Hardware Engineer

Ford Motor Company

Hardware Engineer developing and validating high-speed in-vehicle communication technologies at Ford. Leading design reviews and collaborating with cross-functional teams on networking hardware.

Posted 7/9/2026full-timeDearborn • Missouri • 🇺🇸 United StatesMid-LevelSenior💰 $99,600 - $192,900 per yearWebsite

About the role

Key responsibilities & impact

Conduct design reviews of ECU circuit designs to ensure they meet industry standards and automotive requirements for SI, EMC, and electrical robustness.
Run simulations to catch potential issues early, and follow up with lab measurements to validate.
Define SI budgets for different parts of the system (board, cable, connector, etc.), keeping jitter, noise, crosstalk, and EMI/EMC in mind.
Formulate board-level requirements for layout, interconnects, routing, and components.
Create design verification test methods and run tests based on industry standards and internal requirements.
Lead functional failure root-cause analysis and corrective actions for prototypes and production vehicles.
Lead component-level qualification of networking components for use in Ford products by reviewing EMI/EMC, interoperability, and other conformance reports.
Work closely with other Product Development teams (like EMC, Electrical Distribution Systems, and Vehicle Validation) to ensure SI is considered throughout the whole process.
Provide technical guidance to Product Development teams on feasibility, design alternatives, and design oversight for in-vehicle network implementations.
Collaborate with software and firmware teams during hardware bring-up and testing.
Build strong relationships with silicon, cable, and connector vendors to evaluate and introduce emerging technologies.
Contribute to industry standards efforts to reduce component cost, improve test automation, and address common automotive challenges in collaboration with industry experts.

Requirements

What you’ll need

Bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering or a similar technical field.
3+ years of experience in electronic hardware design, mainly focusing on complex high-speed digital and mixed-signal designs.
2+ years working with SI simulation or PCB design tools (e.g., Altium Designer, Mentor Graphics, Cadence Allegro, HyperLynx, SIwave, Polar Instruments).
2+ years of hands-on lab experience using equipment like oscilloscopes, Vector Network Analyzers (VNA), Time Domain Reflectometers (TDR), and doing circuit board rework.
Familiarity with standard automotive communication interfaces (CAN, LIN, SerDes, Ethernet).
A solid grasp of transmission line theory, S-parameters, bit error rate (BER) testing, crosstalk, characteristic impedance, eye diagrams, and time-domain analysis.
Good understanding of EMC/EMI principles in automotive settings.
Experience with high-reliability electronics for high-volume production, including using DFMEA and Worst-Case Analysis (WCA).

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.

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Hard Skills & Tools

Circuit DesignDesign Verification TestingRoot-Cause AnalysisTransmission Line TheoryBit Error Rate TestingCrosstalk AnalysisTime-Domain AnalysisDFMEAWorst-Case Analysis

Soft Skills

Technical GuidanceCollaborationRelationship Building