Job DescriptionIn this position...Ford's ATP Forge team is building the future of advanced robotics and automation for industrial systems.
We are seeking an Autonomous Mobility Product Manager & Product Development Leader to own and grow the strategy, roadmap, and delivery of Ford's Autonomous Mobility product family - spanning Automated Vehicle Marshalling (AVM), Autonomous Mobile Robots (AMR), and Autonomous Mobile Monitoring (AMM).
This role sits at the intersection of product strategy and hands-on technical leadership: you will define what we build and why, lead a team that builds and integrates it, and drive it from pilot through scaled deployment across Ford manufacturing sites. This is a rare opportunity to build a product family from the ground up, own its P&L-style outcomes, and lead a growing team of engineers and technologists shaping the future of autonomous manufacturing at Ford.
ResponsibilitiesWhat you'll do...Product Strategy & Roadmap- Own the product vision, strategy, and multi-release roadmap for the Autonomous Mobility product family (AVM, AMR, AMM), balancing near-term plant wins with long-term platform scalability and architecture.
- Lead discovery with plant and operations partners to identify high-value use cases; define personas, workflows, constraints, and measurable outcomes across the product family.
- Own creation and quality of product requirements (PRDs, user stories, acceptance criteria) spanning robotics behavior, integration, safety, and operational readiness.
- Manage the product development process using the Manufacturing Readiness Level (MRL) framework (MRL 0 to MRL 10), establishing clear gate criteria and evidence requirements at each stage to objectively assess technology and manufacturing maturity before advancing the product family from concept through full-rate deployment.
- Define and track product KPIs such as uptime/availability, MTTR, throughput/cycle-time impact, deployment lead time, safety incident reduction, and total cost of ownership.
- Create a forward path for platform evolution (e.g., vision-guided navigation, fleet orchestration across product lines) while ensuring near-term decisions don't block future capability.
Team & Technical Leadership- Lead a team of engineers responsible for system design, integration, validation, and deployment of the Autonomous Mobility product family.
- Drive cross-functional execution with engineering: prioritize backlogs, define scope, manage tradeoffs, and deliver releases that perform reliably in real industrial environments.
- Provide technical leadership to assess technology capability, ensure delivery of system performance, and apply project management discipline to achieve program timing.
- Teach, coach, and mentor employees, peers, and leadership; document technical knowledge and establish engineering and product standards.
- Use MRL assessments to govern pilot-to-scale decisions, ensuring all Autonomous Mobility products only progress to broader plant rollout once risk, reliability, and production-process criteria are met; drive corrective action plans for programs that stall at a given MRL gate.
- Oversee delivery of tangible automation enablers that improve cost, quality, and efficiency across plant operations.
- Collaborate with cross-functional teams - ATP Core, ATP Sight, Global Manufacturing Engineering, Material Planning and Logistics, Manufacturing IT, Purchasing, Safety, and plant operations - to ensure successful, safe project delivery.
Partnerships & Ecosystem- Partner with Purchasing and suppliers to evaluate solutions, shape vendor roadmaps, and benchmark new advanced technologies; establish clear performance expectations and accountability mechanisms.
- Influence technical and business decisions across stakeholders - aligning on architecture choices, sourcing approaches, and the operating model (support, monitoring, maintenance).
- Ensure identification and application of lessons learned across the product family.
QualificationsYou'll have...- Bachelor's degree in engineering, robotics, computer science, or a related discipline (or equivalent experience).
- 10+ years of experience spanning product management and/or technical engineering delivery for complex and safety-critical technical products (hardware/software/system + operational deployment), with a focus on automation, robotics, or autonomous mobility.
- At least 2 years of experience in a manufacturing environment.
- Demonstrated ability to lead and align cross-functional teams at scale, driving decisions and outcomes through influence.
- Strong requirements and execution discipline: ability to translate ambiguous problems into crisp scope, measurable success criteria, and release plans.
- Experience using data and operational feedback to prioritize, iterate, and improve product performance over time.
- Excellent communication skills, able to engage effectively with both executive stakeholders and engineering teams.
Even better, you may have...- 5+ years of leadership experience, with demonstrated ability to lead technical teams.
- Experience delivering robotics systems in real-world deployments (e.g., AMRs/AGVs, vehicle marshalling, robotics navigation, fleet management, autonomy behaviors, HMI/operator workflows, teleoperation).
- Experience taking products from discovery to prototype to pilot to scaled multi-site rollout, including change management and operational readiness.
- Experience applying Manufacturing Readiness Level (MRL) or similar technology/manufacturing maturity frameworks (e.g., TRL) to manage staged product development and de-risk scale-up decisions.
- Familiarity with robotics platform concepts: localization/mapping, motion planning, safety behaviors, teleoperation, fleet orchestration, edge compute, and industrial networking/integration.
- Strong understanding of reliability/serviceability practices (telemetry, failure modes, spares strategy, maintainability, support playbooks).
- Experience with industrial safety processes and standards (risk assessments, safe operating procedures, change control).
- Vendor/supplier management experience (RFx support, supplier scorecards, roadmap alignment, performance management).
- Knowledge and experience with Ford Production Systems and standards.
- MBA or Master's degree in engineering, robotics, computer science, or a related field.
You may not check every box, or your experience may look a little different from what we've outlined, but if you think you can bring value to Ford Motor Company, we encourage you to apply!
As an established global company, we offer the benefit of choice. You can choose what your Ford future will look like: will your story span the globe, or keep you close to home? Will your career be a deep dive into what you love, or a series of new teams and new skills? Will you be a leader, a changemaker, a technical expert, a culture builder...or all of the above? No matter what you choose, we offer a work life that works for you, including:
• 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.
This position is leadership level 6 and ranges from $115,500-$218,100.
Final determination of salary grade will be based on candidate's skills and experience, and base salary will be set within the applicable range according to job scope, responsibility and competitive market value.
For more information on salary and benefits, click here: https://fordcareers.co/LL6
This position is hybrid with a requirement to be onsite four or more days per week.
#LI-Hybrid
#LI-MH5
