ZipRecruiter

Log In

1

Contract Software Engineering Manager Jobs in Detroit, MI

Rocket

Software Engineering Manager

Detroit, MI · On-site

The Software Engineering Manager will lead and mentor an Agile team, ensuring high performance and the implementation of superior software while promoting the company's culture and mission.

X by 2

Software Engineering Manager

Detroit, MI · On-site +1

We're looking for software engineers that have started playing project team management and leadership roles and continue to seek accelerated career opportunities and challenging problems to solve.

next page

Showing results 1-20

All JobsContract Software Engineering JobsContract Software Engineering Manager JobsContract Software Engineering Manager Jobs in Detroit, MI

Contract Software Engineering Manager information

See Detroit, MI salary details

$98.5K

$167.7K

$198.5K

How much do contract software engineering manager jobs pay per year?

As of Jul 27, 2026, the average yearly pay for contract software engineering manager in Detroit, MI is $167,681.00, according to ZipRecruiter salary data. Most workers in this role earn between $171,300.00 and $171,300.00 per year, depending on experience, location, and employer.

What is a Contract Software Engineering Manager?

A Contract Software Engineering Manager is a professional who leads and oversees software development teams on a contractual basis, rather than as a permanent employee. They are responsible for managing engineering projects, guiding developers, and ensuring timely delivery of high-quality software solutions. Typically, they work for a specific duration or on particular projects, providing leadership, technical expertise, and process improvements. This role is ideal for organizations seeking temporary management support or specialized leadership for critical projects. Contract Software Engineering Managers often bring diverse experience from various industries and projects.

What are some unique challenges faced by contract software engineering managers compared to full-time managers?

Contract software engineering managers often face the challenge of quickly integrating into new teams and company cultures while rapidly understanding ongoing projects. They must establish trust and effective communication in a short period, all while delivering results within limited contract timelines. Additionally, contract managers may need to balance stakeholder expectations and project deliverables without the long-term context or authority that permanent managers might have. Adaptability, strong onboarding skills, and proactive relationship-building are key to thriving in this role.

What are the key skills and qualifications needed to thrive as a Contract Software Engineering Manager, and why are they important?

To thrive as a Contract Software Engineering Manager, you need strong leadership abilities, deep software development knowledge, and experience managing engineering teams, typically supported by a degree in computer science or related field. Familiarity with project management tools (like Jira or Trello), cloud platforms (such as AWS or Azure), and relevant certifications (e.g., PMP, Scrum Master) is often required. Outstanding communication, adaptability, and conflict-resolution skills help build trust and drive team performance in diverse, dynamic environments. These competencies ensure timely project delivery, high code quality, and effective collaboration with stakeholders.

What is the difference between Contract Software Engineering Manager vs Contract Software Developer?

AspectContract Software Engineering ManagerContract Software Developer
Required CredentialsBachelor's/Master's in CS or related field, management experienceBachelor's in CS or related field, coding skills
Work EnvironmentOversees teams, manages projects, collaborates with stakeholdersFocuses on coding, debugging, implementing features
Employer & Industry UsageTech companies, consulting firms, startupsSoftware firms, tech startups, enterprise IT
Common Search & ComparisonManagement responsibilities, leadership rolesTechnical skills, coding focus

The Contract Software Engineering Manager typically oversees development teams, manages projects, and ensures delivery, requiring management experience and leadership skills. In contrast, the Contract Software Developer primarily focuses on coding and implementing software features. Both roles are common in tech industries but differ significantly in responsibilities and required credentials.

What are popular job titles related to Contract Software Engineering Manager jobs in Detroit, MI? For Contract Software Engineering Manager jobs in Detroit, MI, the most frequently searched job titles are:
What job categories do people searching Contract Software Engineering Manager jobs in Detroit, MI look for? The top searched job categories for Contract Software Engineering Manager jobs in Detroit, MI are:
What cities near Detroit, MI are hiring for Contract Software Engineering Manager jobs? Cities near Detroit, MI with the most Contract Software Engineering Manager job openings:
Contract Software Engineering Manager jobs near you
Software Engineering Manager

