D-FORD Design Technologist

Key Skills

Apache Hadoop, C Programming, C++, Data science techniques, Java Programming, Machine learning techniques, MapReduce, Python Programming, PyTorch, R Programming, Scala Programming, SQL, TensorFlow

Job Description

The Design Technology practice at D-Ford in Palo Alto is an inter-disciplinary practice where technology and product focused individuals are working together to enabling the creation of physical, software, data and AI prototypes? ?towards the strategic priorities of Ford.

As a Design Technologist, you understand technology as your creative design medium, with a deep empathy for the end user’s needs. In addition, you understand product, operating at the intersection of physical and digital. You bring to the team an iterative prototyping process and mindset, building in order to understand what is desirable and feasible.

Your methods will inspire teams to be creative with possible digital solutions and enable product and service testing with real users. You excel at inspiring the team by bringing possibilities to life by prototyping across a wide range of media and materials, helping your teams to problem-solve by getting tangible.

As a Design Technologist, you will...

• Help teams iteratively bring to life product and service experiences through proofs of concept and at varying levels of fidelity, exploring tools and methods to learn and evolve concepts through digital and physical prototyping.
• Define and guide teams in standards for agile ways of working, stewarding exploration and delivery of concepts and prototypes along digital service delivery plans.
• Look beyond any immediate technical barriers to push our thinking and make recommendations on how to build modern technology, services and ventures.
• Work within an inter-disciplinary construct comprising of diverse technically minded people, alongside design peers that span the medium of service design, interaction design, communication design, design research amongst others
• Creatively look past the limitations of today and push to strive for bringing emergent ideas and functional prototypes that are creating delightful experiences for customers early and often
• Push the envelope in exploring, evangelizing and adopting new creative, technology and engineering practices that push the community and the practice forward

Your mindset ….

• You operate like a specialist, but have the curiosity and desire to stretch across technical areas and design
• You are a confident and flexible leader of interdisciplinary teams where harmonious collaboration is imperative
• You are a design thinker at heart; open-minded, curious, exploratory, iterative and optimistic
• You are agile and can flex between being scrappy to move fast and detail-oriented to go deep, navigating the ambiguity of designing for complex, hairy problems
• You are comfortable vetting and aligning partners, and shepherding stakeholders on the journey of bringing experiments and pilots to life
• You have a passion for design, a pulse on emerging trends and technology, and a developed point of view about your work

The community of practice have the following specializations and track

• General Software Track; you are a versatile software developer, where code is your medium and you thrive in the development and the deployment of backend web services, user experience applications and everything in between
• Data Science Track; you have a background and passion in using data as a medium to both explore design problems, synthesize research, explore data visualization as a medium to communicate
• Hardware & Mechatronics Track; you thrive at the intersection of hardware and software, you enjoy building and fabricating, and push the notion of how software is pervasive as much in the physical hardware space as it is in a confined digital medium
• AI Design Track; you are passionate about the possibilities with Artificial Intelligence (AI), you have a foundational understanding of AI principles and applications and are capable of creating prototypes showing how an AI might be used by people in an explorative context

***Please indicate on your application/cover letter which track(s) align best with your expertise***

The minimum requirements we seek:

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Data Science, Design, or Engineering
• 2+ years of Industry work experience

Our preferred requirements:

• Master’s degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Computer Engineering, or a related field, or equivalent experience.
• Experience of working across engineering and design teams.
• Experience as an engineer, scientist, prototyper with prior rigorous experience working in a creative and/or interdisciplinary culture
• Experience of utilizing design thinking and/or human-centered design
• Track record of building and running great digital services that creatively work with existing systems and business models to meet user needs.
• Prior experience in the automotive, mobility or transportation industry.