Product Development Engineer - Handles, Locks & Mechanisms
Ford Motor Company · Dearborn
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.
In this position...
The HLM (Handles, Locks, and Mechanisms) Design and Release Engineer leads the design, validation, release, and production implementation of closure hardware systems — handles, latches, locks, strikers, hinges, door checks, and the manual and powered mechanisms used in hoods, front trunks (frunks), side doors, tailgates, liftgates, and decklids. These are safety-critical, high-cycle systems: they restrain occupants in a crash, resist theft and environmental attack, and must operate cleanly hundreds of thousands of times over a vehicle's life.
You will own the complete product lifecycle — concept development and design feasibility, Design Validation (DV), Product Validation (PV), Production Part Approval Process (PPAP), manufacturing launch, and ongoing production support. Throughout, you will establish and document compliance with performance, safety, durability, and quality targets; with applicable global closure safety regulations; and with emerging emergency-egress expectations for electronic latch and flush handle systems on electrified and software-defined vehicles.
Working closely with Body Engineering, Design Studio, CAE, Manufacturing, Quality, Purchasing, and supplier partners, you will resolve technical challenges, implement engineering changes, and deliver closure systems that meet program objectives for quality, cost, mass, and timing. You will balance competing constraints — styling intent, packaging envelopes, craftsmanship targets such as closing efforts and door-close sound quality, and manufacturing feasibility — to land a design that works in the studio, in the plant, and in the customer's hands.
Beyond launch, you will drive continuous product improvement: analyzing warranty and field data, resolving customer-facing issues, increasing reliability and durability, and optimizing system cost and mass. Your decisions show up in Ford's quality metrics, in assembly plant throughput, and ultimately in whether a customer's door opens exactly the same way in year ten as it did on day one.
Shape the Future of Ford Vehicle Closures For most customers, the first physical contact with a Ford is a door handle — and it happens thousands of times over the life of the vehicle. As an HLM (Handles, Locks, and Mechanisms) Design and Release Engineer, you will own that hardware: the handles, latches, locks, strikers, and liftgate mechanisms that define how a Ford opens, closes, secures, and feels. You will lead closure hardware systems from concept through production — driving design, validation, release, and launch alongside cross-functional teams and suppliers. The work sits at the intersection of precision mechanisms, mechatronics, and occupant safety, on systems governed by global safety standards that are evolving quickly for electrified and software-defined vehicles. And it doesn't end at Job 1. You'll track how your systems perform in customers' hands, diagnose field issues, and drive improvements in quality, durability, cost, and mass.More jobs at Ford Motor Company · Software Engineering jobs in Dearborn