Quality Manager

Pilates group; Sacramento (CA); Hybrid; USD 110,000 - 150,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Medical & Dental

401(k) plan with company match

Life and Long Term Disability

Paid time off and holidays

Job summary

Balanced Body, a Sacramento-based manufacturer of premium Pilates equipment, seeks a Quality Manager to own quality across the entire flow from supplier to customer. You’ll craft acceptance criteria, lead the MRB, and drive QT9-based CAPA, NCP, and audit programs while coaching a team on the floor.

In year one you’ll be hands-on, setting standards, inspecting parts, and engaging supplier floors directly to embed disciplined quality.

Qualifications

• 7+ years of progressive quality experience in discrete manufacturing.
• 3+ years leading a team with hands-on, on-floor involvement.
• Hands-on ownership of a QMS (QT9 or equivalent).
• Real supplier quality experience including FAI/PPAP.
• Direct customer-facing experience with 8D reporting and commitments kept.
• Ability to write clear acceptance criteria for high-mix, craftsmanship-driven environment.
• Excel dashboards; Power BI is a bonus.

Responsibilities

• Own customer-facing quality across the full flow from supplier to customer.
• Author written acceptance criteria for every part family; chair MRB.
• Drive QT9 as a living system: CAPA, NCP, MRB, audit readiness; build leadership dashboards.
• Lead supplier quality improvements with local and international suppliers; watch for quality gaps.
• Coordinate weekly quality/supply cadence with Supply Chain; collaborate with EHS and functions.
• Develop quality plans for new product launches and during facility moves.
• Be hands-on on the floor during year one, writing standards and training inspectors.

Skills

Hands-on leadership

QMS ownership QT9

8D reporting

Customer-facing experience

Excel dashboards

Tools

QT9

Excel

Power BI

MRB

PPAP

Job description

Description

Come build quality on purpose.

Balanced Body builds Pilates equipment the way a master craftsman builds anything — nothing leaves the shop until it's right. Every reformer, tower, and accessory that leaves our Sacramento facility carries a promise to studios and instructors around the world — and we're looking for the person who makes sure that promise never breaks.

Who We Are

Balanced Body has been the world's leading manufacturer of premium Pilates equipment since 1976. We're headquartered right here in Sacramento, California, and we build more than equipment — we build the tools that help people move better, feel better, and enjoy their lives more. That mission starts on our production floor, and it depends on the quality of everything we ship.

What You'll Do

This is a newly consolidated role — and a rare chance to build something from the ground up. Today, quality lives in pieces: incoming inspection here, in-process checks there, supplier quality somewhere else. We're bringing it all under one leader. As our Quality Manager, you'll be the single owner of quality across the entire flow, from the supplier's dock to the customer's door, turning quality decisions from one-off fire drills into a disciplined, criteria-driven system.

You'll be the voice of the customer inside our factory. Your standard isn't "does it match the drawing" — it's "would the customer be proud to own this".

Especially in year one, this is hands-on work. You'll be on the floor inspecting parts, writing the standards yourself, and working supplier floors directly — not just directing a team to do it. This is a player-coach role, not a seat where you lead exclusively through managers.

What You'll Own

• Customer-facing quality: complaints, field failures, and warranty claims route through you — 8D reports, corrective actions, and closing the loop from field data back to the factory floor.
• Standards and decisions: author the written acceptance criteria for every part family, chair the Material Review Board, and give inspectors and technicians a clear, consistent rulebook to work from.
• The QMS: drive QT9 as a living system — CAPA pipeline, non-conforming product trends, audit readiness — and build the dashboard leadership actually looks at: cost of poor quality, first-pass yield, rework by supplier.
• Supplier quality: one end-to-end process from supplier quality agreements through first article and incoming inspection, with structured improvement programs for your highest-impact suppliers. Most of our roughly 1,200 suppliers are small, local shops with little or no formal quality system — you'll spend real time on their floors helping them build the processes and controls they don't have yet, not just auditing against ones they already do.
• Cross-functional leadership: a weekly quality/supply cadence with Supply Chain, and a team of inspectors, technicians, and supplier quality engineers who look to you for standards and coaching. Quality is the exclusive focus of this role today — EHS and Supply Chain are separate functions you'll partner with closely, not manage.
• Growth initiatives: quality plans for new product launches like the Luna Reformer, qualification of new manufacturing sources (including international operations), and a zero-gap quality transition during our upcoming facility move.

Requirements

What You Bring

• 7+ years of progressive quality experience in discrete manufacturing, including 3+ years leading a team — with real weight on hands-on, still-in-it experience rather than leading exclusively through managers.
• Hands-on ownership of a QMS (QT9 or equivalent) — CAPA, NCP, MRB, and audit management.
• Real supplier quality experience: FAI, PPAP or equivalent, supplier audits, and corrective action follow-through — including work with small or informal suppliers, not only large, sophisticated ones with established quality systems of their own.
• Direct customer-facing experience — complaint resolution, 8D reporting, and commitments made (and kept) to accounts.
• A knack for writing acceptance criteria that hold up in a high-mix, craftsmanship-driven environment.
• Comfort building your own metrics and dashboards in Excel; Power BI is a bonus.

Nice to have: experience with premium consumer, fitness, or furniture products; ASQ certification (CQM/OE, CQE); experience qualifying international manufacturing sources; Lean or Theory of Constraints background; NPI experience; bilingual English/Spanish.

Why Balanced Body

This isn't a job where you file reports nobody reads. You'll have real authority to set the standard, real air cover to enforce it, and a direct line to leadership when quality and delivery collide. If you've been the person quietly holding a fragmented quality function together somewhere else — come build the version that works, on purpose, from day one.

We offer competitive compensation and excellent benefits, including:

• Medical & Dental
• 401(k) plan with company match
• Life and Long Term Disability Insurance, employer paid
• Paid time off and holidays

The Company

www.pilates.com/BBAPP/V/company/craftsmanship.html

Balanced Body is an equal opportunity employer dedicated to workforce diversity.