The Technical Program Manager (TPM) is an expert technical leader responsible for the successful execution of complex, high-impact technical programs and cross-functional, dependent products. Operating with a high degree of autonomy, this role bridges the gap between business strategy, product management, and engineering execution.
The TPM possesses a deep architectural understanding of the entire project ecosystem, its integration points, and future scalability needs. They are responsible for strategically aligning senior leadership, driving continuous operational model improvements, translating product strategy into detailed technical requirements, and mitigating complex technical and platform-level risks.
Based in Dearborn, MI, this is a hybrid position with a required four-day onsite presence each week.
What you'll do...
1. Technical Acumen & Architectural Alignment
Technical Deep-Dives: Deep-dive into complex technical issues to understand root causes, evaluate trade-offs, and propose strategic, scalable solutions.
Architectural Understanding: Maintain a robust, end-to-end architectural understanding of the project ecosystem, integration points, and future scalability needs.
Platform Impact Analysis: Analyze project and engineering plans for potential impacts on other products, systems, or the broader platform, proposing adjustments to mitigate negative cross-program consequences.
Technical Adaptability: Quickly develop technical depth in unfamiliar or emerging technologies to understand proposed solutions and highlight technical risks or concerns.
Scope & Dependency Management: Identify technical dependencies or solution misalignments across multiple products and bring them to the surface for rapid resolution.
2. Program Leadership & Execution
Complex Program Delivery: Lead and manage complex, high-impact programs of a highly technical nature, consistently ensuring on-time, high-quality, and within-budget launches.
Risk & Blockers Mitigation: Anticipate less-common technical and business risks that engineering teams encounter; proactively design and implement robust mitigation and escalation paths.
Capacity & Scope Optimization: Design and implement sophisticated capacity management models and resource allocation strategies to optimize team capacity and protect technical teams from distractions.
Agile Governance: Champion agile execution and data integrity. Establish and enforce standards for Jira usage, backlog grooming, and dependency management. Lead and facilitate complex backlog grooming sessions for Epics, ensuring strong alignment to MVP and point values.
3. Strategic Influence & Collaboration
Product-to-Engineering Bridge: Work closely with engineers to translate high-level product strategy into detailed requirements and establish a shared technical understanding of project goals across engineers.
Cross-Functional Leadership: Lead and facilitate complex collaboration across diverse, stakeholders on complex technical topics.
4. Documentation, Change Control & Data Integrity
Comprehensive Documentation: Author comprehensive, highly technical, and business-centric project documentation (including roadmaps, logical/physical architecture diagrams, and dependency maps) in coordination with Engineering.
Change Control & Compliance: Ensure robust change control documentation, audit trails, and historical context are maintained for long-running products.
Data Integrity Standards: Establish and enforce standards for data integrity in relevant tools (e.g., Jira), ensuring that the system of record is a direct, reliable reflection of actual engineering work.
5. Innovation, Learning & Mentorship
Process Innovation: Design and implement innovative project management strategies, frameworks, and governance models to optimize flow and predictability.
VC&M Landscape Alignment: Stay current with industry trends in product management, agile methodologies, and the evolving VC&M technical landscape to drive modern, data-driven decision-making.
You'll have...
Bachelor of Computer Science, Information Systems, Systems Programming or equivalent combination of relevant education and experience
5+ years of experience leading complex, high-impact, and highly technical programs with significant strategic implications.
3+ years as a Technical Product/Program Manager with skills including:
Proven ability to operate autonomously with very little guidance, solving complex, ambiguous technical problems from beginning to end.
Strong track record of influencing multiple teams, product lines, and leadership decisions across an organization regarding strategic planning, capacity management, and process adherence.
Strong architectural understanding of software development lifecycles (SDLC), data science lifecycles, cloud platforms, integration points, and enterprise scalability.
3+ years of expert-level proficiency in program management methodologies (Agile, Kanban, Scaled Agile, Waterfall) and advanced Jira configuration, automation, and reporting.
Even better, you may have...
Master’ Degree in Computer Science, Engineering Information Technology or similar technical field.
Exceptional communication and stakeholder management skills, with a proven ability to bridge communication between senior business leaders and deep technical architects/engineers.
You may not check every box, or your experience may look a little different from what we've outlined, but if you think you can bring value to Ford Motor Company, we encourage you to apply!
As an established global company, we offer the benefit of choice. You can choose what your Ford future will look like: will your story span the globe, or keep you close to home? Will your career be a deep dive into what you love, or a series of new teams and new skills? Will you be a leader, a changemaker, a technical expert, a culture builder…or all of the above? No matter what you choose, we offer a work life that works for you, including:
• 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.
This position is a salary grade 7 and ranges from $86,600-$144,900., This position is a salary grade 8 and ranges from $99,100-$156,200.
Final determination of salary grade will be based on candidate's skills and experience, and base salary will be set within the applicable range according to job scope, responsibility and competitive market value.
For more information on salary and benefits, click here: https://fordcareers.co/GSR
Visa sponsorship is not available for this position.
Candidates for positions with Ford Motor Company must be legally authorized to work in the United States. Verification of employment eligibility will be required at the time of hire.
We are an Equal Opportunity Employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, religion, color, age, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability status or protected veteran status. In the United States, if you need a reasonable accommodation for the online application process due to a disability, please call 1-888-336-0660.
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Based on 1,348 disclosed Program Management salaries on RoleSuite, the role pays a median of $154K/year, with most offers between $124K and $193K (10th–90th percentile: $96K–$225K).
See the full Program Management salary breakdown →