UI) and User Experience (UX) layers, as well as supporting middleware, services, and vehicle integration—particularly for electrification-related features such as charging, energy management, range insights, and battery status.
Operating at the intersection of Product, Design, Engineering, and Electrification, the SPE plays a critical leadership role in aligning cross-functional teams and ensuring high-quality feature execution. This role requires a strong understanding of engineering systems and EV domain concepts, enabling effective translation of product, technical, UX/UI, and electrification requirements into clear, actionable work items and solutions.
The SPE owns and drives backlog strategy and execution within Jira, including story creation, refinement, grooming, and triage. By incorporating Product Owner responsibilities, the SPE ensures well-defined acceptance criteria, alignment with program priorities, and readiness for implementation across multiple teams. This role is accountable for cross-team coordination, dependency and risk management, and integrated validation from concept through launch, ensuring predictable program execution and high-quality release outcomes.
With broad organizational influence, the SPE partners closely with Product Management, Digital Product Design, Electrification teams, engineering scrum teams, and testing organizations to ensure seamless integration, feature readiness, and a consistent, customer-centric experience across vehicle platforms.

Requirements

• Education: BS in Engineering, Computer Science, or related technical field
• Experience: 5+ years delivering complex, cross-functional software features in embedded, automotive, or adjacent domains; demonstrated ownership across multiple teams and releases.
• Direct experience with Android Automotive/QNX, infotainment HMIs, and automotive middleware/service architectures.
• Familiarity with electrification concepts such as battery state of charge (SoC), charging workflows (AC/DC fast charging), range estimation, and energy consumption modeling—without requiring deep hardware or electrical design expertise.
• Backlog leadership: Proven ability to author high-quality epics and user stories (clear scope, testable acceptance criteria, dependency mapping) and drive Agile execution (grooming, PI planning, sprint delivery).
• Systems integration mindset: Ability to reason about end-to-end behavior across HMI ↔ middleware/services ↔ vehicle signal access (via API abstraction), including electrification data flows (battery, charging, energy systems), and drive integration/validation outcomes.
• Technical proficiency: Strong technical depth to lead engineers—comfortable with architecture discussions, interface contracts, and failure-mode thinking.
• Diagnostics/triage: Experience leading defect triage using logs and traces (e.g., ADB/dev logs; CAN trace familiarity), defining diagnostic logging (logworthies), and driving disciplined prioritization/closure.
• Tools: Proficiency with Jira and Confluence; comfortable creating traceability to requirements/design artifacts and managing dependencies.
• Communication/leadership: Strong cross-functional leadership skills—can drive decisions, align stakeholders, and communicate risks/status crisply to technical and non-technical audiences.

Nice To Haves

• Experience with electrification-focused features such as charging experiences, route planning with charging stops, or energy insights within automotive or mobility platforms.
• Experience with test management tools and reviewing test coverage against acceptance criteria.
• Knowledge of automotive program cadence and release gating (launch milestones, OTA readiness, in-field defect handling).
• Proficiency with CAN-based feature behaviors and vehicle state modeling; exposure to tools such as CANalyzer/Wireshark (or similar).
• Exposure to EV ecosystem integrations such as charging networks, Plug & Charge, or mobile app–vehicle energy feature interactions.

Responsibilities

• Own the end-to-end engineering lifecycle for a set of features or digital experience domains from concept through release sign-off, including electrification-focused features
• Define the product execution path by answering: “What should we build, why does it matter, and how do we build it the right way?”—with consideration for both UX excellence and EV customer needs.
• Translate PRDs, design artifacts, system behavior requirements, and electrification use cases into clear software deliverables—epics and sprint-ready user stories with well-defined acceptance criteria in Jira.
• Lead feasibility assessment, scope definition, and backlog readiness for PI planning; manage change/churn while protecting milestones.
• Drive cross-functional alignment with Product, Digital Product Design, Architecture, Engineering, and Test teams to ensure shared understanding of intent, priorities, dependencies, and Electrification/EV-specific behaviors.
• Define and manage feature dependencies and blockers across HMI, services, platform, vehicle signals, and electrification systems.
• Validate end-to-end feature behavior on bench/vehicle through demos and product truth sessions; ensure implementation matches UX intent, functional expectations, and real-world EV usage scenarios.
• Lead defect triage and prioritization for owned features; drive issues to closure through root-cause direction, retest strategy, and stakeholder communication.
• Maintain clear execution visibility via epic status summaries, risk registers/mitigation plans, and regular stakeholder updates.
• Ensure test coverage alignment by reviewing/confirming that test cases map to story acceptance criteria, edge cases, and electrification scenarios (e.g., charging interruptions, low battery states).
• Identify and define logworthies and analytics instrumentation required for each feature, including EV-specific telemetry (charging sessions, energy usage, range accuracy).

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: Mid Level
• Number of Employees: 5,001-10,000 employees