Hybrid Staff Embedded Controls Engineer, Thermal

at Ford Motor Company

• Job title: Staff Embedded Controls Engineer, Thermal
• Job type: Full Time
• Experience level: Lead
• Salary: Not specified
• Degree requirement: Postgraduate Degree
• Tech skills: Perl, Python
• Location requirements: Hybrid, Long Beach, United States

About the role

• Staff Embedded Controls Engineer focusing on thermal management systems for Ford's electric vehicle technology. Collaborating with engineers to deliver robust control frameworks and exceptional customer experiences.

Responsibilities

• Create control/estimation algorithms to support a broad thermal management scope: climate control, battery, powertrain, heat pump/refrigeration system, car computers, and more.
• Deliver high-quality C code in a real-time embedded environment.
• Write unit, SIL, and HIL test cases to ensure proper functionality.
• Work closely with test and integration engineers to debug your control algorithms at the bench and vehicle level.
• Adapt or create reduced-order thermal systems models to suit control-focused development/refinement workflows.
• Collaborate with electrical, mechanical, and firmware engineers to execute control strategies.
• Develop fault detections and reaction strategies for seamless customer experience.
• Develop and continuously improve models to compare alternative control algorithms quantitatively across many key metrics (cost, efficiency, performance, complexity, etc.)
• Monitor fleet telemetry and use data analysis to close the loop on software quality and help ideate new software features.

Requirements

• Master’s degree in electrical engineering, Mechanical Engineering, or Computer Science, with evidence of exceptional ability, or equivalent
• 3+ years of experience in developing control algorithms and applying them to physical systems.
• High proficiency in programming experience using Python
• Strong foundational background in control theory, system dynamics, and model-based design.
• Highly collaborative mindset and strong communication skills
• Experience with JIRA/Confluence or a similar system for tracking inputs/results.
• Hands-on experience in hardware bring-up, system debugging, and code optimization.
• Knowledge of electrical engineering fundamentals including circuit analysis and design
• Even better, you may have...
• A strong understanding of linear systems, state-estimation/observers is a plus.
• Familiarity with thermal control algorithms, and experience implementing it on an embedded system.
• Familiarity with refrigeration systems (compressors, heat exchangers, valves, sensors, charge and oil management) and HVAC systems.
• Experience with automotive communication protocols and stacks (CAN, LIN, ethernet, UDS, etc.)
• Knowledge of microcontroller peripherals such as ADC, GPIO, PWM, and SPI, and experience in sensors and digital signal processing
• Experience with data management tools / using fleet data to guide design.
• Proficiency in C and C++ and scripting skills in at least one common language (Python, Perl, Shell)
• Experience developing control algorithms for thermal systems using modeling tools of various scales (Python, MATLAB/Simulink, or similar)

Benefits

• 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.