Senior Director, Quality

ursamajor; Berthoud (CO); On-site; USD 180,000 - 300,000; Full time

Job summary

Ursa Major, a leader in propulsion and defense systems, seeks a Senior Director of Quality to drive the Quality Management System across all sites and products, from solid rocket motors to avionic systems. This role reports to the Chief Safety and Risk Officer and serves as the senior quality representative to DCMA and prime contractors.

It blends strategic leadership with hands-on execution as the company scales from development to rate production.

Qualifications

Responsibilities

• Own Ursa Major's quality strategy, objectives, budget, and organization, structuring and developing the quality team to support growth across all product lines and sites.
• Build a culture of quality where every function owns quality and builds it into design, sourcing, manufacturing, and delivery.
• Match quality rigor to program maturity: move at the speed development programs require while meeting the full expectations of mature defense and prime customer programs.

Job description

The future of aerospace and defense starts here.

Ursa Major was founded to revolutionize how America and its allies access and apply high-performance propulsion, from hypersonics to solid rocket motors, satellite maneuvering and launch. We design and deliver propulsion and defense systems that solve the most urgent and critical national security demands.

Role Overview

The Senior Director, Quality is the senior quality leader for Ursa Major. This leader is accountable for product quality, quality compliance, and the effectiveness of the Quality Management System across all sites and product lines, including solid rocket motors, hypersonic propulsion, in-space propulsion, and avionics. Reporting to the Chief Safety and Risk Officer, the Sr. Director serves as the company's senior quality representative to DCMA, government customers, and prime contractors. They will build the program and customer-facing quality capability Ursa Major needs as it scales from development into rate production and operates as a public company.

This role leads the full quality organization, including quality control, inspection, metrology and calibration, quality systems, and product quality engineering, with full authority to shape its structure as the business grows. The ideal candidate knows what prime-level quality looks like and how to deliver it at startup speed, scaling rigor to risk rather than adding bureaucracy. This is a senior leadership role, but it is also a hands‑on one: we expect this leader to roll up their sleeves, lead from the front, and work in the trenches alongside the team as we scale.

Key Responsibilities

Quality Leadership & Strategy

• Own Ursa Major's quality strategy, objectives, budget, and organization, structuring and developing the quality team to support growth across all product lines and sites.
• Build a culture of quality where every function owns quality and builds it into design, sourcing, manufacturing, and delivery.
• Match quality rigor to program maturity: move at the speed development programs require while meeting the full expectations of mature defense and prime customer programs.

Government & Prime Customer Quality

• Serve as Ursa Major's senior quality representative to DCMA, government customers, prime contractors, and certification bodies, building trust-based relationships with DCMA quality assurance representatives and customer quality organizations.
• Lead quality across Ursa Major's business models: all-up-round deliveries directly to the U.S. government, SRM and propulsion deliveries as a supplier to defense primes, and in-space propulsion systems for satellite and spacecraft customers.
• Build an organization capable of reviewing proposals and contracts for quality requirements, including FAR/DFARS quality clauses and customer-specific requirements, and ensure they flow down and implemented across design, purchasing, manufacturing, inspection, and delivery.
• Own government source inspection, product acceptance, and customer audit readiness, including WAWF acceptance, government first article approval, and witnessed lot acceptance testing.
• Partner with material control to 3nsure effective control of government-furnished property and material under FAR 52.245-1, and support DCMA property management system reviews in partnership with Supply Chain and Contracts.
• Lead the company's response to customer corrective action requests, audit findings, and quality escapes.

Program Quality

• Build Ursa Major's program quality function, providing dedicated quality ownership for major programs and customers from contract award through delivery.
• Own contractual quality deliverables and commitments, including first article inspection reports, acceptance data packages, certificates of conformance, as-built records, and customer witness and hold points, and represent quality in program reviews and customer meetings.

Quality Systems & Product Quality

• Own the AS9100 Quality Management System and scale it across sites and product lines, including certification and audits, management review, nonconformance and Material Review Board, corrective action, and Nadcap accreditation of special processes where customers require it.
• Maintain effective controls for configuration, traceability, quality records, foreign object prevention, and counterfeit parts prevention, including GIDEP reporting.
• Partner with Engineering and Mission Assurance on design reviews, qualification, first article, and production readiness, and support a disciplined production rate ramp across solid rocket motors, hydrazine satellite propulsion systems, and potential future liquid-engine all-up rounds.
• In partnership with Safety, ensure quality controls fit energetics manufacturing, including propellant processing, cast-cure operations, and lot control and traceability of energetic materials.
• Ensure quality coverage for avionics and electronics, including electronics assembly workmanship and software and firmware quality, dev