Supplier Quality Engineer (Mechanical Components and Mechanisms)

Supplier Quality Engineer

As a Supplier Quality Engineer, you will be tasked with a unique challenge to drive to ZERO defects and scale Astranis production at suppliers as we build our satellite manufacturing business. The Supplier Quality team is responsible for supplier identification, qualification, ongoing development, and corrective action. The job involves technical communication with internal and external teams, traveling to suppliers in different regions, and on-the-spot critical decision making. This role is critical to expanding our manufacturing capability while ensuring extreme reliability to make Astranis a world-class satellite manufacturing company.

Role

• Establish phase gates at suppliers for new product introduction and production, and manage the program to success by supporting supplier activities to ramp up to full rate production
• Spearhead root cause analysis and countermeasures with the supplier by working with a cross-functional team of engineers and supply chain managers
• Work with design engineers to capture requirements and ensure appropriate inspection processes are in place, at the supplier and at Astranis (incoming quality control)
• Review vendor documentation such as certifications and end item data packages to approve shipment
• Perform supplier audits and qualification activities to certify contract manufacturers for flight hardware production
• Set up procedures for incoming inspection
• Review Astranis drawings and specifications, give feedback for design-for-manufacturing and inspectability, and approve on behalf of manufacturing
• Establish processes to ingest process data from suppliers, and analyze quality and delivery metrics to identify trends and drive improvement as needed
• Work with suppliers to ensure capacity for upcoming programs, and drive make/buy trades and supplier selection to ensure a robust supply and high quality for your product lines
• Generate quality clauses and statements of work for various products and commodities to ensure clear flowdown of requirements to vendors

Requirements

• Bachelor's degree in Engineering/Material Science/Physics or similar technical field
• 2-6 years experience in a manufacturing engineering, design engineering, quality engineering, or supply chain engineering role
• Knowledge of Mechanical Engineering and manufacturing principles such as machining, assembly, etc. 
• Understanding of GD&T
• Knowledge of supplier quality processes (production part approval process, advanced product quality planning, first article inspection reports, SCARs etc.)
• Ability to work extended hours as needed to meet critical deadlines
• Ability to travel up to 40% of the time

Bonus

• Experience in aerospace manufacturing, including AS9100 quality management system
• Experience with process capability studies and setting up Statistical Process Control monitoring
• Knowledge of statistical techniques and methods, e.g., design of experiments, GR&R, process capability studies, statistical process control, etc.
• Understanding of typical NPI and production ramp process including phase gates and milestones