48V Power Controls Engineer
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 position...
In this role, you will own key aspects of the 48V powernet control system for advanced vehicle electrical architectures, including Powernet 1, 1+, and future platforms. You will be responsible for developing system-level control requirements and test cases that ensure robust low-voltage power supply performance across normal, edge, and corner-case user scenarios.
You will work closely with software development, power supply hardware, electrical architecture, diagnostics, functional safety, and validation teams to ensure system coherence from concept through release. The role requires strong systems thinking, hands-on issue investigation, and the ability to analyze interactions between power generation, energy storage, load behavior, voltage and current stability, and charge margin.
The ideal candidate will bring experience in automotive system, hardware, or software engineering, with a strong understanding of ICE and xEV low-voltage power supply architectures. This position also requires comfort working in an Agile environment, including Jira, PI and sprint planning, dependency management, risk tracking, and continuous improvement practices.
What you'll do...
- Lead development and ownership of 48V powernet control strategies for vehicle low-voltage power supply systems.
- Define, implement, and release system-level control requirements for:
- Operating mode management
- Power generation
- Load management
- Energy management
- Fault management
- Calibration strategies
- Develop requirements and test cases covering normal operation, degraded operation, and corner-case user scenarios.
- Analyze system interactions across power supply hardware, software controls, vehicle electrical architecture, and dependent vehicle systems.
- Evaluate charge margin, voltage stability, current stability, load behavior, and system-level energy balance.
- Support system-level simulation and validation activities, including SIL, HIL, breadboard, and vehicle-level testing.
- Lead requirements decomposition, traceability, and alignment with functional safety, diagnostics, DFMEA, and validation activities.
- Triage system-level issues and drive clear problem statements for subsystem teams to support root cause analysis.
- Collaborate with software development, power supply hardware, electrical architecture, diagnostics, and validation teams to deliver coherent system solutions.
- Support integration of 48V power systems across vehicle platforms while ensuring alignment with architecture, safety, diagnostic, and validation requirements.
- Lead decision matrices and technical trade-off assessments to address system issues and recommend solutions.
- Lead technical documentation, system specifications, design reviews, and release readiness reviews.
- Operate effectively within an Agile development environment, including Jira, PI planning, sprint planning, risk management, and dependency tracking.
You'll have...
- Bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Computer Science, Automotive Systems, or a related technical field. or equivalent combination of relevant education and experience.
- 3+ years of experience in automotive system, hardware, or software engineering development.
- 3+ years experience with ICE and xEV low-voltage power supply architectures, including:
- Alternators/Belt-Integrated Starter-Generators (BISG)
- DC-to-DC power converters (DCDC)
- Low-voltage batteries (AGM Lead-acid, Lithium-ion)
- Power distribution boxes
- Vehicle load management systems
- 3+ years of experience developing or supporting system-level requirements, system or software DFMEA, test cases, and validation plans.
- 3+ years of experience Agile development practices and DevOps tools such as Jira.
Even better, you may have...
- Master’s degree in Electrical Engineering, Control Systems, Automotive Systems, or a related discipline.
- Experience in body systems, low-voltage power supply, electrified vehicle systems, or powertrain system or software development.
- Hands-on experience with system requirements development, validation support, and issue investigation.
- Understanding of modern software development practices, including continuous integration and continuous deployment concepts.
- Experience with HIL, SIL, breadboard, or vehicle-level testing.
- Experience supporting quality, warranty, or field issue investigations related to power supply systems.
- Experience working within or interacting with functional safety, diagnostics, FMA, braking, steering, or other safety-critical control teams.
- Strong technical communication skills, including the ability to present trade-offs, risks, and recommendations to cross-functional stakeholders.
- Ability to apply systems engineering principles using a top-down, user-scenario-driven approach.
- Strong analytical skills for evaluating system interactions, failure modes, trade-offs, and control strategy behavior.
- Demonstrated ownership, accountability, cross-functional collaboration, and continuous improvement mindset.
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 grades 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:
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-JS1