AI Agent Engineer (Controls)

Ford, Inc; Michigan; Hybrid; USD 87,000 - 166,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Medical, dental, vision coverage

Paid parental leave

Tuition assistance

Vehicle discount program

Job summary

Ford Motor Company’s Advanced Industrial Technology and Platforms (ATP) team is seeking an AI Agent Engineer (Controls) to design and deploy agents that investigate production issues using AIR and robust data.

You’ll work on site at Ford's Manufacturing Technology Development Center in Redford, MI, collaborating with supervisors and engineers to ground every answer in plant data, ensure clear explanations, and continuously improve agent performance.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree or equivalent experience in CS/DS/Engineering or related field.
• 6–8 years of experience in data science, ML engineering, or software engineering, including production work.
• Experience with manufacturing controls (Mfg Controls) and AI agent frameworks.

Responsibilities

• Build and orchestrate agents that classify issues, plan investigations, call tools, and draft recommendations.
• Ground every answer in production, quality, and maintenance data and connect to Ontology/knowledge graph.
• Measure and improve: test, analyze failures, and incorporate feedback to agent behavior.
• Learn from floor by spending time with supervisors and engineers at Kentucky Truck Plant.
• Ensure agents complete investigation steps reliably with traceable sources and confidence.

Skills

Python

SQL

LLMs

Agent frameworks

Data science

Experiment design

Education

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Data Science, Engineering, Statistics, or related field

Tools

LangGraph

Vertex AI

GCP

Job description

We made history and now we work to transform the future – for our customers, our communities and our families. You'll see your work on the road every day, helping people move freely and pursue their dreams. At Ford, you can build more than vehicles. Come build what matters.

Shape the Future of Manufacturing with ATP

At Ford, we aren’t just building vehicles — we are redefining how the world moves. Within the Advanced Industrial Technology and Platforms (ATP) organization, we are the architects of Ford’s next industrial revolution.

Our mission is clear: we build and scale industrial platforms, technologies, and capabilities that unlock Ford Firsts to drive sustained competitive advantage in manufacturing. Driven by our vision to 'build once, scale everywhere,' we bridge the gap between cutting-edge technology and global physical deployment.

Our guiding mantra is simple yet relentless: Scale what matters, win what's next.

If you are a high-tech builder, thinker, or innovator who thrives at the intersection of software, hardware, and massive scale, ATP is where you belong. Join us, and write the next chapter of industrial history.

In this position...

This is a hands-on engineering role that blends data science and software engineering.

Plant problems rarely have one obvious cause. Our answer is AIR (Agentic Issue Resolution), ATP's AI system that helps plant teams investigate and fix production issues. AI agents take an issue, gather approved evidence from plant systems, connect it to what the plant already knows, and recommend a fix that a person reviews and approves.

As an AI Agent Engineer (Controls), you build those agents: how they plan an investigation, which tools and data they use, and how they explain what they found. You will work on site at Ford's Manufacturing Technology Development Center (Redford, MI) with the supervisors and engineers who use what you build.

What you'll do...

Build and Orchestrate Agents

• Build agents that classify issues, plan investigations, call tools, and draft recommendations.
• Design multi-step and multi-agent workflows with clear hand-offs and stopping rules.
• Write and maintain prompts, tool definitions, and retrieval logic.

Ground Every Answer in Plant Data

• Connect agents to production, quality, and maintenance data and to CoreMesh, ATP's manufacturing ontology and knowledge graph, which gives plant data one shared meaning across systems and plants.
• Rank and filter evidence so agents reason on the right sources, and show those sources in every output.
• Have agents flag low confidence or missing data and hand off to a person.

Measure and Improve

• Test agents against the shared evaluation sets before each release, and add cases from plant experts.
• Analyze failures, compare approaches, and improve accuracy, cost, and response time.
• Turn user feedback and confirmed fixes into better agent behavior.

Learn From the Floor

• Spend time with supervisors and engineers at Kentucky Truck Plant to see how problems really get solved.

Success in Role

• Agents complete investigation steps reliably, with sources shown and confidence stated.
• Evaluation results improve release over release.
• Supervisors and engineers act on the recommendations and confirm fixes.

You'll have...

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Data Science, Engineering, Statistics, or a related field, or equivalent experience.
• At least 6-8 years' experience in data science, machine learning engineering, or software engineering, including production work.
• Experience with Mfg Controls.
• Hands-on experience building with large language models: prompting, retrieval-augmented generation, tool use, and agent frameworks.
• Strong Python and SQL.
• Experience designing experiments and evaluating model or system output.

Even better, you may have...

• Agent frameworks (for example LangGraph or Google ADK) and the Model Context Protocol (MCP).
• Manufacturing, quality, or structured problem-solving experience (8D, 5-Why).
• Knowledge graphs or ontologies.
• Google Cloud Platform and Vertex AI.

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
• 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
• Generous vacation time, sick/personal time, and paid holidays, including between Christmas Eve and New Year’s Day

This position is a salary grade 7 and ranges from $86,600-$144,900.

This position is a salary grade 8 and ranges from $99,100-$166,200.

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.

Visa sponsorship is available for this position.

Candidates for positions with Ford Motor Company must be legally authorized to work in the United States. Verification of employment eligibility will be required at the time of hire.

We are an Equal Opportunity Employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, religion, color, age, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability status or protected veteran status. In the United States, if you need a reasonable accommodation for the online application process due to a disability, please call 1-888-336-0660.

This position is hybrid with a requirement to be onsite four or more days per week.

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