Quality Systems Leader - Polymer Manufacturing & Scale-Up

Aether; South San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 125,000 - 175,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Equity

Job summary

Aether is seeking its first dedicated Quality Control Manager to build systems, standards, and discipline for polymer manufacturing at commercial scale. You will own QC across materials, external manufacturing, in-process inspection, and lot release, working closely with Development, Process Engineering, Sourcing, and Manufacturing onsite during major campaigns.

You will initially be hands-on and travel ~25% in the first years.

Qualifications

• 10+ years of quality control, manufacturing quality, supplier quality, or related experience in polymer, chemical, or advanced-materials manufacturing.

Responsibilities

• Build and implement a practical, scalable quality control system for incoming materials, in-process production, and finished products.
• Establish core quality processes, including document control, deviations, nonconforming materials, supplier qualification, traceability, and lot release.
• Evaluate and implement an electronic quality management system
• Partner with Materials Development to translate product specifications into control plans, inspection criteria, sampling plans, test methods, and work instructions
• Define and maintain critical-to-quality attributes for Aether’s commercial polymeric products
• Review production and characterization data and serve as the final quality authority for lot disposition
• Provide hands-on quality oversight during major contract-manufacturing campaigns
• Identify emerging risks and intervene before they jeopardize a production run
• Qualify raw-material suppliers and contract manufacturing partners
• Establish quality requirements, quality agreements, audit processes, and corrective-action expectations with external partners
• Support product development teams in identifying manufacturability and quality risks before commercial scale-up
• Train internal teams and external partners on quality requirements, inspection methods, documentation, and escalation procedures
• Help shape Aether’s long-term quality organization as the company scales

Skills

Quality control

CMO experience

Root cause analysis

Documentation

Decision making

Traceability

Education

Technical degree in materials science/engineering

Tools

QMS software

Statistical process control tools

Job description

Aether is seeking its first dedicated Quality Control Manager to build systems, standards, and discipline for polymer manufacturing at commercial scale. You will own QC across materials, external manufacturing, in-process inspection, and lot release, working closely with Development, Process Engineering, Sourcing, and Manufacturing onsite during major campaigns.

You will initially be hands-on and travel ~25% in the first years.