Technical Program Manager - Cloud Service Engineering

In this position... 

At Ford Motor Company, we believe freedom of movement drives human progress. We also believe in providing you with the freedom to define and realize your dreams. With our incredible plans for the future of mobility, we have a wide variety of opportunities for you to accelerate your career potential as you help us define tomorrow’s transportation. 

Ford has led the automotive industry for over a century, and Ford Model e is poised to lead the electric vehicle market through innovative vehicles and digital features that power them. We are building a world-class software and cloud service engineering team and are excited to grow our Technical Program Management capability. 

This position is for an experienced Technical Program Manager in our cloud development platform team.  The Connected Vehicle Cloud will be critical to our delivery on our customer promises, and this team is at the core of enabling that cloud development success.  In this role, you will work as part of the cloud development platform leadership team to set and execute on the strategy for cloud development across Ford. Success in this role requires someone who is centered around product and engineering excellence with a bias for action; thrives in a fast-paced, dynamic environment; successfully partners with a wide group of people across the company; and embodies our ideas for building diverse teams. You will own cross-cutting initiatives, identify best practices and bring deep industry experience to bear on a company-wide scale. At the end of the day – you will be a key contributor to enabling all cloud developers at Ford to deliver faster and greater value to our customers. 

Ideal candidates will first and foremost have extensive experience with cloud developers and the processes and technologies involved in cloud development.  They will also have experienced multiple product cycles involving software and services, including up- and down-stream dependencies. You will engage with complex engineering programs, demonstrating leadership and a strong command of the tools and process required to achieve the teams’ goals. You will have consummate communications skills, keeping up- and down-stream dependencies well aligned, and entire companies well-informed. You’re as comfortable presenting to the senior leadership as you are coaching a new hire. 

What you’ll be able to do: 

• Owns ensuring delivery of our cloud development platform with multi-year time horizons that span across both this product and other related products and organizations across Ford.
• Defines project goals and builds a roadmap across future milestones, including staging technologies; builds strategies that optimizes project resources against priorities.
• Defines and monitors Technical Success Metrics (including KPIs); identifies reaction plan as needed.
• Converts customer requirements into actionable software specifications for multiple functional teams; identifies opportunities and gaps and takes action to improve the product. 
• Predicts challenges with interdependencies spanning multiple software systems that go beyond technical and works to eliminate them; proactively helps teams understand technical implications of design decisions and features.
• Manages effective and collaborative relationships with stakeholders across the organization to drive issues to closure and achieve execution of software system objectives.
• Lead status reporting, and creates new ways of reporting status that are clearer and more efficient.
• Owns retrospectives which span product teams to improve product quality; defines new more efficient governance processes and drives across software systems.

You'll have…  

• Bachelors Degree in Engineering, Computer Science, or equivalent work experience.
• 8+ years of experience in direct product/technical program management in highly complex systems, including multiple successful release cycles of significant software at scale. 
• 6+ years of experience leading cross-functional and/or cross-team projects.
• 5+ years of experience either as a cloud developer, or working in a cloud development related position.

 

Even better, you may have…

• Demonstrated technical experience in cloud technologies and cloud development technologies.  This would include but not be limited to Google Cloud Platform, GitHub, Kubernetes, cloud storage and other cloud infrastructure technologies.
• Expert knowledge of the software development life cycle, specifically as it applies to building a cloud service including trunk based development.
• Demonstrated success delivering complex cross functional programs and driving results across product or system.
• Excellent ability to communicate, influence