Sr Backend Python Developer Jobs in Michigan (NOW HIRING)

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.

Ford's Electric Vehicles, Digital and Design (EVDD) team is charged with delivering the company's vision of a fully electric transportation future. EVDD is customer-obsessed, entrepreneurial, and data-driven and is dedicated to delivering industry-leading customer experience for electric vehicle buyers and owners. You'll join an agile team of doers pioneering our EV future by working collaboratively, staying focused on only what matters, and delivering excellence day in and day out. Join us to make positive change by helping build a better world where every person is free to move and pursue their dreams.

In this role...

Ford Motor Company is seeking Machine Learning and AI Developers to join the Connected Vehicle Division in support of the Telemetry and Observability Platform (TOP). In this role, you will be at the center of Ford's AI engineering capability, overseeing vendor fine-tuning operations, designing Ford's internal orchestration layer, and driving measurable improvements in AI engine performance across dealer service, manufacturing, and validation workflows. 

You'll have...

• Bachelor's degree in computer science, computer engineering or a combination of education and equivalent work experience.
• 5+ years of professional experience in machine learning engineering, AI systems development, or applied AI research 
• 3+ years Hands-on experience fine-tuning LLMs in a cloud environment, with specific preference for Google Cloud Vertex AI or equivalent managed ML platforms 
• 2+ years of experience building agentic AI systems using frameworks such as LangChain, LangGraph, Google Agent Builder, or equivalent orchestration tooling 
• 4+ years of Proficiency in Python and ML development tooling including Hugging Face, PyTorch or TensorFlow, and MLflow or Vertex AI Experiments 
• 3+ years of experience designing and evaluating LLM outputs for production systems, including prompt engineering, retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) architectures, and model evaluation metrics 
• 5+ years of Strong understanding of MLOps practices including model versioning, deployment pipelines, monitoring, and retraining workflows on GCP 
• 4+ years Experience working in regulated or IP-sensitive environments where model artifact ownership and data governance are active concerns 
• Strong written and verbal communication skills; ability to translate technical AI concepts for non-technical executive stakeholders 

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 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.

This position is a salary grade 6-8 and ranges from $85,400- 192,900.    
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 regar d 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 will be required to be onsite four or more days per week. 

#LI-Hybrid

#LI-CH2

What you'll do..

• Support Ford's AI and ML engineering capability within the TOP platform, including model fine-tuning oversight, agentic orchestration architecture, and LLM evaluation 
• Oversee vendor fine-tuning of Google Cloud Vertex AI using Ford proprietary diagnostic data, ensuring compliance with Ford's IP protection requirements and model weight storage architecture 
• Design and build Ford's Orchestration Layer.  The integration framework that connects external AI engine with other Ford internal AI engines and TOP platform services 
• Evaluate AI engine outputs against defined accuracy, latency, and first-time fix rate metrics; drive iterative improvement through structured feedback loops 
• Define model evaluation frameworks and acceptance criteria for AI-generated triage recommendations, ensuring clinical accuracy before dealer-facing deployment 
• Build internal Ford tooling for model monitoring, drift detection, and retraining triggers within Ford's GCP environment 
• Collaborate with Ford's data engineering team to define data preparation and feature engineering requirements that support model fine-tuning and inference quality 
• Partner with the Ford GCP Cloud Engineers to ensure model artifact storage, versioning, and access controls comply with Ford's IP and security policies 
• Contribute to the long-term insourcing roadmap by documenting model architectures, training pipelines, and prompt frameworks in sufficient detail to enable internal replication 
• Represent AI and ML engineering in architecture reviews and vendor technical discussions. 
•