Hardware Development Engineer-Sight Vertical

Ford Motor Company has endured and thrived for more than 118 years by reimagining how things are built. Today, Ford is leading a once-in-a-generation transformation in manufacturing — scaling EVs, integrating humanoid robotics, additive manufacturing, AI vision, and digital platforms into one seamless operating system: the Ford Production System (FPS/FPS+) that operates within the FAST framework. Ford Motor Company is undergoing a historic industrial shift — from building great vehicles to building great systems that scale across them. The Advanced Industrial Technology & Platforms (AITP) organisation was created to operationalise that shift. Our job is not to deploy isolated tools; it is to build a system that learns from factory truth, transforms it into scalable platforms, and turns those platforms into enterprise business value. Advanced Industrial Technology and Platforms (ATP) is a new, centralised organisation designed to position Ford to lead industrial innovation. This team will accelerate our digital evolution and manufacturing excellence — advancing the modernisation of our Ford Manufacturing operations with cutting-edge technology. As part of Ford Manufacturing, ATP is designed to integrate directly into our manufacturing sites, partner across teams (GME, safety, etc.) and drive innovation from initial idea to full implementation.

ATP is led by Managing Director Yung Fung, reporting to Ford Chief Manufacturing Officer Bryce Currie. This structure includes four vertical business units — focused on specific technology stacks — and four horizontals — shared services designed to ensure scale, deployment, and operational consistency.

As part of the AITP organisation, the Sight Vertical is responsible for building an end-to-end business around AI/ML anomaly detection products, operating as two product families.

Sight.Sense detects anomalies in parametric data: Sense.Machine (MiniTerms) for machine performance anomaly prediction and optimisation; Sense.Tooling (AI ToolSense) for tooling life optimisation; Sense.Energy for optimisation of supplies consumption; Sense.Stamping for stamping process anomaly prediction and surface splits; and Sense.MILO for in-process test quality anomaly detection.

Sight.Vision detects anomalies in image data: Vision.Scout for in-station visual error proofing across manual and automated processes; Vision.Surface for surface defect detection in components and vehicle bodies through the complete manufacturing process; and Vision.Station for manual process monitoring and anomaly detection covering productivity, quality and ergonomics.

The Sight Vertical product portfolio are set to converge on the Sight Anomaly Platform, which builds on Ford's Core Systems layer (Core OS, CoreDS, Core AI and CoreApps/FPS+). Together they form Ford's scalable platform to deliver, process quality assurance, and zero-downtime, zero-defect manufacturing.

How the Sight Vertical Works

The Sight Vertical operates through value-focused, cross-functional product teams across two product families: Sight.Sense and Sight.Vision, each led by a Head of Product Family. Product Managers lead the product problem, desired outcome and priority. Engineers and product designers work with them to discover and deliver effective solutions. Engineering Managers retain people, capacity, technical-system and engineering-health accountability.

This is a vertical-level role working across both product families. Priorities are agreed between the two Heads of Product and their Engineering Managers, so that your effort is directed by portfolio value. In addition, ATP Core provides the non-product engineering expertise the verticals depend on — enterprise standards, architecture, industrial controls, cybersecurity and platform guidance. This role holds a matrix reporting line into ATP Core to ensure alignment with those standards and ready access to that expertise.

Ford's Advanced Technology Platforms (ATP) Sight organisation is seeking a Hardware Engineer to own the hardware backbone of our manufacturing intelligence products across both computer-vision and parametric sensing. You will be the technical owner for cameras, sensors and signal-acquisition devices, edge compute devices, power supply mechanisms, and network infrastructure deployed on Ford plant floors globally — spanning specification, sourcing, testing, safety and regulatory certification, and fleet management once systems are in production.

This role supports all Sight Vertical products, with near-term focus on Sight.IQ vision hardware and on establishing common hardware standards for Sense products already deployed at plant scale. It sits at the boundary between product engineering and manufacturing reality: you will make sure that Sight.Sense and Sight.Vision products are not dependent on one-off hardware choices, supplier-specific workarounds, or site-by-site engineering judgement.

We are seeking a motivated candidate with a penchant for learning to join our high-performing, energetic team. The role suits an engineer who enjoys working across different domains — image capture and parametric signal acquisition — and who wants to set standards that scale rather than solve each plant individually.

You will report into the Sight Vertical Director, with a matrix working relationship into ATP Core and the relevant hardware, controls, cybersecurity and infrastructure experts. You will work across Sight.Sense and Sight.Vision product streams as a senior individual contributor, supporting the product engineering teams and working closely with the Applied AI Vision Lead, the Heads of Product Family for Sense and Vision, Software Engineering, and plant deployment teams to get camera, sensor and edge hardware from specification to shop-floor reality. You will also partner with Product Managers, Engineering Managers, the Software Architect, Controls Engineer, Data Engineer, Launch and Deployment Engineers, plant controls teams, plant IT and vendors.

Requires availability to travel internationally to Ford manufacturing sites, ATP hubs and supplier or equipment run-off locations as required.

What You'll Be Able to Do

Camera & Sensor Hardware (Vision)

• Own end-to-end camera specification for vision inspection stations, including resolution tier selection, lens selection, field-of-view and working-distance calculations, and lighting requirements for target part geometry.

• Evaluate and qualify camera vendors and models (for example Cognex and comparable industrial vision hardware) against plant-floor environmental conditions — vibration, dust, temperature and wash-down requirements.

• Define and maintain hardware bill-of-materials (BOM) standards for repeatable, scalable station builds across plants.

