Camera Software Engineering Manager

Ford Motor Company; Palo Alto (CA); Hybrid; USD 150,000 - 284,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Hybrid work with onsite four+ days per

Tuition assistance

Vehicle discount program

Paid holidays

Paid time off

Visa sponsorship

Job summary

Ford Motor Company seeks a Camera Software Engineering Manager to own end-to-end delivery of in-vehicle camera features, aligning IVI software with embedded firmware. You will own the full lifecycle from requirements to OTA release across IVI and embedded layers.

You will lead cross-functional teams in defining roadmaps, coordinating releases, and driving milestones, with strong emphasis on quality, security, and manufacturing readiness in a hybrid on-site role at Ford facilities in the US.

Qualifications

• 7–10 years of software engineering experience, including 3+ years leading or managing engineering teams that delivered shipped products.
• Familiarity with camera/video software, including capture pipelines, ISP, streaming, H.264/H.265 codecs, and latency-sensitive real-time systems.
• Understanding machine-learning inference and computer-vision workflows for camera applications, including model integration, performance optimization, and deployment on resource-constrained platforms.
• Solid understanding of Linux operating system fundamentals, system-level programming, and driver integration.
• Deep expertise on at least one side of the stack, with working fluency on the other: IVI: Kotlin/Java, AAOS, Jetpack Compose, JNI; Embedded/OS: C/C++, Linux, RTOS (Zephyr preferred)
• Experience with device-to-device / vehicle communication protocols (e.g., UDS, state-sync frameworks, automotive Ethernet).
• Proven track record with CI/CD, automated testing, and code-quality gates.

Responsibilities

• Own the end-to-end delivery of camera features across IVI software and embedded firmware, from concept to production release.
• Translate product requirements into a technical roadmap spanning IVI application layer and embedded firmware.
• Define, track, and communicate milestones, dependencies, and risks; unblock teams to keep releases on schedule.
• Lead the interface contract between IVI and camera firmware, including diagnostics and firmware update flows.
• Guide the video streaming pipeline architecture, including encoding, ISP configuration, and latency optimization.
• Coordinate software integration, bench testing, and vehicle-level validation with cross-functional teams.

Skills

Leadership

Cross-functional communication

Program management

CI/CD

Automotive IVI knowledge

Tools

C/C++

Linux

RTOS Zephyr

ARM Cortex-M

JNI

AAOS

Kotlin/Java

Jetpack Compose

Job description

We are seeking a Camera Software Engineering Manager to own the end-to-end delivery of in-vehicle camera features, driving alignment between the IVI software and the embedded camera firmware. This person is accountable for the full feature lifecycle, from requirements and architecture through implementation, integration, validation, manufacturing readiness, and OTA release, across both the IVI software and embedded firmware sides of the stack.

What you'll do...

• Work with Product and Program Management organizations to define and refine product requirements, coordinate releases, and establish feature delivery milestones
• Own camera feature delivery end-to-end across the IVI software and the embedded camera firmware, from concept to production release.
• Translate product requirements into a coherent technical roadmap spanning both the IVI application layer and the embedded C/C++ firmware layer.
• Define, track, and communicate milestones, dependencies, and risks; unblock teams and drive decisions to keep releases on schedule.

Cross-Platform Technical Leadership

• Lead the interface contract between IVI and camera firmware, including distributed state-synchronization protocols and UDS-based diagnostics and firmware update flows.
• Guide the architecture for the video streaming pipeline: live streaming to the IVI screen, H.264/H.265 encoding, ISP configuration, resolution/frame-rate tuning, and latency optimization.
• Guide the integration of machine-learning and computer-vision capabilities, including object detection, classification, tracking, and other camera-based perception use cases.
• Work with the platform team to improve and ensure robust communications across vehicle network interfaces, including automotive Ethernet.

Quality, Verification & Validation

• Partner with the V&V team, quality, and systems teams to define test strategies, integration plans, and acceptance criteria for camera features.
• Coordinate software integration, bench testing, vehicle-level validation, defect triage, and root-cause analysis across IVI and embedded firmware.
• Champion quality across CI pipelines, test frameworks, and code-quality gates, including static analysis and coverage thresholds.

Security & Manufacturing Readiness

• Partner with security teams on secure boot, TLS, certificate-based authentication, and secure provisioning / key injection.
• Drive manufacturing readiness, including OTA firmware distribution, version management, artifact release pipelines, and production flashing workflows.

Stakeholder Communication

• Serve as the single point of accountability for camera software status to product, program, and executive stakeholders.
• Provide regular, structured updates to Program and Engineering leadership, communicating progress, risks, dependencies, quality metrics, validation status, and release readiness to senior leadership and other key stakeholders.

You’ll have...

• 7–10 years of software engineering experience, including 3+ years leading or managing engineering teams that delivered shipped products.
• Familiarity with camera/video software, including capture pipelines, ISP, streaming, H.264/H.265 codecs, and latency-sensitive real-time systems
• Understanding machine-learning inference and computer-vision workflows for camera applications, including model integration, performance optimization, and deployment on resource-constrained platforms. Demonstrated experience owning features end-to-end across an application layer and an embedded/firmware layer.
• Solid understanding of Linux operating system fundamentals, system-level programming, and driver integration.
• Deep expertise on at least one side of the stack, with working fluency on the other:
• IVI: Kotlin/Java, AAOS (IVI Automotive OS), Jetpack Compose, JNI.
• Embedded / OS: C/C++, Linux, RTOS (Zephyr preferred), bootloaders, and device drivers.
• Experience with device-to-device / vehicle communication protocols (e.g., UDS, state-sync frameworks, automotive Ethernet).
• Proven track record with CI/CD, automated testing, and code-quality gates.
• Experience working with V&V, QA, systems engineering, and other cross-functional teams to deliver production software.
• Excellent cross-functional communication and program management skills.

Even better, you may have...

• Experience in automotive / in-vehicle infotainment (IVI) software.
• Hands-on background with ARM Cortex-M based SoCs and vision/camera microcontrollers
• Experience shipping OTA firmware updates and managing multi-target build matrices across hardware variants.
• Familiarity with distributed state synchronization and VHAL integration.

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 a leadership level 6 and ranges from $150,200-$283,500.

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.

Internal applicants: moving into this role may result in an adjustment to your current compensation based on the posted pay range for this role, taking into consideration your qualifications and other relevant factors.

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.