Engineering Manager - Data Platforms and Engineering

As an Engineering Manager in Ford s Data Platforms and Engineering organization, your leadership is crucial in driving the success of our data initiatives. Your ability to guide and develop a team of engineers, while maintaining alignment with Ford s strategic goals, will be key to delivering world-class data solutions that power Ford s transformation into a data-driven enterprise.

You should be a very hands-on person who can contribute to code and design of Data Platforms where you will define processes for technical platforms and conceive application prototypes. Your day in-out job will involve designing highly scalable data platforms and managing and overseeing organisation s data architecture. The primary role is to ensure that data is structured, stored, integrated, and made accessible in ways that align with business objectives, compliance requirements, and industry standards where you will also be pivotal in delivering the designed solutions on-time.

You should be strong in at least one of the programming languages like Java, Python, Angular, React etc and having a clear in depth understanding of Cloud Solutions and Offerings (Preferably GCP services- Compute Engine, Kubernetes Engine, Cloud Functions, BigQuery, Pub/Sub, Cloud Storage). You should ensure that solutions are designed for high availability, scalability, and fault tolerance using microservices and serverless architectures. Work closely with the team to automate as much of the DevOps pipeline as possible, leveraging CI/CD tools like Jenkins, GitLab CI, or GitHub Actions. Enable infrastructure-as-code using tools such as Terraform, Ansible, or CloudFormation for consistent and reproducible environment setup. Strive for continuous deployment and zero-downtime releases to accelerate development cycles. You should be able to challenge the status quo and effectively contribute in building the platform with best engineering practices.

. Engineering Leadership:

• Lead and mentor your engineering team, fostering a culture of innovation, continuous learning, and technical excellence.
• Drive strategic technical decisions, ensuring the alignment of engineering efforts with the broader organizational goals and objectives.
• Foster a culture of accountability, where engineers are encouraged to take ownership of their work, maintain high standards, and deliver results that meet or exceed expectations.
• Cultivate cross-functional collaboration, ensuring that your team works effectively with product managers, architects, and other stakeholders to deliver cohesive and well-integrated solutions.
• Promote a culture of innovation and continuous improvement, encouraging experimentation and the adoption of new technologies and methodologies.

2. Scrum & Agile Practices:

• Facilitate daily standups, ensuring clear communication and addressing any roadblocks to keep the team on track.
• Partner with the Product Manager to lead sprint planning sessions, ensuring the team commits to a well-prioritized set of deliverables.
• Conduct backlog grooming sessions in collaboration with the Product Manager to refine user stories, prioritize work effectively, and ensure alignment with business goals.
• Ensure engineering rigor in story hygiene, including clear acceptance criteria, well-defined dependencies, and a focus on deliverability within the sprint.

3. Technical Accountability:

• Own the technical roadmap for your team, ensuring alignment with broader organizational goals and strategic initiatives.
• Collaborate with architects to review and refine technical designs, ensuring they meet DPE and FORD architectural standards.
• Ensure high-quality code delivery by enforcing engineering standards, promoting the use of automation, and maintaining a strong focus on overall code quality.
• Drive best practices in code quality, emphasizing peer reviews, static analysis, and comprehensive testing to maintain the integrity and reliability of the codebase.

4. Cross-functional Collaboration:

• Work closely with Product Managers to align on priorities, delivery timelines, and feature scope, ensuring that the engineering efforts are in sync with product goals.
• Collaborate with other engineering managers and technical leaders to share best practices and ensure consistency across the organization.
• Engage with stakeholders across Ford s Data Platforms and Engineering organization to understand requirements and ensure the platform meets their needs.

5. People Management:

• Mentor and develop engineers, providing regular feedback, setting clear goals, and ensuring the team remains motivated and aligned with organizational objectives.
• Conduct performance reviews and foster a culture of growth and continuous development within your team.
• Build a positive team culture, emphasizing collaboration, accountability, and innovation, to drive high performance and job satisfaction.

6. Operational Excellence:

• Monitor and optimize platform performance, ensuring systems are running efficiently and meeting SLAs.
• Lead incident management efforts, ensuring timely resolution of issues and implementing continuous improvements to enhance reliability.
• Drive cost optimization initiatives, particularly in cloud infrastructure and resource usage, aligning with Ford s broader cost-reduction goals.
• Track and report key metrics for your domain/platform related to team performance, including quality, and operational efficiency.