Principal Quality Engineer, Mission Assurance (50% Travel)

Northrop Grumman; Plymouth (MN); On-site; USD 98,900 - 185,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Health insurance

Discretionary bonus

Paid time off (PTO)

Job summary

Northrop Grumman in Plymouth, MN, seeks a Quality Engineer to provide QA and mission assurance support across the Ammunition Operating Unit. The role involves collaboration with programs and suppliers, applying Lean and Six Sigma, and guiding root-cause analysis to prevent recurrence.

Responsibilities include ensuring compliance with contract quality requirements, leading investigations, and implementing corrective actions while interfacing with customers and program teams.

Qualifications

• Bachelor of Science degree in STEM discipline.
• 5 years of experience as quality engineer; or master’s degree plus 3 years of quality engineer experience.
• Strong background in inspection equipment, techniques and general knowledge of Metrology and Calibration.
• Solid understanding of Drawings and Geometric Dimensioning and Tolerancing (GD&T).
• Solid Quality Tools skills (Statistics, DOE, FMEA, MSA).
• Experience in a highly-regulated environment.
• Ability to travel domestically and internationally as required (possibly on short notice) and potentially for extended durations.

Responsibilities

• Ensure compliance to contract quality requirements and AS9100 / ISO9001 Quality System processes on development and production programs.
• Provide expertise and guidance to program teams and suppliers on quality assurance, quality systems, tools, training, problem solving, statistical analysis and continuous improvement. Apply Lean and Six Sigma tools.
• Support and lead investigations between internal functions, suppliers and customers. Provide assistance with technical diagnosis of root cause analysis and implementation of corrective actions with resolution of customer complaints or field failures. Develop solutions as appropriate to eliminate the recurrence of the issue.
• Work with Operations to initiate effective containment, investigation, and countermeasure activities to prevent defect outflow both in‑house and to Customers.
• Plan and implement quality activities including writing product inspection plans, initiating material review board actions, resolving nonconforming material issues, and facilitating corrective actions.
• Perform on‑site monitoring of manufacturing lines and supplier production processes. Assess suppliers’ capabilities and conformance to their Quality System.
• Review drawings for inspection capability and conformance to Geometric Dimensions and Tolerances standards.
• Prepare documentation including quality code requisitions for procuring material, incoming inspection procedures, and Contract Data Requirement List (CDRL) data requirements.
• Evaluate manufacturing methods and inspection capabilities. Provide quality input to manufacturing processes including inspection and determining key characteristics.
• Perform statistical analysis on product yield, SPC, and key characteristics data.
• Report status on tasks to program management, quality management and customers.
• Review inspection and acceptance data to assess process capability and product compliance.

Skills

Inspection equipment

GD&T

Metrology & Calibration

Statistical tools

DOE

MSA

Regulated environment

Travel ability

Education

Bachelor of Science in STEM

Master’s in STEM

PhD in STEM

Tools

Metrology equipment

Calibration procedures

Job description

Northrop Grumman in Plymouth, MN, seeks a Quality Engineer to provide QA and mission assurance support across the Ammunition Operating Unit. The role involves collaboration with programs and suppliers, applying Lean and Six Sigma, and guiding root-cause analysis to prevent recurrence.

Responsibilities include ensuring compliance with contract quality requirements, leading investigations, and implementing corrective actions while interfacing with customers and program teams.