Principal Architect, Industrial Systems

About Ford

Come help build a better world, where every person is free to move and pursue their dreams …Ford Motor Company was built on the belief that freedom of movement drives human progress. It's a belief that has fueled our passion to create great cars and trucks. And today, it drives our commitment to become the world's most trusted mobility company, designing vehicles for a smart world that helps people move more safely, confidently, and freely. Ford is experiencing significant business transformation in an ever-changing digital world. We are dedicated to delivering distinctive products and solutions, having an "always on" relationship with customers and continuously improving our user experience.

The Team

Enterprise Technology plays a critical part in shaping the future of mobility. If you're looking for a 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.

The Opportunity

The Principal Industrial Systems Architect provides global leadership to a team of more than 40 architects who build and manage systems across the industrial platform. They will spearhead cross-platform efforts to align the design and implementation of industrial technologies with the company's overarching technical strategy and current industry trends. This role ensures that all industrial systems are reliable, performant, and precisely tailored to meet evolving business needs.

The Principal Architect drives alignment across all global regions and skill teams, ensuring that systems adhere to both industry and company standards. This requires close collaboration with cross-functional partners-including Infrastructure, developers, operations, and product managers-to gather requirements and ensure the platform serves the needs of all internal and external stakeholders.

This executive interfaces with teams working on advanced manufacturing and emerging technologies to ensure these innovations are integrated into the long-term roadmap. They must exercise expert judgment to determine when to utilize existing, commonly deployed technologies and when to pioneer new paths. Ultimately, they are responsible for seamlessly defining and integrating strategic roadmaps for both tool selection and broader systems architecture.

The Principal Architect is responsible for leading the Enterprise Architecture team within IS/IT which is involved in making key technology decisions around manufacturing, product development supply chain, sustainability, and other important areas.

• Support the development and evolution of the Industrial System's future state vision and roadmap by providing industry perspectives

• Consult on emerging technology and business process modernization opportunities that are driving digital and AI-driven transformation in manufacturing and adjacent industries

• Ensure delivery of architecture artifacts in line with delivery commitments and timeline

• Partner with our Enterprise Platform Engineering and Operations team to develop a strategic and proactive roadmap for technology maintenance and remediation

• Support the development and execution of an accelerated portfolio rationalization plan

• Support cross-functional integration and alignment for end-to-end optimization across the Industrial value stream

• Build strong partnerships with and operate as an integral part of the Industrial Systems leadership team to drive and shape the transformation of the Industrial System

• Lead by example regarding solution and business architecture by participating in design sessions and engineering projects

• Lead a team of architects located in Dearborn, Michigan, Chennai, India, and elsewhere.

• Advise on how to prioritize updates of existing systems to meet the desired new architecture

• Stay aligned with key vendors and investors on new companies and technologies that should be part of our strategy going forward

• Stay on top of architecture trends and be prepared to advise teams across Ford how to keep up

• Ensure solutions are fully aligned to the Ford technology strategy

This role is on-site in Dearborn, Michigan. Some travel to manufacturing and logistics sites around the world is expected.

• Support the development and evolution of the Industrial System's future state vision and roadmap by providing industry perspectives

• Consult on emerging technology and business process modernization opportunities that are driving digital and AI-driven transformation in manufacturing and adjacent industries

• Ensure delivery of architecture artifacts in line with delivery commitments and timeline

• Partner with our Enterprise Platform Engineering and Operations team to develop a strategic and proactive roadmap for technology maintenance and remediation

• Support the development and execution of an accelerated portfolio rationalization plan

• Support cross-functional integration and alignment for end-to-end optimization across the Industrial value stream

• Build strong partnerships with and operate as an integral part of the Industrial Systems leadership team to drive and shape the transformation of the Industrial System

• Lead by example regarding solution and business architecture by participating in design sessions and engineering projects

• Lead a team of architects located in Dearborn, Michigan, Chennai, India, and elsewhere.

• Advise on how to prioritize updates of existing systems to meet the desired new architecture

• Stay aligned with key vendors and investors on new companies and technologies that should be part of our strategy going forward

• Stay on top of architecture trends and be prepared to advise teams across Ford how to keep up

• Ensure solutions are fully aligned to the Ford technology strategy

This role is on-site in Dearborn, Michigan. Some travel to manufacturing and logistics sites around the world is expected.