Senior Data Scientist / ML Engineer

Ford Motor Company is seeking a Senior Data Scientist / ML Engineer to help design and govern a data mesh strategy, build governed data products, and modernize cloud data workflows with AI and ML capabilities. This hybrid role is based in Redford, MI and includes leadership across federated governance, data pipeline engineering, and semantic layer design for enterprise data interpretation.

Key Responsibilities

• Design and evolve Ford’s data mesh architecture across manufacturing and enterprise domains by defining domain boundaries, data product contracts, and interoperability standards.
• Establish and maintain federated computational governance policies (schema standards, data quality SLAs, security classifications, lineage and retention requirements) applied consistently across decentralized domain teams.
• Drive adoption of next-generation, cloud-native technologies and patterns (including GCP and Vertex AI, plus agentic AI and LLM orchestration) to modernize legacy workflows and support measurable business impact.
• Lead the transformation of raw data landing in cloud platforms from Manufacturing systems into curated, documented, high-quality data products.
• Define and enforce data product standards including ownership, schema versioning, SLAs for freshness, completeness, and accuracy, along with discoverability and access controls.
• Oversee ingestion, transformation, and publishing pipelines for both batch and streaming to convert raw operational data into standardized, reusable assets.
• Design and build data structures and semantic layers such as ontologies and knowledge graphs to support consistent enterprise interpretation by AI agents with minimal human intervention.
• Design and develop data models (enterprise, conceptual, logical, and physical) for assigned domains, and manage and maintain those models in a shared repository.
• Partner with product and analytics teams to translate use cases into data requirements, providing architecture guidance, data models, and design reviews.
• Establish and enforce data architecture principles, standards, and best practices covering catalog, lineage, observability, security, and interoperability across data products.
• Drive data quality initiatives by profiling source systems, defining data quality requirements and metrics, and guiding monitoring, measurement, reporting, and remediation.
• Drive adoption of GCP as the technical backbone for the data mesh and data product ecosystem.
• Evaluate and implement metadata management and data catalog solutions to improve discoverability and trust across the mesh.
• Establish monitoring, observability, and SLA tracking for published data products.
• Own and evolve the federated governance framework, balancing global standards with domain autonomy while ensuring compliance with Ford data security, privacy, and regulatory requirements.
• Implement automated policy enforcement (schema validation, access control, metadata cataloging, lineage tracking) using GCP-native capabilities and third-party tooling.
• Collaborate with cybersecurity, legal, and compliance teams to classify and protect sensitive manufacturing and enterprise data.
• Ensure development patterns support Ford’s data security requirements and global privacy regulations through privacy and compliance by design.

Required Qualifications

• Master’s degree in computer science, Information Systems, Data Engineering, or a related field (or equivalent combination of relevant education and experience).
• 5+ years of experience in data architecture, data engineering, or advanced database design and modeling, including exposure to large-scale manufacturing or industrial data environments, and experience designing or implementing databases, data warehouses, or data marts.
• 15+ years of experience leading, managing, or mentoring technical teams through direct people leadership, matrixed leadership, or lead/owner roles directing cross-functional teams.
• Hands-on experience creating data models using data modeling tools.
• Deep, hands-on experience with GCP technologies including BigQuery, Cloud Storage, Dataform, Data Fusion, Astronomer, or similar cloud data engineering tools.
• Demonstrated experience designing or implementing data mesh or domain-oriented data architectures.
• Understanding of AI/ML capabilities, including experience modeling semantic layers, knowledge graphs, or ontologies for a data platform.
• Knowledge of data governance, data quality, and data product marketplace enablement practices.
• Proficiency in SQL and Python, plus modern data pipeline and orchestration tools.
• Strong stakeholder management experience across plant floor operations teams and enterprise IT or analytics functions.

Technologies

• GCP
• Vertex AI
• BigQuery
• Cloud Storage
• Dataform
• Data Fusion
• Astronomer
• SQL
• Python

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

Role Overview

• Job Type: Full time
• Work Type: Hybrid
• Location: Redford, MI
• Salary Range: USD 132,800 - 250,800 per year
• Leadership Level: 6

Additional Information

• Final determination of salary grade will be based on candidate skills and experience, with base salary set within the applicable range according to job scope, responsibility, and competitive market value.
• For more information on salary and benefits: https://fordcareers.co/LL6
• Visa sponsorship is NOT available for this position.
• Relocation assistance is NOT provided for this role.
• Candidates must be legally authorized to work in the United States; verification of employment eligibility will be required at the time of hire.
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