Software Product Engineer

Job Description

In this position...

The Software Product Engineer (SPE) is the feature delivery lead within in-vehicle infotainment responsible for translating product and design intent into executable software backlogs and driving delivery across the in-vehicle digital experience, supporting middleware/services, and vehicle integration. This role has broad organizational influence across Product Management, Digital Product Design, engineering scrum teams, and testing to ensure feature readiness, integration quality, and release outcomes.

The SPE is accountable for cross-team alignment, dependency and risk management, and integrated validation from concept through launch. This leadership role drives predictable program execution, customer-ready feature quality, and on-time delivery to vehicle platforms.

In this role, the SPE will own the 3D Vehicle Avatar experience across all primary in-vehicle displays, including Driver Information (digital instrument cluster), the Right Panoramic display, and the Center Stack. The 3D Vehicle Avatar is a highly detailed, real-time model representing the customer's specific vehicle configuration. You will manage the engineering complexity of rendering diverse vehicle models, trim levels, wheel designs, and paint colors using Unreal Engine deployed on QNX and Android Automotive platforms.

Working closely with our Digital Design Studio, you will bridge the gap between creative 3D assets and embedded software execution, ensuring high-fidelity visual quality while optimizing for strict hardware resource, memory, and storage constraints across all Ford vehicle programs

Responsibilities

What you'll do...

• Own the end-to-end integration and delivery of the Unreal Engine-based 3D Vehicle Avatar across all in-vehicle displays, ensuring consistent, high-fidelity rendering, state transitions, and interactive behaviors.
• Collaborate closely with the Digital Design Studio and Technical Artists to establish robust asset-handoff pipelines, translating creative 3D assets, materials, and animations into performant, production-ready Unreal Engine packages.
• Manage vehicle-configuration complexity by designing software logic that maps real-time vehicle signals (VIN, trim, paint code, wheel packages) to the correct on-screen 3D model representation.
• Drive asset optimization and memory footprint strategies, ensuring that 3D models, textures, and materials are dynamically managed and do not exceed strict localized storage, RAM, or GPU limitations on embedded hardware.
• Oversee the implementation of efficient asset deployment pipelines, defining how Unreal Engine assets are packaged, updated, and provisioned to the vehicle to support a scalable portfolio without bloating the initial factory software image.

Qualifications

You'll have...

• Experience: 5+ years (or equivalent) delivering complex, cross-functional software features in embedded, automotive, or adjacent domains; demonstrated ownership across multiple teams and releases.
• 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) 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) 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.
• Education: BS in Engineering, Computer Science, or related technical field (or equivalent practical experience).

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