Portfolio Technical Program Manager - FNV3.x Cabin Climate Control and Heated Seats

Ford Motor Company; Dearborn (MI); Hybrid; USD 99,000 - 166,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Medical, dental, vision coverage

Vehicle discount program

Tuition assistance

Paid time off

Job summary

Ford Motor Company in Dearborn is seeking an experienced Technical Program Manager (TPM) to lead feature-level planning and governance for Cabin Climate and Heated Seats within the FNV3.x Platform. You will connect roadmaps to vehicle milestones, identify risks, and drive data-driven decisions across hardware, embedded software, and validation teams.

This hybrid, on-site role requires Jira discipline, strong cross-functional collaboration, and a track record delivering complex vehicle software

Qualifications

• Experience in technical program management or related roles on hardware/embedded software deliveries.
• Ability to connect feature strategy to vehicle milestones and program timing.
• Strong planning, governance, and risk-management capabilities.

Responsibilities

• Lead feature-level planning and governance for Cabin Climate and Heated Seats within the platform.
• Create and maintain feature roadmaps and execution plans aligned to OKRs and capacity.
• Identify risks early, assess impacts, and communicate mitigation plans.
• Use Jira and reporting tools to track work, milestones and readiness.
• Coordinate governance forums, escalation paths, and change-control practices.
• Engage stakeholders across engineering, product, validation and quality functions.

Skills

Cross-functional coordination

Jira proficiency

Data-driven decision making

Stakeholder management

Hardware & embedded systems

Feature roadmaps

Education

Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science or related field

Tools

Jira

Job description

Your Vision. Ford's Future. Technology Platform Programs (TPP). Seeking an innovative challenge? Ford's new Technology Platform Programs (TPP) team is reimagining vehicle electrical architecture and software platforms, pivoting to a streamlined, scalable, platform-first strategy, and we need your talent to drive this vision. At TPP, you'll be instrumental in simplifying software by driving Ford's minimum complexity vision, boosting quality and speed by enabling faster, higher-quality software delivery, optimizing programs to make vehicle execution significantly more efficient, and scaling solutions by leading cross-functional strategies for broad impact across our vehicle lineup. TPP is where bold ideas transform into real-world breakthroughs that define the future of Ford. Join us and drive innovation!

In this position

Success in this role requires a TPM who operates with execution discipline, technical curiosity, and strong cross-functional coordination. You will support feature-level planning and governance, connect feature deliverables to vehicle and platform milestones, and use data-driven practices to identify risks early, track progress, and drive accountability. You will communicate technical and program information clearly to help teams make decisions, remove blockers, and maintain alignment. The ideal candidate has experience supporting product delivery involving hardware, embedded software, vehicle systems, validation, and release readiness, and is comfortable working across Jira-based execution tracking, technical reviews, and program milestone discussions

What You'll Do

• Own TPM execution support for Cabin Climate and Heated Seats features within the FNV3.x Platform, ensuring delivery plans, dependencies, risks, and milestone readiness are clearly tracked.
• Create and maintain feature-level roadmaps and execution plans that reflect OKRs, quality priorities, capacity constraints, and program timing commitments.
• Proactively identify, assess, and communicate risks across feature delivery using structured problem-solving, data, and clear mitigation paths.
• Use Jira and related reporting tools to track work, dependencies, milestones, readiness, delivery health, and cross-team risks with consistent reporting.
• Support planning cycles that connect feature strategy, capacity, execution plans, milestones, and measurable outcomes.
• Coordinate governance forums, decision cadences, escalation paths, and change-control practices that support execution clarity and program integrity.
• Escalate execution gaps, timing risks, dependency concerns, and decision needs when outcomes, quality, or customer commitments are at risk.
• Engage stakeholders proactively and build alignment across engineering, product, platform, release, validation, safety, regulatory, and quality functions.
• Communicate technical and program information clearly for engineering and cross-functional audiences to enable timely decision-making.
• Define, track, and improve feature-level success metrics, using insights to support continuous improvement and corrective actions.
• Perform impact assessments and support scope-change management to ensure timing, quality, and customer implications are understood and communicated.
• Contribute to technical discussions by understanding Cabin Climate and Heated Seats feature behavior, system integrations, hardware and embedded software dependencies, and platform-level delivery implications.
• Support scope-cost-time-quality tradeoff discussions by providing clear data, execution status, and risk visibility.
• Help create a blame-free operating environment where risks are surfaced early, blockers are addressed directly, and sustainable solutions are pursued.
• Support teams through platform transitions using Ford Management System principles to reinforce alignment, accountability, operating cadence, and execution discipline.

How You'll Do It

• Lead with feature-level clarity: connect customer intent, roadmap, dependencies, risks, and execution into a consistent operating rhythm.
• Use data, Jira insights, and structured governance to make progress, risks, and decisions visible.
• Build trust across functions by communicating early, clearly, and consistently.
• Drive urgency with judgment, ensuring teams understand priorities, impacts, owners, and required decisions.

You'll have

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Systems Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, or a related technical field.
• 5+ years of experience in technical program management, product delivery, systems engineering, software development, embedded systems, vehicle systems, or related technical delivery roles.
• Demonstrated experience supporting cross-functional feature delivery with hardware, embedded software, vehicle systems, platform milestones, validation, release, and quality dependencies.
• Proficiency using Jira or equivalent tools to manage work, dependencies, dashboards, readiness tracking, reports, and execution transparency.
• Experience creating and maintaining feature roadmaps or execution plans aligned to objectives, milestones, capacity, quality priorities, and changing business needs.
• Ability to identify risks early, communicate them clearly, support mitigation plans, and escalation when timing, quality, or delivery outcomes are at stake.
• Strong stakeholder management skills with experience building alignment and communicating effectively across engineering and cross-functional audiences.
• Experience supporting scope management, change control, impact assessments, and tradeoffs across scope, cost, time, and quality.
• Ability to define measurable success metrics and use data-driven insights to improve execution, risk management, and feature delivery performance.
• Working knowledge of vehicle systems integration, technical interdependencies, and hardware/software delivery implications.
• Ability to work through ambiguity, prioritize effectively, and reinforce accountability, operating cadence, and customer-focused execution.
• Preferred: direct experience with Cabin Climate, Heated Seats, HVAC controls, thermal comfort features, body electronics, connected vehicle features, vehicle electrical architecture, or Ford platform delivery processes.

Even better, you may have

• Has successfully supported feature-level TPM work across vehicle systems or embedded software programs, not only single-task project coordination.
• Can translate technical complexity into clear risks, decisions, tradeoffs, and mitigation plans.
• Demonstrates strong Jira discipline, including dependency tracking, dashboards, reporting, risk visibility, and structured feature reviews.
• Shows good judgment in when to elevate, when to align stakeholders, and when to inject urgency to protect delivery outcomes.
• Balances customer experience, engineering reality, program timing, and quality priorities without losing clarity on commitments.
• Familiar with Seat Assembly product development and release.
• Able to read electrical schematics, perform DT comparison and working knowledge of Electrical Systems Integration.
• Experience with the technical implementation details of Electrical and Software vehicle program GPDS deliverables.
• Has credibility with technical teams and can contribute meaningfully to discussions involving system integration, embedded software, hardware readiness, validation, and release dependencies.

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 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
• 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 salary grade 8 and ranges from $99,100-$166,200.

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.

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.