Data Scientist - Conversational AI

Ford-Motor-Company; Dearborn (MI); Hybrid; USD 140,000 - 190,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Medical benefits

Dental and vision coverage

Vehicle discount program

Tuition assistance

Parental leave

Job summary

Ford Motor Company is seeking a data scientist for the Digital Cabin team to advance AI-driven in-vehicle assistants. You will blend data engineering, ML, and product analytics to drive actionable insights and dashboards across platforms, including mobile and IVI systems.

You will build analytical sandboxes in GCP, design experiments, and validate model updates while collaborating with product managers and engineers. Hybrid work four days on-site.

Qualifications

• Experience applying NLP and ML to product analytics and user utterance categorization.

Responsibilities

• Leverage NLP and ML to categorize and cluster user utterances; perform sentiment analyses on logs.

Skills

NLP & Utterance Analysis

AI Response Evaluation

Data Integration & Sanitization

Problem Framing & Metric Definition

Advanced Visualization

Experimentation

Analytics as Code

Strategic Problem Solving

Education

Master's Degree in Data Science, Computer Science, Statistics

Tools

BigQuery

Looker

PowerBI

dbt

Git/GitHub

Amplitude

Job description

The Opportunity

We are the movers of the world and the makers of the future. The Integrated Services team at Ford is developing connected, digital platforms that will revolutionize how vehicles function.

You will join the Digital Cabin organization as the dedicated Data Scientist for our next-generation AI Digital Assistant. This AI-driven feature is currently active on mobile platforms and is rapidly expanding into our In-Vehicle Infotainment (IVI) systems to execute tasks, provide vehicle reports, and enhance the driving experience.

This role offers a unique opportunity to shape the data strategy for a high-priority AI product from the ground up. We are looking for a strategic, 'full-stack' Data Scientist who leans heavily into Product Analytics. You must be willing to roll up your sleeves to structure raw data and build executive dashboards, while also deploying applied machine learning techniques to categorize user utterances, evaluate AI performance, and drive behavioral insights.

What you'll do...

• NLP & Utterance Analysis: Leverage Natural Language Processing (NLP) and machine learning to categorize and cluster raw user utterances. Perform sentiment analysis on unstructured text logs to extract actionable product insights.
• AI Response Evaluation & Experimentation: Design methodologies to evaluate the helpfulness, accuracy, and relevance of the AI’s responses. Design and analyze A/B tests to measure the impact of prompt adjustments, model updates, and new feature rollouts.
• Data Integration & Sanitization: Dive directly into Google Cloud Platform (GCP) to cleanly join and structure mobile, customer support, and vehicle data into robust 'Analytical Sandboxes,' ensuring strict adherence to data privacy and PII handling standards.
• Problem Framing & Metric Definition: Act as a strategic partner to Product Managers. Challenge assumptions and define core conversational metrics (e.g., task success rates, user engagement, support deflection).
• Advanced Visualization & Self-Service: Design, build, and maintain highly intuitive, narrative-driven dashboards using Looker and PowerBI to empower the product team to answer their own day-to-day questions.
• Bridge the Mobile-to-IVI Gap: Act as the analytical bridge as our digital assistant expands from the Ford app into the vehicle, standardizing mobile data against our emerging in-vehicle data contracts.

You’ll have...

• Education: A Master's Degree in a quantitative, technical, or related field (e.g., Data Science, Computer Science, Statistics).
• Experience: 7+ years of experience in Data Science, Product Analytics, or Applied Machine Learning.
• 'Full-Stack' Capability: Demonstrated ability to act as a bridge between Data Science, Engineering, and Product—taking raw telemetry, applying statistical/ML models, and transforming it into business insights without relying on a central data team for every step.

Primary Technical Skills

• Applied ML & LLM Analytics: Proficiency in Python or R with hands-on experience in text analytics, clustering, and categorization. Familiarity with LLM evaluation techniques (e.g., prompt effectiveness, hallucination tracking, human-in-the-loop feedback).
• Expert-Level SQL & GCP: Highly proficient in writing complex, optimized SQL (Window Functions, CTEs, handling JSON/Nested Data) within Google Cloud Platform (BigQuery) to structure datasets independently.
• Advanced Visualization: Deep expertise in building scalable business intelligence solutions, semantic layers, and executive-facing dashboards in Looker and PowerBI.
• Experimentation: Strong grasp of statistics and experience designing and measuring A/B tests in a product environment.
• Analytics as Code: Experience with version control (e.g., Git, GitHub) and working in environments where analytics changes go through a formal peer-review process.
• Strategic Problem Solving: Comfortable navigating complex, multi-source data environments. You view data integration as a puzzle to be solved and a strategic enabler for the business.

Even better, you may have...

• Behavioral Analytics: Experience using platforms like Amplitude to analyze user funnels, retention curves, and cohort behavior.
• Data Modeling: Experience with dbt (Data Build Tool) or similar frameworks for transforming data in the warehouse.

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!

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 ranges from a salary grade of 6-8 from.

For more information on salary and benefits, https://fordcareers.co/GSR.

Visa sponsorship is not 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.

This position is hybrid (onsite four days per week).

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