Director, Enterprise Architect Enterprise API, AI Security & Governance

Ford Motor Private Limited; Chennai District; On-site; INR 4,000,000 - 7,500,000; Full time

Job summary

Ford Motor Private Limited seeks a Director-level Enterprise Architect to lead identity, API, and AI security governance across the global enterprise, aligning cybersecurity, cloud platforms, and emerging AI technologies.

This role builds governance frameworks for MCP, APIs, Agents and Skills, partners with platform, infra and data/AI teams, and grows a large cross-functional security architecture practice from the ground up, mentoring 20+ architects to scale securely.

Qualifications

• Experience leading enterprise security architecture across large organisations.
• Strong cross-functional leadership and people management skills.
• Hands-on credibility in cloud, AI, and security domains.

Responsibilities

• Design and govern identity, API, and AI security frameworks.
• Define and enforce governance standards across MCP, APIs, Agents, and Skills.
• Lead multi-cloud security architecture and reference patterns for Ford platforms.

Skills

Cloud architecture

Security governance

API security

Identity & access management

AI security

Leadership

Multi-cloud

Tools

Google ADK

Microsoft Agent ID

Gemini Enterprise

Job description

Position Overview

We are seeking a Director-level Enterprise Architect to lead identity, API, and AI security governance across the global enterprise, operating at the intersection of cybersecurity, cloud infrastructure & platforms, and emerging AI technologies.

This role is chartered with establishing governance frameworks for MCP, APIs, Agents, and Skills, while partnering closely with platform, infrastructure, and data/AI teams to shape the future of secure, scalable AI adoption across Ford.

The ideal candidate combines deep hands-on technical credibility across cloud, AI, and security domains with the leadership maturity to build and grow a large, cross-functional team of polyglot architects from the ground up, in a greenfield security architecture practice.

Key Responsibilities

API Security Architecture

• Design and govern secure architecture patterns for Ford's high-traffic, business-critical APIs, embedding security and governance directly into the API lifecycle.
• Partner with platform engineering to strengthen authentication, authorization, and threat protection across the API gateway ecosystem.
• Champion a shift-left approach to API security and compliance by embedding automated checks directly into the build phase, catching issues early in the development lifecycle.
• Familiarity with security tooling such as FOSSA, Cycode, 42Crunch, Cloud Armor, PRISMA is a strong plus.
• Familiarity with open-source tools, applying buy vs build diligently and make decisions.
• Building engineering prototypes which is kind of R&D (POC, Reference architecture), pre- implementation prototypes which are building blocks which perform in pre-production with minor tweaks.

Identity & Access Architecture

• Architect a unified, vendor-agnostic identity fabric across Ford's global enterprise, resolving the complexity of a multi-IdP environment while eliminating vendor lock-in.
• Define modern application authorization patterns including OAuth On-Behalf-Of (OBO) flows and delegated access models that scale securely across applications, APIs, and AI agents.
• Establish governance standards spanning workforce, customer, and machine/non-human identities.

AI & Agent Security Governance

• Define and enforce enterprise-wide governance frameworks for MCP, APIs, Agents, and Skills.
• Partner with the Platform team (EPEO) to evaluate and govern the enterprise, AI Gateway.
• Maintain deep, current knowledge of the agent-building ecosystem low-code/no-code and pro-code options using Microsoft and Gemini Enterprise, plus hands-on expertise in the Google Agent Development Kit (ADK) to guide secure, scalable agent adoption.
• Collaborate with GDAI and data/AI teams to keep governance aligned with the pace of enterprise AI innovation.

Engineering Excellence Patterns & Reference Architecture

• Design and publish reusable patterns and reference architectures for AI solutions, giving teams across Ford consistent, secure building blocks rather than ad-hoc implementations.
• Build starter apps/templates for the Google ADK, providing pro-code agent developers a secure, governed foundation to build from.
• Define reference implementations mapping OAuth OBO flows with Microsoft Agent ID, ensuring agents securely act on behalf of users with proper identity context and audit trails.
• Continuously evolve these patterns as Microsoft, Google, and other providers update their agent identity and authorization models.
• Ensure starter kits and patterns are pre-approved, governance-compliant building blocks reducing time-to-production for new AI use cases.

Cloud & Infrastructure Architecture

• Lead strategy for multi-cloud interoperability, ensuring consistent, portable security architecture across cloud providers.
• Maintain a strong command of GCP architecture scalability, resiliency, and cost/FinOps to guide sound, cost-conscious infrastructure decisions.
• Partnering with FinOps EPEO team for the cost of architecture.
• Partner with cybersecurity and EPEO infrastructure teams to ensure governance controls are technically enforceable across tooling and platforms.
• Architect security solutions that directly protect and enable Ford's core business platforms eCommerce, Ford Credit (global banking and financial services), and global retail/commercial fleet customer platforms.
• Balance security rigor with speed-to-market for digital initiatives.

Applied AI & Insights

• Apply predictive AI models to real enterprise use cases, delivering actionable insights that inform security, architecture, and business strategy.

Cross-Functional Collaboration

• Partner closely with cybersecurity, platform (EPEO), infrastructure, and data/AI (GDAI) teams to align governance and reference architectures with evolving platform capabilities and enterprise roadmaps.
• Serve as a key architectural liaison between security, engineering, and business stakeholders.

Team Leadership & Talent Development

• Lead, mentor, and grow a cross-functional team of 20+ polyglot architects (Java, UI, AI .