Director, IVI Systems & SW Product Engineering

Director, IVI Systems & SW Product Engineering

Dearborn, MI, United States (Hybrid)

The Director of IVI Systems and Software Product Engineering is the primary architect of the execution path for Ford’s next-generation digital cockpit. This role serves as the "technical glue" for the organization, leading a high-performing global team that transforms visionary UX intent into high-quality, customer-ready software. Operating at the intersection of deep technical expertise and product ownership, the Director is responsible for the end-to-end engineering lifecycle—from early feasibility and architectural definition to production release and over-the-air (OTA) enhancements.

By scaling the SPE framework, this leader ensures that every feature is technically sound, safe, and delivered with the rigor required for zero field failures.

You Will...

• Strategic Feature Lifecycle Management:
  Own and drive the end-to-end technical execution of the IVI portfolio. Ensure technical feasibility, integration, and quality across all vehicle milestones, maintaining a deep architectural understanding of system behaviors (SOA, CAN, and cloud extensions).
• High-Level Design & Traceability:
  Lead the translation and traceability between Product, Systems, and UX. Oversee the creation of Feature HLDs and system APIs, ensuring they align with platform constraints and vehicle configurations.
• Technical Collaboration & "Product Truth":
  Act as the engineering lead within the Triad partnership (Product, Design, Technical Strategy). Institutionalize architecture and design reviews to confirm specification completeness and technical alignment before implementation begins.
• Partner & Ecosystem Engineering:
  Serve as the executive technical liaison to external technology partners. Oversee API integration, feature contract negotiations, and compliance with internal architectural standards.
• Agile Governance & PI Planning:
  Lead the technical input for Program Increment (PI) Planning. Coordinate development OKRs, document engineering commitments, and ensure that technical gaps or open architecture issues are visible and tracked at the leadership level.
• Risk Engineering & Mitigation:
  Proactively identify and mitigate architecture-level and integration risks. Lead Change Request (CR) impact assessments, providing technical cost/timing estimates and risk analysis across affected ECUs and software layers.
• Defect Triage & Quality Strategy:
  Establish the strategy for defect root cause isolation. Prioritize and assign complex defects based on platform impact and customer experience, ensuring the backlog is technically scoped and prioritized for the engineering teams.
• Full-Stack Validation & Sign-Off:
  Accountable for the technical sign-off of feature releases. Ensure robust validation across simulated environments (HIL/SIL) and in-vehicle testing, covering everything from UI responsiveness to middleware and actuator-level outputs.
• Continuous Improvement & OTA Strategy:
  Lead the delivery of over-the-air (OTA) enhancements and performance improvements, utilizing platform diagnostics and customer data to drive post-launch excellence.
• Executive Visibility & Metrics:
  Maintain technical dashboards that track feature coverage, architecture readiness, and open risks. Report to senior leadership with a focus on engineering-level gaps and proposed technical mitigations (Sagas/Epics/Stories).

You'll Have...

• Education:
  
  Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, or a related technical field.
• Experience:
  
  10+ years in automotive software or consumer electronics, with a focus on vehicle embedded development, HMI and Infotainment systems.
• Leadership:
  Proven success as a "Leader of Leaders," managing large engineering organizations through high-stakes vehicle program deliveries.
• Technical Breadth:
  Deep expertise in embedded systems architecture, cloud interactions, and the translation of UX intent into implementation tasks.
• Systems Engineering:
  Mastery of requirement decomposition, API contract negotiation, and cross-stack integration.
• Communication:
  Exceptional ability to align senior stakeholders across Design,…