
PLM Engineering Manager
Ford · Dearborn, MI
- Level
- Manager
- Team
- Manufacturing
- Base pay
- $133k–$251k
- Experience asked
- 8+ years
- Industry
- Automotive
- Posted
- 16 days ago
The role in 30 seconds
A management manufacturing role at Ford (automotive) in Dearborn, MI. It will also connect Ford's business and engineering stakeholders with the hosting and infrastructure teams and with Dassault Systèmes.
- They ask for
- 8+ years
- Tools it names
- Root cause, Automation, Capacity planning, CATIA / NX, MES
- Base pay
- $133k–$251k
Read from the posting. The full description is below.
From the plant jobs report · week of November 2, 2026
Manufacturing Engineer roles in Michigan: typical posted base $81k–$166k. This one lists $133k–$251k.
Median of the low and high ends of 28 live postings that list pay, out of 83 manufacturing engineer openings in Michigan, read from manufacturers' own careers sites.
Michigan plant jobs report →Pay by team and state →What moves pay →
How this role compares
Against 82 other live manufacturing postings in Michigan.
- Base pay
- About 60% above similar roles
- Experience asked
- More than usual (8+ vs 5+)
Typical $78k–$162k, from 27 postings that list pay.
Similar roles usually ask 5+ years.
Skills these teams ask for most
- New product launch 61%
- Tooling 47%
- Lean 40%
- FMEA 33%
- ✓ Root cause 30%
- Team leadership 29%
✓ = this posting asks for it too. % = share of similar postings that mention it.
Stands out: this posting asks for Capacity planning, MES, which few similar roles mention. If you have it, lead with it.
At a glance
Pulled from the posting text. If it's not listed here, the posting didn't say.
How to get in at this plant
Five moves over a week or two. The first one takes ten minutes.
- 1
Pick 2–3 people on the Manufacturing team at Ford
We found 11 people at this company and state: 8 in this kind of role, 3 leaders. Engineers who joined in the last year or two reply the most. See them ↓
- 2
Send a short, curious note
One real question about their work. No favors yet. Each person gets a different note, written for this role.
Write to Rob → (free) - 3
Turn a reply into a short call
Questions worth asking about this team:
- What does a normal week look like on your team?
- Is the work mostly new product launches or sustaining existing lines?
- How much time do you spend on the floor versus at a desk?
- How did you land the job? What stood out in your interviews?
- 4
Apply with someone vouching for you
If the call went well, ask whether they’d pass your résumé to the hiring manager. Send your résumé link, apply that day, and let them know.
- 5
Bring proof to the interview
One page of before-and-after numbers from projects you led: scrap, OEE, cycle time, cost. Plant managers hire on results.
This plant: Ford in Dearborn
30 other open roles at this site · 11 people we found in manufacturing roles at Ford.
- IVI & Audio Hardware Quality Supervisor · Quality · Supervisor
- Engineering Specialist- Controls · Controls
- Manufacturing Engineer-Package Attach/ Reflow Soldering · Manufacturing
- Manufacturing Engineer · Manufacturing
- Launch Manufacturing Engineer · Manufacturing
- Manufacturing Engineer- General Assembly · Manufacturing
Full description from FordAs posted on their careers site.ShowHide
Requirements
Intake: Partner with engineering, manufacturing, and program teams to turn business
requirements
into sound technical designs. Advise on "out-of-the-box vs. customize" decisions.
Required Experience
- ✓8+ years of experience with Dassault Systèmes ENOVIA / 3DEXPERIENCE, including platform customization, development, and administration
- ✓5+ years in software development, software engineering, and scripting with 3DX customizations including EKL, JPO, JAR, YAML, & supporting automation/pipelines.
- ✓3+ years in an escalation & production support role, for enterprise Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) systems
- ✓3+ years leading or managing technical teams in an enterprise environment
- ✓Proven experience managing vendor support escalations with Dassault Systèmes or comparable enterprise software vendors
- ✓Experience working in a fast-paced, flexible industrial systems team like Ford Motor Company
- ✓Expert-level experience using large language models and artificial intelligence
Show full description ↓Show less ↑
We are seeking an experienced PLM Engineering Manager to lead 3DEXPERIENCE customization, development, and high level escalation support. This pivotal leadership role will guide a team of 3DX developers, platform engineers, and release engineers. It will also connect Ford's business and engineering stakeholders with the hosting and infrastructure teams and with Dassault Systèmes.
