Lead Technical Program Manager

Ford Motor Company; Dearborn (MI); Hybrid; USD 116,000 - 218,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Medical coverage

Job summary

Ford is seeking a Senior Technical Program Manager to lead large strategic transformations within Enterprise Technology. You’ll align business process transformation with enterprise systems and connected data, across Product Development, Supply Chain, Manufacturing, and IT.

Translate objectives into a coordinated roadmap and drive cross-functional decisions to keep delivery moving. This leadership role combines technical depth with operating model development, guiding TPMs and analysts,

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Information Systems, or related field or equivalent experience.
• 5+ years of experience leading complex technical programs or enterprise transformations across multiple teams.
• Experience leading cross-functional delivery and coaching technical program professionals.
• Strong understanding of SDLC and integrated enterprise systems (PLM, ERP, MES).

Responsibilities

• Own the integrated delivery roadmap across Product Development, Supply Chain, Manufacturing, and IT.
• Lead technical integration and systems thinking to assess interfaces and data flows.
• Drive dependency and readiness management across teams to avoid milestones disruption.
• Lead Agile planning and execution including PI planning and backlog prioritization.
• Coordinate decision making with engineering, business, architecture, and finance partners.

Skills

Program management

Agile delivery

Jira backlog management

Cross-functional leadership

Education

Bachelor’s degree in CS/Engineering/IS

Tools

Jira

Power BI

Confluence

3DX

SAP

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.

Enterprise Technology plays a critical part in shaping the future of mobility. If you’re looking for the chance to leverage advanced technology to redefine the transportation landscape, enhance the customer experience and improve people’s lives, this is the opportunity for you. Join us and challenge your IT expertise and analytical skills to help create vehicles that are as smart as you are.

Lead technical program management for large strategic transformations at Product creation & Industrialization organization at Ford, aligning business process transformation with the enterprise systems and connected data needed to execute it. Working across Product Development, Supply Chain, Manufacturing, and IT, you will translate program objectives into an integrated roadmap, establish clear accountability, and drive cross-functional decisions that keep delivery moving.

This is a leadership role that combines technical depth, systems thinking, operating framework development and disciplined execution. You will guide technical program managers and integration analysts, bring clarity to complex dependencies, and ensure teams understand how their work affects the broader Industrial System. You will partner with engineering and architecture leaders to resolve integration challenges, communicate trade-offs, and deliver coordinated outcomes rather than isolated system changes.

What success looks like

• An integrated roadmap with clear milestone ownership and visible cross-team dependencies.
• Timely resolution of integration issues and decisions, with risks and mitigation actions understood by stakeholders.
• Coordinated delivery that protects end-to-end data flows and supports business process readiness.
• A team operating with clear priorities, consistent governance, and shared accountability for outcomes.

• Own the integrated delivery roadmap: Translate Transformation business objectives into milestones, workstreams, sequencing, and delivery commitments across Product Development, Supply Chain, Manufacturing, and IT. Align scope and capacity with program priorities.
• Lead technical integration and systems thinking: Partner with architecture and engineering leads to assess system interfaces, technical hand‑offs, and end-to-end data flows. Ensure changes account for downstream impacts and preserve a connected data framework.
• Drive dependency and readiness management: Establish ownership for cross-team dependencies, track integration readiness, and resolve gaps before they disrupt program milestones. Coordinate validation and release planning with delivery teams.
• Lead Agile planning and execution: Guide sprint and Program Increment (PI) planning across teams, ensuring feature-level dependencies, backlog priorities, and capacity assumptions align with the integration roadmap.
• Resolve issues and retire risks: Lead structured reviews of cross-functional technical roadblocks, root causes, and mitigation options. Assign accountable owners, drive containment and resolution, and expedite decisions with clear impacts and recommendations.
• Enable timely cross-functional decisions: Set decision-focused meeting agendas and bring engineering, business, architecture, finance and strategy partners together to evaluate scope, schedule, cost, and technical trade-offs. Document decisions and follow through on commitments.
• Develop operating model to provide transparent program governance: Establish a consistent operating cadence and communicate delivery status, risks, dependencies and decisions to program leadership. Use Jira and dashboards to make progress and blockers visible.
• Lead and develop the team: Set clear expectations for TPMs and integration analysts, coach technical problem solving and stakeholder communication, and foster ownership, collaboration and continuous improvement.
• Coordinate partner commitments: Align internal teams and, where applicable, external technology partners on deliverables, integration requirements and milestone readiness.
• Lead change adoption: Partner with business process owners to document future-state workflows, prepare teams for new ways of working, and ensure technical delivery supports vehicle program and plant adoption.

Minimum Qualifications

• Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Information Systems, or a related field, or equivalent relevant experience.
• Demonstrated 5+ experience leading complex technical programs or enterprise transformations across multiple teams, locations and timelines.
• Experience leading cross-functional delivery, establishing accountability, influencing without direct authority and coaching technical program professionals.
• Strong understanding of the software development lifecycle and integrated enterprise systems, including Product Lifecycle Management (PLM), Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) and Manufacturing Execution Systems (MES).
• Ability to evaluate technical dependencies, data flows, integration risks and downstream impacts across Product Development, Supply Chain and Manufacturing.
• Hands‑on experience with Agile delivery, PI planning and Jira‑based backlog and dependency management.
• Proven ability to turn complex technical issues into actionable options, drive decisions and communicate concise program updates to senior leadership.
• Analytical rigor in root‑cause analysis, risk management and delivery planning, with a commitment to transparency, speed, technical excellence and Ford+ behaviors.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience leading Industrial System or automotive Product Development, Supply Chain or Manufacturing IT transformation programs.
• Experience with enterprise platforms such as 3DX (Dassault Systèmes), SAP or MMP.
• Background in software development, systems engineering, data engineering or enterprise architecture.
• Familiarity with cloud‑native architectures, Master Data Management (MDM) and migration of legacy data to modern platforms.
• Experience using Power BI or Tableau for program dashboards and Confluence for technical documentation and decision records.
• Experience managing program budgets, resource plans or external technology partner commitments.
• Experience leading organizational change, future‑state process mapping and adoption of new delivery practices.

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, subsidised back‑up childcare 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 leadership level 6 and ranges from $115,500-$218,100.

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 not available for this position.

Domestic relocation 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 with a requirement to be onsite four or more days per week.

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