Hybrid ADAS Strategy Director

at Ford Motor Company

• Job title: ADAS Strategy Director
• Job type: Full Time
• Experience level: Lead
• Salary: Not specified
• Degree requirement: Bachelor's Degree
• Tech skills: Distributed Systems
• Location requirements: Hybrid, Dearborn, United States

About the role

• ADAS Strategy Director responsible for defining Ford's global ADAS technology and investment strategy. Collaborating with engineering and executive leadership to drive innovation and competitive intelligence.

Responsibilities

• Own Ford’s global ADAS strategy
• Work closely with subject-matter experts and executive leadership to synthesize industry trends, portfolio needs, and corporate objectives into a forward-looking ADAS strategy that keeps Ford at the leading edge.
• Define future ADAS experiences and enabling technology
• Partner with engineering, product, and digital teams to define and refine key future ADAS customer experiences.
• Define the required compute platforms, sensing configurations, and software enablers to deliver those experiences.
• Manage ADAS complexity across the portfolio
• Establish and maintain a “menu” of ADAS system configurations with engineering.
• Collaborate with technology platform and vehicle program teams to develop offering strategies for each vehicle program and region.
• Evaluate complexity-driving requests through a cost–benefit lens and drive decisions to closure.
• Manage the ADAS investment portfolio within the technology cycle plan
• Ensure sufficient funding to achieve ADAS objectives, supported by accurate and traceable modeling of resource requirements.
• Raise new cycle-plan funding requests and identify opportunities for spending reduction when needed.
• Lead competitive intelligence, benchmarking, and external scanning for ADAS
• Maintain a constantly refreshed, data-driven view of the ADAS industry, including competitive trends and threats, emerging technologies, and cost-reduction opportunities.
• Leverage supplier engagements, industry consortiums, competitive tear-downs, public announcements, analyst research, and major tech/industry events to inform Ford’s ADAS strategy and roadmaps.
• Translate external insights into clear recommendations on ADAS platforms, features, and investments.
• Co-lead Technology Strategy organization initiatives
• Co-lead technology unit papers and High Priority Studies alongside matched-pair partners in the Technology Strategy organization.
• Ensure ADAS initiatives meet deliverable requirements and business case targets for uMR, uPS, and uPSC milestones.
• Maintain ADAS technology and business health databases
• Own and curate databases tracking ADAS technology proliferation, feature take-rates, and platform usage across the Ford portfolio.
• Provide a clear source of truth on ADAS business health and deployment status.
• Support the Unified Backlog process
• Review ADAS-related new demand requests for business value and technical feasibility.
• Work cross-functionally with product, engineering, and TPM to secure commitments for high-value initiatives.
• Collaborate across the global enterprise
• Partner with stakeholders across product development, digital product, technology platforms, integrated services, marketing, finance, vehicle programs, and regional teams.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree in Engineering, Business, or a related field
• 10+ years of leadership experience in the automotive technology space, delivering multiple complex initiatives in cross-functional environments
• Experience translating technical initiatives into business and profitability analyses to ensure efficient capital allocation
• Strong oral and written communication skills, with demonstrated ability to influence and collaborate in diverse, cross-functional environments
• Proven team-leadership experience, including working directly with senior and executive leadership
• Master’s degree in Engineering or an MBA (even better)
• Direct experience with ADAS technologies, including sensing (radars, cameras, ultrasonics), ADAS-specialized compute, and motion-control interfaces (even better)
• Direct experience leading strategic initiatives and technology unit and/or vehicle program milestones (even better)
• Highly technical background and demonstrated experience in the domains of the ADAS features being developed (even better)
• Experience with embedded vehicle architectures—ideally Ford’s FNVx architecture—including roadmaps, constraints, and integration for highly complex and distributed systems/features on- and off-board (even better)
• Experience developing diagrams and visual frameworks to communicate complex concepts (even better)
• Experience in product or technical program management for complex systems, or leading engineering feature delivery (even better)
• Hyper-collaborative, team-centric leadership style that encourages and partners with teams and leaders at all levels to advance the integration of digital experiences (even better)
• Strong executive presence and leadership skills—the ability to drive discussions, provide clear direction, and update senior leaders succinctly (even better)
• Tenacity and comfort working in evolving states of ambiguity (even better).

Benefits

• Immediate medical, dental, vision and prescription drug coverage
• Flexible family care days, paid parental leave, new parent ramp-up programs, subsidized back-up childcare 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.