Full Stack Software Engineer - AI Applications

Ford; Palo Alto, Northern (CA, KY); Hybrid; USD 85,000 - 233,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Medical, dental, vision

Paid time off

Tuition assistance

Employee resource groups

Vehicle discount

Back-up child care

Job summary

Ford Motor Company is seeking an experienced AI/Cloud engineer to orchestrate AI agents and build cloud-native systems on GCP. You will design and ship AI-powered applications, connect systems, and empower other engineers with robust tools.

You will work in a fast-moving enterprise environment with security and legacy constraints, and you will shape architecture, pipelines, and guardrails to accelerate delivery.

Qualifications

• BS in CS/EE; MS is a plus, not a substitute for shipping software.
• 2+ years building and deploying full-stack applications in production.
• 2+ years on cloud-native platforms (GCP preferred).
• Demonstrable experience building AI agents or applications—show us what you've built, not what you've read.

Responsibilities

• Orchestrate agents to build using AI as the primary workflow, directing, reviewing, and hardening.
• Build AI-powered applications and agents—RAG pipelines, LLM integrations, agentic workflows.
• Ship cloud-native systems on GCP: design, deploy, operate, owning architecture and CI/CD.
• Connect systems across enterprise SaaS platforms, handling messy APIs and legacy constraints.
• Automate repetitive tasks by coding or directing agents to replace manual work.
• Create tools and guardrails to increase developer productivity.

Skills

Python

JavaScript/TypeScript

AI engineering

AI-assisted development

GCP

Databases

APIs & microservices

Git, IaC & CI/CD

Education

BS in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, or related field

MS is a plus

Tools

GCP (Cloud Run, Cloud Functions, GKE, BigQuery, Cloud Storage)

Terraform

Cloud Build

RESTful services

Job description

Who You Are

An agent orchestrator, not a typist. You don't want to be a faster keyboard. You want to be a manager of agents—handing off the heavy lifting, reviewing the output, and keeping your hands on the architecture. The IDE is a cockpit for orchestration, not a text editor.

Productively lazy. Your dream workflow: describe the requirement, let the agent build it, verify, ship, next. You automate anything a human shouldn't be doing twice. Your biggest bottleneck should be deciding what to build — while AI executes the how.

Fundamentals first. Data structures, algorithms, distributed systems, networking—you understand the machine, not just the library that wraps it. When a framework breaks, you fix it. When AI gives you the wrong answer, you catch it. Orchestrating agents only works if you can tell good output from garbage.

First-principles thinker with vision. You break problems to their core, question the assumptions, and rebuild. A software engineer's job is to architect solutions, not wrestle with syntax. You don't copy an architecture because 'that's how it's done'—you ask why and decide if there's a better way.

High agency. You don't wait for perfect specs or permission. You find a path, propose it, and move. Large organizations have walls; you figure out which ones to go through, around, or remove— and you do it constructively.

Bias for action. Requirements will be messy and priorities will shift. You ship v1, learn, and iterate instead of living in design review.

What You'll Do

• Orchestrate agents to build. Use AI as your default way of working — agents do the heavy lifting, you direct, review, and harden. You set the bar for how the team builds with AI.
• Build the AI use cases. Design and ship AI-powered applications and agents — RAG pipelines, LLM integrations, agentic workflows. Understand what's happening under the hood and make it work in production, at scale.
• Ship cloud-native systems on GCP. Design, deploy, operate. You own the architecture, the infrastructure-as-code, and the CI/CD pipeline. No throwing code over the wall.
• Connect systems that don't want to be connected. Build the integration layer across enterprise SaaS platforms. Expect messy APIs, legacy constraints, and creative problem-solving.
• Automate what shouldn't be manual. If a human repeats it, you write the code — or point an agent at it — to stop it.
• Make other engineers faster. Build the tools, agent workflows, and guardrails that remove friction. Developer productivity is a multiplier.

What You Bring

• Python — deep. You write production systems, not just scripts.
• JavaScript / TypeScript — React, Node.js, or equivalent. A real frontend and a real API. Front-end strength is a big plus.
• AI engineering — LLMs, embeddings, vector stores, RAG. Comfortable building agents and evaluation pipelines. Bonus for fine-tuning or eval work.
• AI-assisted development — fluent with modern AI coding tools and agent workflows, and clear-eyed about where they help and where they don't.
• GCP — Cloud Run, Cloud Functions, GKE, BigQuery, Cloud Storage. Deployed and operated, not just tutorials.
• Databases — relational and NoSQL. You know when to use what, and why.
• APIs & microservices — designed and built RESTful services at scale.
• Git, IaC & CI/CD — Terraform, Cloud Build, or equivalent. Reproducible, version-controlled infrastructure and disciplined code review.

Requirements

• BS in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, or a related field. MS is a plus, not a substitute for shipping software.
• 2+ years building and deploying full-stack applications in production.
• 2+ years on cloud-native platforms (GCP preferred).
• Demonstrable experience building AI agents or applications — show us what you've built, not what you've read.

Why This Role

Ford is a 120-year-old company moving fast on AI, and that's the real challenge: building world-class AI applications inside a large enterprise with real constraints — security, compliance, legacy systems. The engineers who thrive here treat those constraints as problems to solve, not reasons to stop. If you want a place where everything is already figured out, this isn't it. If you're a 10x thinker who wants to build something that matters — and have the grit to push through the hard parts — let's talk.

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,

• 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 salary grade 6-8 and ranges from $85,400-$232,700.

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.

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.

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