Director of Quality

Director of Quality – Product Quality Engineering  

The Director of Quality serves as the executive amplifier and strategic integrator for the VP of Quality—ensuring that intent becomes action, and action scales across teams. This role drives Product Development excellence, builds world-class Product Quality Engineering capabilities, and establishes a culture of statistical rigor and continuous improvement.  

WHAT YOU’LL DO  

• Support the VP of Quality in evolving priorities and organizational needs, adapting capacity and focus as required  

• Enable Quality team leaders and division members to maximize efficiency and quality output through coaching and resource alignment  

• Build internal delivery rhythms, KPIs, and OKRs that drive team alignment, execution fidelity, and risk management  

• Lead cross-team initiatives requiring executive sponsorship and accountability, acting as go-to problem solver for ambiguous challenges  

• Partner with Quality Systems Engineering to deploy and track KPIs through scorecards to inform decisions at QBR, MDPR 

• Foster cross-functional relationships, embedding quality and compliance fluency throughout partner functions  

• Provide strategic oversight and ensure product line governance in accordance with DCMA compliance and federal mandates  

• Serve as the connective tissue across the organization—coordinating, communicating, and facilitating  

• Own Product Quality Engineering strategy across all new product development by appropriately leveraging the following functions at the appropriate phase gates: Reliability, System Safety, Supplier Quality, and Quality Systems Engineering  

• Own day‑to‑day factory quality engineering and sustainment; owns Productization/Recovery execution (productionization, stabilization, ramp support).  

• Ensure efforts to embed Quality at the source are executed and implemented by operationalizing findings from Design for Quality, DFM, and FSS risk magement methodologies.  

• Develop and execute mitigation strategies identified through root cause analysis, FMEA, and trend analysis; translating findings into design improvements and process enhancements. 

• Drive DFMEA and PFMEA activities, coaching teams to proactively identify and mitigate risks before they materialize  

• Establish product validation and verification protocols (DV, PV, reliability testing) aligned with industry best practices  

• Drive design review governance, supporting critical phase-gate reviews to ensure quality criteria are satisfied at each milestone  

• Partner with R&D, Engineering, Manufacturing, and Supply Chain to create closed-loop corrective action systems that feed learnings into next-gen designs  

• Build and lead a high-performing Product Quality Engineering team with expertise in statistical methods, DOE, MSA, and process capability  

• Establish a center of excellence for statistical analysis, providing tools, templates, mentorship, and governance for data-driven decision-making  

• Lead capability maturity assessments for product development processes, implementing improvement roadmaps  

• Serve as Quality voice in PDP governance, aligning product strategy, customer expectations, regulatory requirements, and manufacturing capabilities  

• Partner with Supplier Quality to ensure early establishment of supplier quality engagement protocols, co-developing quality agreements and performance metrics 

• Drive Voice of the Customer integration into product requirements and quality standards  

• Lead production readiness assessments, validating process capability, tooling, training, and quality systems  

• Own product quality scorecards tracking first-pass yield, defect rates, warranty returns, and field reliability  
• Facilitate post-launch reviews to capture lessons learned and feed insights into the Product Development playbook  

REQUIRED QUALIFICATIONS  

• Bachelor's degree in engineering or equivalent technical experience with 5 – 10 years of industry experience that includes Quality management within the defense, aerospace or or other end system hardware.  

• Proven experience leading Product Quality Engineering in complex product development environments  

• Strong background in DFMEA, Control Plans, DOE, Six Sigma, DFSS, statistical methods, and reliability engineering  

• Proven track record of developing and implementing global Quality strategies.  

• Experience leading large-scale organizational change and driving cultural transformation.  

• Deep knowledge of Quality Management Systems and standards such as ISO9001, AS9100, etc.  

• Experience in interfacing with agencies and managing regulatory compliance.  

• Experience in a variety of Quality domains, including design, production, supply chain, etc.  

• Experience in large-scale risk assessment and management at a corporate level.  

• Strong knowledge in one or more technical or production industry areas as it relates to design for Quality, root cause corrective action, measurement analysis, etc.  

• Working knowledge of product development methodologies such as Failure Modes and Effects Analysis (FMEA), Advanced Product Quality Planning (APQP), Production Part Approval Process (PPAP) elements such as Measurement Systems Analysis (MSA), and Geometric Dimensioning and Tolerancing (GD&T).  

• Must be able to obtain and hold a U.S. security clearance