Sight Sense Technical Product Manager

Do you want to change the world? 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) organization was created to operationalize 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) — a new, centralized organization designed to position Ford to lead industrial innovation. This team will accelerate our digital evolution and manufacturing excellence – advancing the modernization 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 new 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 organization, the Sight Vertical is responsible for building an end-to-end business around AI/ML anomaly detection products, with image (Sight) and para metric data (Sense). This vertical transforms image data into actionable manufacturing intelligence through products like Sight.Scout (visual error proofing), Sight.Surface (defect detection), and Sight.IQ (assembly process monitoring).

This transformation requires leaders who can compress readiness cycles, integrate next-generation platforms, and deliver breakthroughs that set new global standards in industrial AI/ML anomaly detection products.

Focus: Technical Product Management for AI/ML Anomaly Pltform, MLOps Orchestration & Technical Delivery

The Opportunity

Are you a product leader who speaks the language of both the factory floor and the data scientist? As the Technical Product Manager (TPM) for the Sight Vertical, you will own the technical roadmap for our computer vision and analytics in parametric data product suite. You won't just define features; you will architect the lifecycle of AI models—from data ingestion and labeling to edge inference and global scaling. Your mission is to move our vision systems from "detecting" problems to "prescribing" solutions, ensuring our products are "Build Once, Scale Everywhere" compliant.

The Position

Reporting to the Sight Vertical Lead, the TPM is the bridge between the Business Unit's strategic goals and the Engineering team's execution. You will lead the technical definition of Sight products, ensuring they integrate seamlessly with the Core vertical (CoreOS and CoreDS) and meet the rigorous industrial standards required for a global rollout.

 Requires availability to travel across the globe to Ford manufacturing sites to validate technical implementations, around 20%

What You’ll Be Able to Do

• Technical Product Roadmap: Define and execute the technical strategy for Sight and Sense products, prioritizing the development of MLOps pipelines and vision model architectures.
• Bridge Product & Engineering: Translate complex manufacturing "pain points" into detailed technical requirements, user stories, and acceptance criteria for software and data engineering squads.
• MLOps Lifecycle Management: Oversee the end-to-end AI lifecycle, including data acquisition strategy, semantic labeling, model training, and deployment of inference engines at the factory edge.
• Core Integration: Ensure all Sight products are built on the CoreDS (Data Services) platform and utilize CoreOS for runtime orchestration, ensuring "zero-integration" friction during plant deployments.
• Manage Readiness Gates: Lead products through the TRL/MRL/IRL (Technology/Manufacturing/Integration Readiness) framework, ensuring every vision solution is "Factory Ready" (MRL 9).
• Edge vs. Cloud Strategy: Optimize the technical architecture to balance real-time edge processing (for in-station control) with cloud-based analytics (for global trend monitoring).
• Customer-Centric Technical Design: Work closely with Plant SPOCs to ensure technical solutions account for real-world variables like factory lighting, line speed, and network constraints.

Functional & Technical KnowledgeMinimum Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, AI/ML, Robotics, or Electrical Engineering or equivalent work experience.
• 5+ years of experience in Technical Product Management or Systems Engineering, specifically with AI/ML or Computer Vision products.
• Deep understanding of the machine learning lifecycle (Data engineering, Model training, Inference, Monitoring).
• Familiarity with industrial hardware (cameras, sensors, edge compute) and communication protocols.
• Proven experience in Agile/SAFe environments, managing technical backlogs and sprint priorities.
• Strong problem-solving skills in a "FAST AF" (Always First, Factory Ready) environment.

Preferred Requirements

• Master’s/PhD in a technical field related to Computer Vision or Data Science.
• Experience with MLOps platforms and cloud infrastructure (GCP, Azure, or AWS).
• Knowledge of automotive manufacturing systems (MES, GDPS 2.0, and Digital Twins).
• Experience scaling AI products from a single pilot to a global enterprise footprint.

Success in Role

• Sight Products achieve MRL 9 gates aligned to global program milestones.
• Zero-Integration Deployment: Vision products are deployed into the Ford Production System (FPS+) without custom site-level engineering.
• Cycle Time Reduction: Technical readiness cycles for new vision models compress from months to weeks.
• Value Generation: Measurable improvement in defect detection rates and quality avoidance across global plants.
• Platform Default: Sight products are recognized as the global standard for vision-based anomaly detection within Ford.