The ideal candidate is a hands-on technical leader who understands the full 3DX architecture, from 3DPassport and 3DSpace through 3DSearch and FCS down to the database. You are equally comfortable reviewing a developer's trigger logic, analyzing a JVM thread dump during an outage, pushing a Dassault Systèmes Service Request up to R&D, and explaining the root cause to senior leadership in plain business terms. You set the engineering standards that keep Ford's heavily customized platform stable and upgrade-ready. A natural collaborator, you build trust across development, hosting, and business teams, and you thrive in a fast-paced environment where both delivery and accountability matter. This role is a people leader position but also highly technical.
Platform Customization & Development
- •Customization Ownership: Lead the design, development, and delivery of all 3DX customizations, including data model extensions (type and attribute specialization, Unified Typing, policies, lifecycles), triggers, JPOs, MQL/TCL scripts, and EKL logic, using Dassault-supported methods.
- •UI & Widget Development: Guide the development of 3DDashboard widgets (JavaScript/UWA), web forms, tables, commands, and menus that improve the engineering user experience.
- •Integrations & Web Services: Own the technical design and support of integrations between 3DX and Ford enterprise systems, using 3DSpace REST APIs, custom web services, and middleware.
- •Security Model: Oversee People & Organization (P&O) configuration, including collaborative spaces, organizations, roles, security contexts, and access rules.
- •Engineering Standards: Define and enforce coding standards, code review practices, and source control for all 3DX development, so customizations stay upgrade-safe and technical debt stays low.
Level 3 Escalation & Incident Resolution
- •Final Escalation Point: Serve as the highest internal escalation point for critical (P1/P2) and complex incidents across the 3DX suite, including 3DSpace, 3DPassport, 3DDashboard, 3DSearch/3DIndex, FCS, 3DSwym, and native app (CATIA/DELMIA) platform interactions.
- •Root Cause Analysis: Lead deep diagnostics using application logs, MQL traces, JVM thread and heap dumps, database query analysis, and HTTP/network tracing to find the true root cause of failures across components.
- •Vendor Escalation: Own the relationship with Dassault Systèmes Support and R&D. Drive Service Requests to resolution, make sure reproducible test cases are provided, and validate the hotfixes Dassault delivers.
- •Incident Leadership: Serve as technical lead on incident bridges during 3DX platform outages. Coordinate rapid response across hosting, development, and supplier teams, and give clear, timely status to business stakeholders.
- •Problem Management: Own root cause reports and problem records, and drive permanent corrective actions so the same issues do not come back.
- •Shift-Left Enablement: Turn recurring L3 issues into knowledge articles, runbooks, and automated fixes so L1/L2 can resolve more issues and fewer reach L3.
Platform Stability & Lifecycle Management
- •Performance Optimization: Oversee platform performance tuning across JVM/TomEE configuration, database (Oracle/SQL Server), indexing, caching, and FCS file throughput.
- •Upgrade Readiness: Own the technical impact analysis of customizations for full upgrades, Functional Deliveries (FDs), and hotfixes. Lead regression testing and support cutover execution.
- •Change Management: Make sure all customizations and platform changes follow ITIL-aligned change management processes, are properly documented, and carry appropriate approvals before promotion through Dev, Test, QA, and Prod.
- •Automation: Drive the adoption of automation for deployments, bulk data operations, and platform health checks, fitting into the team's Ansible and CI/CD pipelines.
Capacity Planning & Team Leadership
- •People Leadership: Lead, mentor, and develop a team of 3DX developers and escalation engineers, including hiring, performance management, and technical career growth.
- •Resource Management: Lead capacity planning efforts, using Jira to track team bandwidth, forecast constraints, and assign resources against business priorities and escalation demand.
- •Knowledge Transfer: Build technical depth across the L1/L2 support organization through training, code reviews, and hands-on troubleshooting coaching.
- •Audit Support: Provide technical leadership and evidence for IT audits, ensuring 3DX customizations and changes comply with GRC, IFAR, and ASAR requirements.
