Director, Cloud Platform Engineering

We made history and now we work to transform the future – for our customers, our communities and our families. You'll see your work on the road every day, helping people move freely and pursue their dreams. At Ford, you can build more than vehicles. Come build what matters. Enterprise Technology plays a critical part in shaping the future of mobility. If you’re looking for the chance to leverage advanced technology to redefine the transportation landscape, enhance the customer experience and improve people’s lives, this is the opportunity for you. Join us and challenge your IT expertise and analytical skills to help create vehicles that are as smart as you are. In this position... Ford is seeking a visionary Director, Cloud Platform Engineering – Data, Analytics & Agentic Data Cloud to own strategy, architecture, and engineering of Ford's cloud database and analytics platforms — built on Google Cloud Platform (GCP) services including Cloud SQL, Spanner, AlloyDB, BigTable, Firestore, and BigQuery. This leader will bring a product-minded, automation-first, Infrastructure-as-Code (IaC) platform engineering discipline to every layer of Ford's data estate, own Database-as-a-Service (DBaaS) and fit-for-purpose database architecture patterns for Product Development Organizations (PDO), drive consolidation and cost optimization of SaaS database products, and define Ford's Agentic Data Cloud patterns — including database MCP servers, Knowledge Catalog, and Conversational Analytics — for consumption by application teams. What you'll do... Platform Engineering Vision & Leadership Serve as Ford's visionary platform engineering leader for cloud databases and analytics — setting a multi-year strategic roadmap that anticipates future AI, security, and scale requirements. Instill a platform engineering mindset across the data estate — treating databases and analytics systems as internal products with self-service APIs, golden paths, paved roads, and clear SLOs rather than ticket-driven infrastructure. Drive all platform services through an Infrastructure-as-Code (IaC) mindset — defining, provisioning, and managing database and analytics infrastructure as version-controlled, testable, and repeatable code rather than manual configuration. Continue to deepen partnerships with cloud and SaaS vendors, co-building rich, differentiated capabilities within their platforms so Ford operates as a strategic technical partner rather than a passive consumer. Build, mentor, and lead a global, high-performing team of platform engineers, architects, and SREs; foster a culture of innovation through hackathons, ideathons, and DevSecOps community events. Cloud Database & Analytics Platform Engineering Architect and operate GCP-native database platforms (Cloud SQL, Spanner, AlloyDB, BigTable, Firestore) with consistent, reusable, IaC-driven platform engineering patterns across provisioning, security, and observability. Own platform engineering for BigQuery and the broader analytics stack — building governed, self-service data pipelines and reusable analytics tooling for product and data science teams. Build golden-path templates, service APIs, and IaC-based paved-road automation that let engineering teams provision and operate database and analytics resources safely and consistently at scale. Database-as-a-Service & Fit-for-Purpose Architecture Own Ford's Cloud Database-as-a-Service (DBaaS) strategy, enabling self-service provisioning across GCP-native and SaaS database platforms with automated, golden-path IaC pipelines. Define and evangelize database architecture patterns that guide Product Development Organizations (PDO) toward fit-for-purpose database selection — matching workload characteristics to the right relational, NoSQL, graph, or in-memory technology rather than defaulting to a single platform. Partner with PDO application and engineering teams to embed these architecture patterns into design reviews, reference architectures,