ESS7113N - Quality Engineer

Job description

About

The Quality Engineer plays a pivotal role in ensuring the consistent delivery of high-quality products across both internal assembly operations and the external supply chain. With primary responsibility for day-to-day quality performance within the assembly facility, this role provides hands-on support to production, driving rapid issue resolution, robust process control, and right-first-time outcomes.

Reporting to the QHSE Manager, with a dotted line to the Product Quality Manager, the role also leads and develops a small team of Quality professionals to ensure effective execution of quality priorities and continuous improvement activities.

Working cross-functionally with Operations, Engineering, R&D, and Supply Chain, the Quality Engineer ensures that new and existing products meet defined quality standards, supports successful new product introduction, and maintains compliance with the organisation’s Integrated Management System and ISO 9001 requirements.

This is a highly visible role requiring strong leadership, technical expertise, and the ability to influence at all levels to embed a culture of quality, accountability, and continuous improvement throughout the business.

Travel within the UK is required as part of the role.

Responsibilities:

• Provide hands-on daily quality support to the assembly facility, ensuring issues are identified, contained, escalated, and resolved efficiently.

• Act as the primary quality contact for production, driving rapid problem-solving and root cause analysis using structured methodologies such as 8D, RCA, and DMAIC.

• Lead and develop two Quality professionals, ensuring effective prioritisation, clear accountability, and alignment to business and production objectives

• Develop, implement, and maintain robust process controls, including PFMEA, Control Plans, SPC, and MSA

• Perform product inspection and measurement activities to verify conformance to drawings and specifications, supporting both production and supplier validation.

• Lead and support the Production Part Approval Process (PPAP) for new products and engineering changes, including developing and maintaining the PPAP system and ensuring supplier compliance.

• Support new product introductions (NPI) to ensure quality standards are achieved at launch and sustained through production, maintaining robustness of product builds.

• Qualify, approve, and develop suppliers through audits, capability assessments, and risk evaluations, including manufacturing, technological, and HSE considerations.

• Conduct regular supplier audits and performance reviews, using KPIs to ensure alignment with expectations for quality and delivery.

• Manage supplier non-conformances (NCRs), ensuring effective containment, root cause investigation, and implementation of permanent corrective actions.

• Work closely with suppliers to reduce variation, scrap, and rework, driving continuous improvement initiatives.

• Support on performance improvement programmes, monitoring key metrics such as PPM and Cost of Poor Quality (COPQ).

• Collaborate cross-functionally with Operations, Engineering, R&D, and Supply Chain to ensure effective resolution of quality issues and continuous improvement of processes and products.

• Support customer-specific requirements, providing technical guidance to suppliers and internal teams as needed.

• Support and contribute to the Internal Audit programme, ensuring compliance with the Integrated Management System (IMS) and maintaining ISO 9001 certification.

• Assist in external audits and ongoing compliance activities, ensuring business readiness and adherence to quality standards.

• Provide clear reporting and communication of quality performance, risks, and improvement activities to the QHSE Manager, Product Quality Manager, and wider business.