Software Engineering Manager

Ford Motor Company

Dearborn, MI • On-site

Full-time

Medical, Dental, Vision, Life, PTO

Posted 2 days ago

Job description


The Ford Motor Credit Company team helps put people behind the wheels of great Ford and Lincoln vehicles. By partnering with dealerships, we provide financing, personalized service and professional expertise to thousands of dealers and millions of customers in over one hundred countries around the world.
In this position...
Ford Credit Technology Team is seeking an experienced Software Engineering Manager who is skilled in software engineering practices. The Software Engineering Manager will lead a team of Software Engineers and a Technical Program Manager based out of Dearborn, MI and will be responsible to manage and deliver capabilities for FordPay (eCommerce digital payments).
This role will collaborate directly and continuously with Software Engineers, Product Managers, Designers, Architects, and Product Owners to build, validate, and release software products early and often in a dynamic and collaborative environment, with a strong focus on payment reliability, security, and compliance.
The ideal candidate brings deep experience in payment processing systems (credit card flows), PSP integrations (Stripe), modern cloud-native engineering, and operational excellence for high-availability platforms. Crucially, this leader will champion the modernization of our engineering lifecycle by guiding the team in leveraging AI-enabled software development, AI-driven quality assurance, and AI-powered operational resilience (AIOps) to accelerate delivery, optimize quality, and ensure maximum platform uptime.
Responsibilities
What you'll do...
  • People & AI-Driven Leadership: Provides hands-on leadership and supervision for a software development team, fostering a culture of continuous learning and adaptation to modern, AI-augmented engineering workflows.
  • Payment Delivery: Owns end-to-end delivery of FordPay payment capabilities, including credit/debit card processing flows (authorization, capture, settlement, refunds).
  • PSP Integrations: Leads integrations and ongoing lifecycle management of Payment Service Providers (PSPs), with Stripe as the primary provider.
  • Technical Architecture: Facilitates technical architecture discussions around application functionality, payment domain modeling, integration patterns, and the integration of AI capabilities where appropriate.
  • Transaction Integrity: Ensures transaction integrity through proven payment engineering patterns (idempotency, deduplication, retries, and safe reconciliation).
  • AI-Enabled Software Development: Drives the adoption of AI-assisted coding tools (e.g., GitHub Copilot) to accelerate code generation, optimize refactoring, improve code readability, and reduce time-to-market while adhering to secure coding standards.
  • AI-Enabled Quality Assurance: Establishes and champions AI-driven testing frameworks and strategies, utilizing intelligent test generation, predictive defect analysis, and automated test-suite optimization to drastically reduce regression cycles and ensure robust coverage.
  • AI-Powered Operational Resilience (AIOps): Evolves the platform's observability and reliability strategy by leveraging AI/ML-driven monitoring tools for predictive anomaly detection, proactive incident prevention, and automated root-cause analysis (RCA) of payment flows.
  • Product Partnership: Partners with Product Managers to develop and evolve payment experiences used by Ford customers across eCommerce journeys.
  • Risk & Compliance Mitigation: Actively identifies risks (e.g., PSP dependency, latency, fraud/chargeback exposure, compliance gaps) and implements mitigation and contingency plans, ensuring AI-generated code and tools comply with security (PCI DSS) and IP guidelines.
  • Metrics & Telemetry: Verifies that delivered software meets desired business outcomes (payment success rates, reliability, customer experience, and operational readiness) using both traditional telemetry and AI-driven predictive insights.
  • Incident Management: Reviews ongoing production operations; leads incident response and post-incident reviews (postmortems/RCAs) to prevent recurrence, utilizing AI-assisted diagnostics to speed up resolution times.
  • Security & Compliance: Ensures secure payment design and compliance posture in partnership with Security/Compliance teams (e.g., PCI DSS controls, secure token handling).
  • Agile Practices: Actively participates in all team Agile ceremonies and champions Agile software processes, culture, best practices, and techniques.
  • Talent Development: Develops engineering, professional, and career-related skills for engineers through coaching, mentorship, feedback, and collaborative practices-specifically preparing the workforce for the future of AI-augmented engineering.

Qualifications
You'll have...
  • Bachelor's degree in information technology or computer science, or similar discipline.
  • 10+ years of experience in a Software Engineering role with people leadership experience (engineering management).
  • Experience leading engineering teams in adopting and optimizing AI-assisted software development tools (e.g., GitHub Copilot, Gemini Code Assist, or similar AI coding assistants) to drive developer velocity and code quality.
  • Familiarity with AIOps concepts, including the use of machine learning for predictive telemetry, automated anomaly detection, and self-healing systems in high-availability environments.
  • Hands-on understanding or experience with AI-driven QA automation, predictive testing tools, and modern AI-powered testing methodologies.
  • Strong knowledge of Java, JavaScript, React, Spring Boot, and building API-first microservices.
  • Experience building cloud-native solutions (Google Cloud Platform preferred) and operating high-availability systems.
  • Experience working with DevOps/Security tools like GitHub, Cloud Build, Tekton, 42Crunch, FOSSA, SonarQube, Cycode, etc.
  • Strong leadership and communication skills and the ability to coach, teach, and guide teams through technological paradigm shifts (such as the integration of AI in software engineering).

Even better, you may have...
  • Payments domain experience: credit/debit card processing flows, integration with PSPs (Stripe preferred), tokenization/vaulting concepts, refunds and dispute/chargeback handling.
  • Strong knowledge of SQL, NoSQL, and cloud-native databases.
  • Strong knowledge of Software Craftsmanship practices including TDD, Clean Code, Refactoring, etc.
  • Knowledge of Agile software methodologies (Scrum, eXtreme Programming, etc.).
  • Familiarity with security and compliance expectations for payment systems (PCI DSS, secure data handling, encryption, access controls).
  • Ability to work collaboratively with others and navigate complex decision making.
  • Ability to collaborate well with product managers, designers, architects, and business partners.

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 leadership level 6 and ranges from $132,800-$250,800.
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/LL6
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.
This position is hybrid. Candidates who are in commuting distance to a Ford hub location may be required to be onsite four or more days per week.
#LI-Hybrid #LI-FordCredit #LI-AF1
Ford logo

About Ford

Sourced by ZipRecruiter

At Ford Motor Company, we believe freedom of movement drives human progress. With our incredible plans for the future of mobility, we have a wide variety of opportunities for you to accelerate your career and help us define tomorrow's transportation.

Industry

Civil engineering construction

Company size

51 - 200 Employees

Headquarters location

Doral, FL, US

Year founded

1982

View All Ford Jobs

Apply