Sensing & Signal Acquisition Hardware (Sense)

• Own end-to-end specification for sensing and signal-acquisition hardware used by Sense products, including sensor selection, mounting and retrofit approach, signal conditioning, and acquisition rate requirements for the target parameter.

• Evaluate and qualify sensor and data-acquisition vendors against the same plant-floor environmental conditions applied to vision hardware.

• Define and maintain hardware BOM standards for repeatable Sense installations — including retrofit onto existing machine, tooling, press and energy assets, where hardware must be added without disturbing production equipment.

• Establish the hardware pattern that allows Sense deployments to proceed with minimal bespoke plant engineering, in support of deployment cycle-time reduction.

Edge Devices & Network Infrastructure

• Specify, test and validate edge compute devices (industrial PCs and edge boxes) that host vision inference and messaging — for example MQTT broker and client architecture — between cameras and plant control systems, and that host parameter acquisition and buffering for Sense products.

• Own hardware-side network requirements, specification and validation, including wired plant-Ethernet connectivity from camera to switch, GigE configuration and validation under production load, and jumbo-frame/packet-loss testing during image capture and transfer.

• Apply working knowledge of networking protocols including Dynamic DNS, DHCP and TCP/IP.

• Specify and test the hardware side of controls interfaces — for example pass/fail signal handoff and parameter tag access — working to the controls interface standard set by the Controls Engineer, and partner with software engineering on PLC integration requirements.

• Specify power supply mechanisms, power drops and supporting infrastructure required by fielded hardware.

• Manage edge device procurement requests and lifecycle — requisitioning, provisioning and refresh cycles — in coordination with programme and IT stakeholders.

• Develop hardware strategies for both standalone Sight Vision/Sense deployments and joint deployments with shared equipment and infrastructure.

Testing, Certification & Compliance

• Lead hardware validation and test protocols for new camera, sensor and edge device deployments prior to plant rollout, including environmental, network and integration testing.

• Own UL, cUL and CE certification requirements and compliance documentation for all fielded hardware, coordinating with vendors and Ford EHS and safety stakeholders as needed.

• Support Cyber Security, OGC and Corporate Ergonomics review and sign-off processes required for new vision and sensing hardware deployments.

• Provide hardware evidence in support of TRL and MRL maturity gates for both product families, with per-deployment evidence remaining with the deploying launch engineer.

Fleet Management & Sustaining Support

• Establish and maintain fleet management practices for deployed camera, sensor and edge hardware across the plant network — inventory, firmware and health monitoring, certificate management, warranty tracking, and end-of-life replacement planning.

• Define hardware-side capture, buffering and egress requirements that data storage and retention design must accommodate.

• Serve as the hardware escalation point beyond field first response for plant-floor issues tied to cameras, sensors, edge devices, or network connectivity; drive root cause analysis and corrective actions.

• Drive recurring hardware failure modes out of the fleet through standard changes rather than per-site fixes.

Cross-Product & Programme Support

• Maintain the primary near-term focus: Sight.IQ hardware specification, deployment and sustaining support, and Sense hardware standardisation for products currently deploying.

• Extend hardware engineering support to other Sight vision products — for example Vision.Scout and StampGuard — as deployment scope grows.

• Serve Sense product lines directly, applying the same specification, testing and fleet-management discipline across both families and reusing common patterns wherever the sensing problem allows.

• Collaborate with the Applied AI Vision Lead Engineer, the Sense and Vision Heads of Product Family and Product Management to translate product and algorithm requirements into hardware specifications.

Functional & Technical Knowledge

Minimum Requirements

• Bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Mechatronics or a related field, or equivalent practical experience.
• 5+ years of hands-on experience specifying, testing or deploying industrial cameras, machine vision hardware, industrial sensors and data-acquisition hardware, or edge compute devices.
• Working knowledge of industrial networking concepts — Ethernet/GigE, network switches, jumbo frames and packet-level troubleshooting — and of protocols including Dynamic DNS, DHCP and TCP/IP.
• Familiarity with safety and regulatory certification processes (UL, cUL, CE) for electrical and electronic hardware.
• Experience with messaging and integration protocols common in industrial vision systems (for example MQTT) and PLC interfacing concepts.
• Strong cross-functional communication skills; comfortable working with software engineers, product managers and plant-floor personnel.
• Experience retrofitting hardware onto in-production manufacturing equipment without disrupting output.
• Fluent professional English.

Preferred Requirements

• Direct experience with industrial PCs and NVIDIA products for AI applications.
• Experience supporting hardware fleets at scale across multiple manufacturing sites.
• Familiarity with cloud image storage and retention pipelines (for example GCP) as they relate to hardware warranty and data lifecycle policy.
• Manufacturing or automotive plant-floor experience.
• Experience developing and governing hardware standards — device, BOM and installation standards, distinct from controls standards.
• Experience with parametric condition monitoring — vibration, current, temperature, pressure or energy metering — and its acquisition hardware.
• Familiarity with OT network segmentation and plant-floor connectivity constraints.
• Additional European language (Spanish or German).

Success in Role

• Standard hardware specifications and bills of material exist for the major Sight deployment patterns and are actively used.
• New deployments require less bespoke plant hardware engineering because approved patterns are available and trusted.
• Camera, sensor, edge and connectivity failures reduce over time because root causes are corrected through standards and fleet actions.
• Hardware evidence supports TRL and MRL progression with repeatable test results and clear compliance documentation.
• Fleet inventory, firmware, certificate, warranty and end-of-life risks are visible and actively managed.
• Launch and Deployment Engineers, Product Managers and plant teams can apply hardware standards without relying on one-off expert judgement.
• Hardware choices support both Sense and Vision product needs while avoiding unnecessary duplication across the portfolio.

• 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.