Quality Engineer - Ink Manufacturing

Ceres; Redhill; On-site; GBP 42,000 - 62,000; Full time

Job summary

Ceres is a global leader in solid oxide technology, delivering high-volume quality control for inks and pastes across the full material lifecycle. The role focuses on incoming raw materials, CoA verification, and batch release, with accountability for finished ink quality and external license partner materials.

Responsibilities include driving supplier quality improvements, audits, and PPAP/APQP activities, plus addressing non-conformances and customer complaints to ensure robust process

Qualifications

• Experience in high-volume chemical/material manufacturing environments.
• Quality engineering experience with product at volume (not pilot/R&D).
• Experience in incoming material QA and supplier quality management, audits and non-conformance resolution.
• Ability to ensure batch-to-batch consistency and manage material variability.

Responsibilities

• Owns QA across the full material lifecycle for inks and pastes in high-volume manufacturing.
• Manages incoming raw material QA, supplier qualification, CoA validation and batch release.
• Owns finished ink quality testing, release, and specification control; supports external license partners.
• Leads external quality performance for supplied materials; drives supplier quality improvements through audits, PPAP, and corrective actions.
• Resolves non-conformances, deviations, and customer complaints with robust CAPA.

Skills

Quality engineering

Supplier quality management

Batch release

Statistical control

Data analysis

8D problem solving

Tools

PPAP

APQP

FMEA

MSA

CoA verification tooling

Job description

Ceres is a global leader in solid oxide technology, driving the clean energy revolution. Our steel-supported fuel cell and electrolyser technology gives partners a decade of development advantage, accelerating innovation in power generation, green hydrogen, and distributed power solutions for data centre's. Trusted by some of the world’s most progressive companies, our proven designs deliver efficient, low-cost solutions backed by over 5 million test hours. At Ceres, innovation is in our DNA. Join us and be part of a world-class team making a positive impact on the planet.

Purpose of the role:

The Quality Engineer – (Ink Manufacturing & Supply Quality) is responsible for ensuring robust quality assurance and quality control across the full material lifecycle at industrial scale, with primary accountability for incoming raw material quality assurance, including supplier quality, Certificate of Analysis (CoA) verification, and batch release, as well as finished product quality control and assurance for manufactured inks and pastes. The role also owns the quality performance of materials supplied to both internal production and external license partners, ensuring all materials consistently meet defined specifications at high volume, are reliably released to production, and perform effectively in downstream processes.

Operating within a high-volume manufacturing environment, the position plays a critical role in driving the transition from inspection-based QC to a proactive QA approach, establishing strong process capability, supplier robustness, and statistical control across both inbound and outbound material flows. This includes full ownership of incoming raw material quality systems, supplier qualification, CoA validation, and batch release, alongside end-to-end responsibility for finished ink quality, including batch testing and release, specification control, and meeting customer and license partner acceptance criteria.

The role is also accountable for the external quality performance of supplied materials, while actively driving supplier quality improvements through audits, PPAP, and corrective actions. In addition, the position ensures process capability and statistical control across high-volume production and leads the resolution of non-conformances, deviations, and customer complaints.

Knowledge and skills required for the role:

• · Experience in high-volume chemical or materials manufacturing environments (e.g. slurry, coating, or similar systyems)
• · Proven track record in quality engineering within industrial-scale production, with clear responsibility for product quality at volume (not pilot or R&D scale)
• · Strong experience in incoming material quality assurance and supplier quality management, including qualification, auditing, performance management, and non-conformance resolution
• · Experience ensuring batch-to-batch consistency at scale, including management of raw material variability
• · Deep understanding of structure–process–performance relationships in chemical systems, with the ability to apply this to identify and control material and process variability in industrial manufacturing environments
• · Experience managing quality risks during process scale-up and industrialisation, ensuring robust transfer from development into stable, repeatable high-volume production
• · Proven experience in quality engineering tools and methodologies, including 8D problem solving, root cause analysis, PPAP, APQP, FMEA, and MSA
• · Hands on experience analytical and characterisation techniques for chemical/material quality verification, and their application within validation and release process
• · Proficient in data analysis and reporting tools, with the ability to support KPI reporting and data-driven decision making