# Senior Supplier Quality Engineer

**Company:** [Northwood Space](https://hotfix.jobs/companies/northwood-space)
**Location:** Los Angeles, CA, California
**Role:** Hardware Engineering
**Salary:** $120k – $140k/yr
**Experience:** 5+ years
**Skills:** supplier quality, supplier development, iso 9001, as9100, ppap, Root Cause Analysis, capa, DFM, npi, rf, pcba, ERP, plm, SQL
**Posted:** 2026-08-11

> Leads supplier quality and development for complex satellite ground-station hardware, establishing quality systems, qualifying suppliers, and supporting manufacturing ramps. Requires a bachelor’s degree, 5+ years of supplier quality or development experience, and familiarity with aerospace-quality standards and manufacturing tools.

## Job Description

## Responsibilities
- Design and implement the company’s first supplier quality assurance system, including documentation and workflows.
- Identify, evaluate, and qualify suppliers for RF, PCBA, mechanical, and electromechanical components.
- Conduct supplier audits, performance reviews, and corrective action processes.
- Collaborate with product design and manufacturing teams on design for manufacturability (DFM), new product introduction (NPI), and pilot builds.
- Define supplier KPIs covering quality, delivery, cost, and responsiveness, and establish reporting mechanisms.
- Resolve supplier quality issues through root cause analysis and corrective/preventive action (NCR/CAPA).
- Support incoming inspection plans and testing protocols.
- Serve as a technical liaison between internal engineering teams and external manufacturing partners.
- Own supplier capacity expansion readiness and production ramp-up.
- Develop supplier technical requirements and quality flow-downs for hardware manufacturing.
- Provide supplier feedback on manufacturing methods to reduce costs and cycle times and improve yields.
- Lead supplier root cause failure analysis and corrective actions for quality gaps, escapes, and containments.
- Lead cost engineering activities to converge the bottoms-up cost curve to product cost and maximize total cost of ownership.

## Requirements
- Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical, Electrical, Industrial Engineering, or a related field.
- 5+ years of experience in supplier quality or supplier development roles in manufacturing.
- Experience with quality standards and tools such as ISO 9001, AS9100, and PPAP.
- Experience qualifying new suppliers and managing supplier performance.
- Experience building or scaling quality systems in low-to-medium-volume, high-complexity manufacturing environments.
- Ability to travel up to 25% domestically and internationally.

## Nice-to-Haves
- Experience in an AS9100 environment.
- Experience in aerospace, satellite, telecommunications, or defense industries.
- Experience with RF components, PCBAs, custom enclosures, and electromechanical assemblies.
- Familiarity with ERP, PLM, and digital quality management systems.
- Experience supporting early-stage product development through production ramp-up.
- Lean Six Sigma or other quality certifications.
- Proficiency in SQL or other data tools for supplier and quality analytics.

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