Software Engineer

Ford; Northern (KY); On-site; USD 133,000 - 251,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Medical, dental, vision coverage

Paid time off & holidays

Vehicle discount program

Tuition assistance

Job summary

Ford Credit is seeking a Principal AI Architect to define and lead enterprise AI strategy, delivering secure, cloud-native, production-ready systems. This leadership role manages AI, cloud, and security architects, shaping reusable standards and reference architectures while guiding a high-impact, cross-functional team.

The ideal candidate has extensive experience in production AI/ML, deep Google Cloud expertise, and a proven ability to balance strategic decisions with concrete roadmaps and

Qualifications

• 12+ years of technology experience with 8+ in architecture.
• Experience deploying enterprise AI/ML systems in production.
• Deep cloud experience on Google Cloud or a comparable hyperscaler.
• Security architecture expertise including Zero Trust.
• Ability to communicate complex trade-offs to executives.
• Formal leadership and architecture standardization experience.

Responsibilities

• Define multi-year enterprise AI architecture strategy with roadmaps.
• Establish AI-native software delivery lifecycle.
• Create reusable patterns and evidence bundles.
• Architect production agentic systems with memory and orchestration.
• Define risk tiers and human oversight for autonomy.
• Set patterns for knowledge provenance and retrieval.
• Design and govern AI applications on Google Cloud with Vertex AI, Gemini, GKE, Cloud Run, BigQuery, Pub/Sub.
• Embed Zero-Trust and security in AI and cloud architectures.
• Guide modernization of hybrid and legacy systems.
• Advise senior leaders and manage an architect team.

Skills

enterprise AI architecture

cloud architecture

security architecture

people management

executive communication

Education

Bachelor's degree or equivalent

Tools

Vertex AI

Gemini

GKE

Cloud Run

BigQuery

Pub/Sub

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.

The Ford Motor Credit Company team helps put people behind the wheels of great Ford and Lincoln vehicles. By partnering with dealerships, we provide financing, personalized service and professional expertise to thousands of dealers and millions of customers in over one hundred countries around the world.

In this position...

Ford Credit is seeking a Principal AI Architect to shape its enterprise AI strategy and turn it into secure, cloud-native, production-ready systems. This leadership-level player‑coach will manage and develop AI, cloud, and security architects while directly owning selected high‑impact architecture work. The role will establish reusable standards and delivery practices for AI‑native software development, governed agentic systems, and technology modernization.

The Principal AI Architect provides enterprise direction for how Ford Credit designs, delivers, secures, and operates AI‑enabled technology. Working across business and technology teams, this leader defines target and transition architectures, evaluates investment and risk trade‑offs, and translates strategic decisions into practical roadmaps, reference architectures, standards, and implementation commitments. The role requires both executive‑level judgment and the ability to test architectural assumptions against working systems and operational evidence.

A central focus is building an AI‑native software delivery lifecycle that connects business intent and clear specifications to bounded execution, trustworthy verification, operational evidence, and continuous improvement. The Principal AI Architect also guides the design of production agentic systems, including their models, enterprise context, retrieval, tools, memory, orchestration, permissions, evaluations, observability, and recovery mechanisms. Security, human oversight, and auditable controls must be built into these systems, with autonomy matched to the consequences of each action.

The role guides cloud‑native architecture and the modernization of legacy, mainframe, on‑premises, SaaS, and cloud systems so they can support AI‑assisted and agentic change safely. By converting recurring challenges into reusable golden paths and platform capabilities, the Principal AI Architect helps teams make sound decisions without creating a central approval bottleneck. Success includes an adopted AI architecture roadmap, production‑ready agentic patterns, measurable improvements in delivery and risk management, and an architecture team with clear ownership and growing independent capability.

What you’ll do...

• Define Ford Credit’s multi‑year enterprise AI architecture strategy, target states, transition roadmaps, standards, and investment priorities.
• Establish an AI‑native software delivery lifecycle built around explicit specifications, bounded execution, automated validation, evidence, and learning loops.
• Create reusable patterns for architecture manifests, technical plans, contracts, acceptance criteria, authority boundaries, escalation rules, and evidence bundles.
• Architect production agentic systems that integrate models, retrieval, tools, skills, memory, state, orchestration, permissions, evaluation, observability, and recovery.
• Define risk‑tiered autonomy, checkpoints, pause gates, human oversight, and auditable decision trails for consequential actions.
• Establish evaluation practices spanning automated and regression testing, adversarial testing, human review, user acceptance, and production outcome monitoring.
• Set patterns for authoritative enterprise knowledge, including provenance, freshness, retrieval, versioning, structured context, and durable memory.
• Design and govern scalable AI applications and platforms on Google Cloud, with appropriate use of services such as Vertex AI, Gemini, GKE, Cloud Run, BigQuery, and Pub/Sub.
• Embed Zero‑Trust principles, identity and access controls, data protection, software supply‑chain security, and incident response into AI and cloud architectures.
• Address AI‑specific risks, including prompt injection, data leakage, tool misuse, excessive agency, insecure retrieval, poisoning, and unsafe generated code.
• Guide the modernization of hybrid and legacy systems through modular architectures, APIs, events, observability, and practical transition plans.
• Turn architectural decisions and lessons learned into reference architectures, golden paths, validators, templates, runbooks, and platform capabilities.
• Advise senior leaders and build alignment across engineering, product, cybersecurity, data, legal, privacy, risk, procurement, and operations.
• Manage and develop an assigned team of architects through clear priorities, delegation, coaching, performance management, and succession planning.
• Use enterprise‑approved AI tools responsibly to support eligible architecture research, synthesis, prototyping, and drafting while preserving confidentiality and human accountability.

You’ll have...

• A bachelor’s degree in computer science, engineering, information systems, cybersecurity, or a related field, or equivalent practical experience.
• Candidates should bring at least 12 years of progressive technology experience, including at least eight years in architecture roles and sustained responsibility for enterprise or cross‑domain decisions.
• They must have experience architecting and operating enterprise AI/ML systems in production, including generative AI, large language models, retrieval‑augmented generation, agentic workflows, evaluation, observability, and model lifecycle management.
• Candidates must also bring deep cloud architecture experience on Google Cloud or a comparable hyperscaler and strong security architecture expertise spanning Zero Trust, identity, authorization, secrets, APIs, threat modeling, data protection, and software supply‑chain security.
• A strong understanding of AI safety and security risks is essential.
• The role requires a record of creating standards, reference architectures, roadmaps, and guardrails used across teams
• Fluency in modern software delivery and production operations
• Formal people‑management experience

• The ability to communicate complex technical and investment trade‑offs to both executives and engineers.

Even better, you may have...

• A master’s degree in a related discipline
• relevant Google Cloud professional certifications
• hands‑on familiarity with Google Cloud AI, data, compute, security, and integration services.
• Especially valuable are experience transforming enterprise delivery practices around specifications and automated evaluation
• modernizing complex hybrid estates; working in financial services or another highly regulated environment; and taking proofs of concept through enterprise adoption.

• Strong systems thinking and an ability to convert local learning into reusable architecture and operating‑model improvements are also preferred.

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!

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 $132,800-$250,800.

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.

For more information on salary and benefits, click here: https://fordcareers.co/LL6

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.