Functional Safety Technical Expert

Ford; Dearborn (MI); Hybrid; USD 112,680 - 212,760; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Medical, dental, vision coverage

Vehicle discount program

Tuition assistance

Paid holidays

Paid time off and community service

Job summary

Ford in Dearborn is seeking a FuSa leader to assess safety plans, drive a health dashboard, and collaborate with cross-functional teams across product engineering, validation, and supplier engineering. You will guide safety process improvements and maturity with AI-enhanced insights, reporting to OFSA leadership.

Required 7+ years in embedded automotive safety software verification, ISO-26262 Part 6 expertise, and strong communication skills.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Software Engineering, Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, or related field.
• FuSa Professional Accreditation: UL, TUV, Exida or equivalent.
• 7+ years hands-on experience in embedded automotive safety software verification.
• Demonstrable deep understanding of ISO-26262 Part 6 and related safety lifecycle; software requirements, architecture, verification.
• Experience with safety software test tools including MISRA/Safe C, IDEs, static analysis, coverage, CI/CD pipelines, and fault injection; familiarity with SIL/HIL/MIL and model-based development.
• Excellent communication and collaboration across cross-functional teams; leadership and initiative.

Responsibilities

• Lead the development of the FuSa Software Health Dashboard, including metrics and maturity criteria.
• Collaborate with Ford Connected Vehicle Software, Product Data Integrity, and supplier engineering teams to close safety process gaps.
• Develop capability maturity plans with engineering stakeholders.
• Provide status, risks, and opportunities to executive leadership.

Skills

FuSa leadership

Dashboard ownership

Cross-functional collaboration

Safety software verification

ISO-26262 expertise

AI in embedded software

Communication

Leadership

Education

Bachelor’s degree in engineering/science

Tools

MISRA

Safe C

IDEs

Static code analysis

Code coverage

CI/CD

SIL

HIL

MIL

Model-based development

Fault injection

Job description

You will assess project safety plans and their work products to develop a FuSa Health Dashboard.

You will work with Ford Connected Vehicle Software and Product Data Integrity, and supplier engineering teams to identify safety related process and work product gaps and recommend best practice solutions.

You will develop a capability maturity plan working with engineering stakeholders.

You will report to the Director of the Office of Functional Safety Assurance (OFSA).

You'll have...

• FuSa Technical Leadership:Apply, demonstrate and champion best in class methods, tools, practices to ensure embedded software achieves safety.
• FuSa Software Health Dashboard Ownership: Lead the development of the FuSa Software Health Dashboard for the enterprise, including its metrics and criteria for maturity. Develop AI enhanced tracking and analytic tools to determine status and priority actions.
• Cross-functional collaboration:Collaborate closely with cross-functional teams including product engineering, program management, validation and verification, software, hardware, design, integration, quality, and architecture to drive maturity of enterprise FuSa Health metrics.
• FuSa Software related escapes: Apply system engineering, risk analysis, trouble shooting and root cause analysis methods to find software related issues and close the loop to process, methods and tools gaps.
• Alignment of FuSa and Quality Assurance:Align and exploit synergies with SQA where this helps drive FuSa maturity.
• Continuous improvement:Drive continuous improvement initiatives to optimize software development and deployment processes, tools, and methodologies, enhancing effectiveness.
• Communication: Provide consistent health status, insights, risks and opportunities to executive leadership and stakeholders.

You'll have...

• Education:Bachelor’s degree in Software Engineering, Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, or a related field.
• FuSa Professional Accreditation: UL, TUV, Exida or equivalent.
• Experience:Minimum of 7 years of hands‑on experience in embedded automotive safety software verification.
• Technical expertise:Demonstrable deep understanding of ISO-26262 Part 6 e.g. software requirements analysis, decomposition, allocation, verification. Software architectural design, safety analysis, safety mechanism design and implementation, software unit test, integration and verification, FFI, DFA, software design practices to ensure safety, software structural design and verification, the inter‑relationship between software, hardware and systems engineering as it relates to the safety lifecycle. Use of AI in embedded software development and verification.
• Experienced with tools commonly used in safety software test including requirements analysis, IDEs, static code analysis, code complexity metrics, code and requirement coverage, MISRA and Safe C rules checkers, debuggers, configuration management, change control, CI/CD pipelines, regression test, SIL, HIL, MIL. Model based software development. Development of software test strategies including fault injection.
• Working knowledge of ISO-26262 Part 3,4 Concept and Systems Engineering process, tools, methods, including HARA, HAZOP, Functional Safety Concept. Able to understand the translation of systems work products into software.
• Communication & collaboration:Excellent communication and collaboration skills, with the ability to effectively engage with cross-functional teams, external partners, and stakeholders to drive successful feature system development projects.
• Leadership:Leadership abilities, with a track record of initiative and problem solving, delivering high-quality software that meets safety, security, and performance objectives.

Even better, you may have...

• Master's degree in a technical or Management field to broaden scope of activities
• Additional experience in Systems, Hardware development for Safety applications in a complementary fashion
• Experience with software related standards development
• Strategic and systemic thinking: Demonstrated ability to comprehend end-to-end systems of systems, apply systemic thinking, critical thinking, and strategic reasoning to identify opportunities, rapidly understand complex concerns, provide alternative solutions, and drive strategy from concept through to production
• Adaptability: Comfort with ambiguity, with a demonstrated ability to structure an approach to complex problems and drive clarity on solutions
• Innovation: Understand and drive innovation and change in processes, engineering excellence, quality, and efficiency
• Continuous improvement mindset: A drive for a system approach to design and development, coupled with a desire and curiosity to strive for exceptional delivery execution and continuous improvement

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 leadership level 6 and ranges from $112,680-$212,760.

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 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.

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. Candidates who are in commuting distance to a Ford hub location may be required to be onsite four or more days per week. #LI-Hybrid #LI-LB1