Studio Liaison Engineer – Seats

Ford Motor Company

Studio Liaison Engineer at Ford, bridging design and engineering for innovative seat subsystems. Facilitating communication and compliance between creative teams and engineering standards in a hybrid role.

Posted 5/20/2026full-timeDearborn • Missouri • 🇺🇸 United StatesMid-LevelSenior💰 $65,100 - $166,200 per yearWebsite

About the role

Key responsibilities & impact

Act as the primary technical liaison between the Design Studio and the Seat Subsystems engineering teams, ensuring seamless communication and understanding of design intent and engineering requirements.
Review and analyze CAD concepts developed by the creative team for seat subsystems, ensuring full compliance with engineering specifications, packaging constraints, manufacturing feasibility, regulatory standards, established program cost targets, and the principles of modularity and part reuse.
Proactively identify potential engineering challenges, risks, non-compliance issues, or cost target deviations within design concepts and collaborate with both design and engineering teams to develop innovative, viable, cost-effective, and modular solutions that leverage existing part commonality where appropriate.
Translate complex engineering requirements, cost implications, and strategic objectives for modularity and reuse into clear, actionable feedback for the Design Studio, guiding the refinement of CAD models to meet technical and financial criteria without compromising design vision.
Facilitate regular design reviews, technical discussions, and problem-solving sessions between design and engineering stakeholders for seat subsystems.
Contribute to the documentation of lessons learned and best practices related to design integration, cost management, modularity, part reuse, and competitive analysis, cascading knowledge to both design and engineering core teams.
Coordinate extensively with various cross-functional teams, including Studio, Seat Complete, Seat Structure, Seat Features, Craftsmanship, Suppliers, Purchasing, Finance, and Program teams, to ensure holistic integration of seat subsystem designs that meet all requirements, including cost, and align with our modularity and reuse strategies.
Champion the balance between aesthetic appeal, ergonomic excellence, engineering integrity, cost-effectiveness, and strategic product architecture (modularity, part reuse) throughout the product development lifecycle for seat subsystems.
Analyze competitive seat subsystem designs and technologies to identify best practices, emerging trends, and opportunities for differentiation and improvement.

Requirements

What you’ll need

Bachelor's degree in Engineering
3+ years of overall experience
Excellent communication skills
Exceptional graphical communication skills (sketching, rendering, digital modeling) to convey technical and design concepts effectively
Proven ability to explain complex engineering concepts, cost implications, and strategic benefits of modularity/reuse clearly and concisely to non-technical audiences, particularly within a creative design environment
Proactive, disciplined, and highly collaborative approach to work
Strong networking and relationship-building skills across diverse functional teams
Self-accountable for delivering high-quality outcomes and ensuring design compliance, cost adherence, and alignment with modularity/reuse strategies
Adept at negotiating and influencing stakeholders to achieve optimal design and engineering solutions that meet financial objectives and enhance product commonality
Methodical in approach, yet capable of rapid analysis and decision-making in a fast-paced environment
Ability to think "out of the box," be innovative, and resilient in navigating challenges between design, engineering, cost constraints, and strategic architectural goals

Benefits

Comp & perks

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.

ATS Keywords

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Applicant Tracking System Keywords

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Hard Skills & Tools

CADdigital modelinggraphical communicationengineering specificationscost managementmodularitypart reusedesign integrationcompetitive analysisproblem-solving

Soft Skills

communicationcollaborationnetworkingrelationship-buildingproactivedisciplinedself-accountabilitynegotiationinfluencinginnovative

Certifications

Bachelor's degree in Engineering