Quality / Product Assurance Lead

PAVE Space SA.; Villeneuve (VD); On-site; CHF 120,000 - 180,000; Full time

Job summary

PAVE Space SA. seeks a seasoned Product Assurance leader to own PA for Space, Launch and Ground segments. You will formalise processes, manage qualification and flight pedigree, and interface with insurers based on robust evidence.

Role requires extensive experience with non-conformance, root-cause discipline, and configuration management at flight hardware level, with strong ECSS or AS9100 knowledge. On-site in Villeneuve, SWISS HQ. Fluent English and French preferred.

Qualifications

• 8+ years of product assurance or quality leadership in space or high-reliability hardware.
• Experience standing up certifications, not inheriting existing ones.
• Track record managing customer audits and qualification reviews.
• Supplier quality experience at vehicle scale, incl. incoming inspection on critical hardware.
• Hands-on with non-conformance and root-cause discipline at flight-hardware level.
• PA voice in design reviews when schedules conflict with data.
• ECSS, NASA, or AS9100 working knowledge with judicious deviation when needed.
• Fluent English; French strongly preferred.
• Experience certifying a small organisation to AS9100.
• Experience with insurer conversations on flight hardware.

Responsibilities

• Own the Product Assurance programme for Space, Launch and Ground segments—qualification, acceptance, flight pedigree.
• Develop and maintain the Quality Management System: processes, framework, potential certifications.
• Lead non-conformance handling, root-cause analysis, and corrective actions at flight hardware level.
• Serve as insurer interface: prepare documentation and qualification evidence.
• Oversee configuration management and traceability: parts, batches, builds, tests.

Skills

Product Assurance

Quality leadership

Space/aerospace domain

Audits & qualifications

Non-conformance & RCA

ECSS knowledge

AS9100 knowledge

English fluency

French preferred

Insurer interface

Job description

PAVE Space is building LYOBA, a heavy kick stage moving over 4-tonne payloads from LEO to high-energy orbits in under 24 hours. Real hardware, real funding, real milestones, and the first parts flying soon. That's the programme. You're the discipline behind every part of it that has to be defensible.

The quality function has been carried as a side job by the engineers building the hardware. That works at twenty people, breaks at sixty, and PAVE Space is past forty. The first customer audit is coming, the first insurer questions are landing, and the qualification campaigns need a real Product Assurance owner. You'll formalise it, on a timeline measured in weeks, not quarters.

You will own

The Product Assurance programme for Space, Launch and Ground segments; qualification, acceptance, flight pedigree

The Quality Management System: processes, framework, and the path to potential certifications

Non-conformance handling, root cause and corrective actions at flight-hardware level

Insurer interface; the documentation, qualification evidence, and discipline that earns coverage on real terms

Configuration management and traceability: what part, what batch, what build, what test

What we are looking for

8+ years of product assurance or quality leadership on space, aerospace, or other high-reliability hardware programmes

Direct experience standing up certifications, not inheriting a mature one

Track record managing institutional or commercial customer audits and qualification reviews

Supplier quality experience at vehicle scale, including incoming inspection on critical hardware

Hands-on with non-conformance and root-cause discipline at flight-hardware level

Comfortable being the PA voice in a design review when the schedule says ship and the data says wait

ECSS, NASA, or AS9100 working knowledge and the judgement to know when to depart from them

English, fluently; French strongly preferred

Experience certifying a small organisation to AS9100

Experience with insurer or underwriter conversations on flight hardware

Quality on propulsion or pressurised systems

Experience standing up PA as a function rather than inheriting an established one.

You will fit if

You'd rather write the NCR yourself than wait for someone else's draft.

You see the QMS as a tool people actually use, not a binder on a shelf.

You can disagree with a PM on a shipping decision and still be on the same side of the engineering problem the next morning.

You know "tailored from ECSS" is the answer to most questions, not "by-the-book ECSS."

You take pride in the audit that goes smoothly because the artefacts were already there.

Fully on-site in Villeneuve (VD), with our test site in Chavalon twenty minutes away. There's no QMS to inherit, no audit binder on the shelf, no PA team underneath you. You'd be the one building it, while the first customers start asking to see it.

We are building to ship, grounded on real hardware, real funding, real milestones.