Chief Quality & Reliability Officer

Socket.dev; Torrance (CA); On-site; USD 180,000 - 240,000; Full time

Job summary

Northwood Space seeks a hands-on Head of Quality & Reliability to establish a world-class quality organization as we scale from development to production. You will architect and implement the Quality Management System (QMS) and lead AS9100 efforts to ensure safe, reliable aerospace systems.

You will partner with Engineering, Manufacturing, Integration & Test, and Production to embed quality across the lifecycle, drive continuous improvement, and balance product integrity with execution speed.

Qualifications

• 8+ years of experience in manufacturing quality, quality engineering, or reliability engineering.
• 3+ years of experience leading teams or owning major cross‑functional quality initiatives.
• Experience in high‑reliability industries (aerospace, defense, automotive, energy, etc.).
• Strong background in DFMEA, Control Plans, DOE, Six Sigma, DFSS, and reliability engineering.
• Track record of building or scaling quality systems in low‑to‑medium volume, high‑complexity environments.

Responsibilities

• Build, implement, and continuously improve the Quality Management System (QMS).
• Lead AS9100 certification efforts, audits, and continuous improvement.
• Own document control, configuration management, nonconformance, CAPA, and audits.
• Embed quality and reliability across Engineering, Manufacturing, and Production.
• Develop quality plans, process controls, and acceptance criteria.
• Lead root cause investigations and drive defect reduction and yields.
• Establish quality metrics and data-driven improvement initiatives.
• Develop reliability strategy: qualification testing, reliability growth, risk mitigation.
• Drive reliability engineering practices: FMEA, FRACAS, fault analysis, lifecycle risk.
• Build and lead a high-performing Quality & Reliability organization.

Skills

DFMEA

Control Plans

DOE

Six Sigma

DFSS

Reliability engineering

Quality engineering

Root cause analysis

CAPA

Education

Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, Quality Engineering, or related technical discipline

Job description

Northwood Space seeks a hands-on Head of Quality & Reliability to establish a world-class quality organization as we scale from development to production. You will architect and implement the Quality Management System (QMS) and lead AS9100 efforts to ensure safe, reliable aerospace systems.

You will partner with Engineering, Manufacturing, Integration & Test, and Production to embed quality across the lifecycle, drive continuous improvement, and balance product integrity with execution speed.