Founding Quality & Supplier Lead — Scale & Validate

Shellworks; Greater London; Hybrid; GBP 60,000 - 70,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

28 days holiday + statutory holidays

12 weeks maternity, 6 weeks paternity

Heka wellbeing allowance

Virtual GP

Cycle to work scheme

Daily catered lunch

Job summary

Shellworks is seeking a founding Quality Manager to define and execute the quality and supplier quality strategy for its Vivomer program. You will build the systems and partnerships required to scale from proof-of-concept to mass production, ensuring every part meets spec for global brands.

Based in London with a 4-day office, 1-day remote schedule, you will work closely with the founder and lead on quality across materials, design handoffs, and manufacturing partners.

Qualifications

• Minimum 5+ years in manufacturing quality engineering and supplier management.
• Experience qualifying suppliers across multiple countries and managing factory-floor quality.
• Materials background (polymers, chemistry, or textiles) and understanding of material behavior.
• Experience setting specs and handing off from design to manufacturing.
• Strong first-principles thinker with ability to build a quality system from scratch.
• Fluency in English; additional European language preferred.

Responsibilities

• Set sourcing strategy for global manufacturing partners across molding techniques.
• Audit, qualify and select new partners; own partner decisions.
• Create supplier quality framework: onboarding, qualification, scorecards, CAPA.
• Negotiate cost, capacity, and lead times as volumes grow.
• Define quality engineering strategy; translate product requirements into test plans.
• Design inline testing and aesthetic standards with partners; ensure parts ship validated.
• Build traceability, incoming inspection, root-cause analysis, customer complaints systems.
• Be the quality voice in front of brand customers.

Skills

First principles thinking

Supplier management

Quality engineering

Manufacturing quality

Job description

Shellworks is seeking a founding Quality Manager to define and execute the quality and supplier quality strategy for its Vivomer program. You will build the systems and partnerships required to scale from proof-of-concept to mass production, ensuring every part meets spec for global brands.

Based in London with a 4-day office, 1-day remote schedule, you will work closely with the founder and lead on quality across materials, design handoffs, and manufacturing partners.