Description
Ford’s Model E team is charged with delivering the company’s vision of a fully electric transportation future. Model e is customer-obsessed, entrepreneurial, and data-driven and is dedicated to delivering industry-leading customer experience for electric vehicle buyers and owners.
This role designs and manages the next generation of software products for Ford Fathom, our future connected vehicle, designed from the ground up in California. You will own the end-to-end product lifecycle, from trend-spotting and ideation through design and engineering integration, partner collaboration, and market launch.
The successful candidate will define what it means to be a connected vehicle in 2026 and beyond, building unique and exciting connected experiences. You will navigate the friction between agile consumer software cycles and traditional automotive development, working directly with designers and engineers to bring the future of the vehicle to life.
This leader will ensure that all products not only delight the customer but also meet Ford’s rigorous standards for safety, security, and quality.
Responsibilities
- Trend Forecasting: Monitor global consumer software and technology trends and translate them into a compelling connected experience roadmap.
- Business Case Development: Own the business case for connected vehicle software products. Develop pricing strategies, packaging models, and take-rate forecasts for paid features, subscriptions, and other monetized experiences.
- Lifecycle Synchronization: Develop strategies to decouple fast-moving software lifecycles from traditional vehicle development cycles, ensuring Ford vehicles always offer fresh, relevant experiences.
- Requirements Definition: Write clear product requirements that bridge consumer software features with automotive-grade requirements, including safety, reliability, and driver distraction guidelines.
- Ecosystem Integration: Champion a seamless, single-ecosystem customer experience across the vehicle, the Ford mobile experience, and the accessory ecosystem, in partnership with your counterpart on accessories.
- Cross-Functional Leadership: Lead matrixed teams across Software Development, Design, UI/UX, Engineering, Vehicle Integration, and Safety to deliver products on time and on budget, and present priorities, tradeoffs, and results to senior leadership.
- Strategic Partnerships: Identify, negotiate, and collaborate with leading technology companies, software providers, and other partners and collaborators who expand what the vehicle can do.
- Licensing & Data Privacy: Work with legal and business development teams to manage software licensing, data privacy compliance, and intellectual property for third-party technology.
- Launch Strategy: Develop go-to-market plans in partnership with Vehicle Program Management, Marketing, and Sales, including positioning, pricing, and the end-to-end customer journey.
- Over-the-Air (OTA) Updates: Define the OTA roadmap for connected experiences, ensuring features can receive enhancements, bug fixes, and security patches post-purchase.
- Performance Analytics: Monitor customer telemetry, usage, reviews, and warranty data to drive continuous product improvement and inform next-generation experiences.
Qualifications
- Bachelor’s degree in computer science, engineering, product design, or business. Master’s degree or MBA preferred, or equivalent combination of relevant education and experience.
- 5+ years experience in both go-to-market and product management, with a strong sense of product strategy and the ability to define a vision in an emerging space.
- 3+ years experience managing products that involve mobile apps, cloud connectivity, and connected devices or digital experiences.
- 1 + year experience with pricing, packaging, or monetization of software or services.
Benefits
- 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.