Ford’s enterprise architecture dev-enablement organization builds the internal portals, ci/cd pipelines, and cloud-native patterns that thousands of ford software engineers use every day. We are looking for a hands-on technical product manager who can speak the language of developers and business stakeholders alike, run an okr-driven roadmap, and keep day-to-day execution humming.
you’ll partner with a squad of full-stack engineers to deliver the next generation of ford’s developer portal and companion tooling.
qualifications
required skills & experience
* 5+ years in software product development, including 2+ years as a product manager or 3+ years as a software/devops engineer plus 1–2 years pm experience.
* demonstrated success delivering internal platforms or developer-focused products using agile practices.
* familiarity with modern ci/cd, infrastructure-as-code, container orchestration, and cloud-native patterns (tekton & openshift preferred).
* strong analytical chops; comfortable using countersquare, dora metrics, or custom dashboards to guide decisions.
* proven ability to create and present executive-level decks that distill complex technological data into clear business insights.
* excellent written and verbal communication—able to translate technical details for non-technical stakeholders and vice-versa.
* bachelor’s degree in computer science, engineering, or related field (or equivalent practical experience).
desired extras
* demonstrated experience building, operating, or product-managing developer portals (e.g., backstage, azure developer portal) or a strong desire to dive into that space.
* familiarity or demonstrated capability to get along with additional devex tooling such as buildkite, harness, circleci, or similar platforms.
open-source maintainer/contributor, public tech talks, or published technical writing
responsibilities
what you’ll do
1. Product strategy & vision
* co-own product strategy with the product owner; ensure it supports ford’s broader digital platform and ea goals.
* define okrs that connect developer experience metrics (dora, nps, mttr) to business outcomes (time-to-market, warranty cost reduction).
2. Technical discovery & road-mapping
* shadow engineers, join architecture reviews, and dig through source code to uncover friction points.
* translate findings into a living roadmap of epics, features, and tech-debt items prioritized by value and feasibility.
3. Backlog & agile execution
* administer the jira board end-to-end: workflow design, story writing, sizing, and sprint health dashboards.
* maintain a workboard of objectives that ties sprint goals to quarterly okrs.
* lead backlog grooming, sprint planning, daily stand-ups, and demos; keep all artifacts current.
4. Operational rhythm & reporting
* chair weekly operational check-ins and monthly business reviews; publish concise status reports on scope, schedule, cost, risk, and kpis.
* track and surface blockers early; coordinate cross-team dependencies (security, cloudops, development).
5. Risk & dependency management
* map cross-team dependencies (security, cloudops, development) and bake them into release plans.
* maintain mitigation plans for scalability, security, and compliance risks.
6. Release & adoption
* coordinate with internal communication team to coordinate marketing campaigns.
* drive internal marketing—brown-bags, blog posts, rfcs—to achieve target adoption curves.
7. Instrumentation & continuous improvement
* instrument products with countersquare, aurora, dynatrace and other analytics to measure adoption, performance, and stability.
* facilitate retrospectives that translate directly into process or tooling upgrades.
our tech environment
* front-end: react, typescript, angular
* back-end: java (spring boot / kotlin)
* cloud & devops: gcp, kubernetes (gke & openshift), terraform, tekton, github actions, sonarqube
* data & messaging: postgresql, kafka, redis
* observability: dynatrace, grafana, countersquare, splunk
* collaboration: github, jira, teams, backstage
you don’t have to write production code every day, but you must be able to read a pull request, white-board a micro-service topology, and discuss the trade-offs of various deployment patterns.
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