Senior Quality Engineer (Guangzhou, China)

Caraway Home; United States; Remote; USD 70,000 - 90,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading kitchenware brand is seeking a Quality Engineer to enhance product quality and compliance. This remote role involves managing supplier quality, conducting audits, and collaborating with cross-functional teams to drive improvements. Ideal candidates have strong engineering backgrounds and bilingual proficiency in Chinese and English. Competitive salary and generous benefits including unlimited PTO offered.

Benefits

Competitive salary

Unlimited PTO

11+ paid holidays

Fully remote work

Employee discounts on products

Qualifications

• 8+ years of experience in a supplier quality or quality engineering role.
• Deep understanding of international quality standards.
• Ability to read and interpret technical drawings.

Responsibilities

• Responsible for end-to-end supplier quality.
• Conduct analyses of product design and supplier capabilities.
• Lead product quality audits and ensure compliance.

Skills

Bilingual proficiency in Chinese and English

Strong organizational and time management skills

Quality management systems expertise

Analytical and problem-solving skills

Interpersonal skills for relationship building

Education

Bachelor's degree in Engineering

Tools

Six Sigma

Lean Manufacturing

Statistical Process Control (SPC)

Job description

The Opportunity:

We are seeking a highly skilled and experienced Quality Engineer to join our team in China as we continue to expand our internal capabilities. This role will work in close conjunction with the Product Development team to lead efforts in improving existing products and further expand our market offerings through new product introductions. You will play a crucial role in ensuring the quality and reliability of these products as well as developing the processes and procedures to standardize output across our network of contract manufacturing partners. Additionally, as the main in-region quality team member, you must work directly with our manufacturing partners to ensure quality and compliance requirements and being enforced and maintained.

This position is crucial in maintaining our high quality standards and consumer expectations as we continue to bring new product lines to market. You will be at the forefront of leading the quality effort and have the opportunity to set new standards, parameters, and goals within the organization. This role will report to our Asia Quality Lead based in Guangzhou.

Who You Are:

The ideal candidate is a motivated, results-oriented professional with a passion for ensuring the highest quality standards in consumer products. The individual must possess strong organizational and time management skills needed to ensure multiple concurrent products have been properly tested, validated, and qualified prior to market launch. Additionally, the candidate must be able to communicate and direct suppliers based on their quality expertise in order to meet both Caraway design, performance, and quality requirements.

To be successful in this role, the candidate must be self motivated, a hands-on executer, a strong creative problem solver, and thrive working autonomously yet collaboratively. They can interpret raw data to establish quality data tracking, use inputs from multiple sources, and draw concise conclusions to guide suppliers. They are comfortable establishing their own framework and guidelines from scratch rather than working off of established standards and metrics. The ideal candidate will also be skilled and comfortable liaising with external vendors, suppliers, and manufacturers, as well as internal stakeholders, to drive quality initiatives.

Responsibilities:

• Responsible for end-to-end supplier quality to enable the transition of R&D products to production
• Conduct deep analyses of current product design, manufacturing processes, and supplier capabilities often to identify potential quality issues and risks. Ensure manufacturing/quality needs are considered in the design phase and proper quality expectations are defined.
• Develop and implement quality control processes and plans, design test methods and gauges, identify potential failure modes, and ensure adherence to international standards and regulations. Collaborate with third-party testing laboratories to ensure compliance with product safety and regulatory requirements.
• Support tooling release and production builds by defining incoming part inspection procedures, tracking build issues, setting containment actions for non-conformances, and monitoring corrective actions.
• Collaborate with cross-functional teams, including product development, customer support, and supply chain to drive continuous improvement in product quality. Use data from customer support to evaluate top defect drivers, identify root cause, and implement corrective and preventive actions (CAPAs) to prevent recurrence with the supplier(s).
• Lead and participate in product quality audits, both internally and at supplier facilities, to assess and address compliance with quality standards and specifications. Stay up to date on regulatory changes related to consumer product quality and recommend appropriate actions to maintain compliance.
• Monitor and assess supplier performance and drive supplier development initiatives to ensure consistent quality of incoming materials and components. Establish key performance indicators (KPIs) to track and evaluate metrics across the organization.
• Develop and deliver training programs to educate employees and suppliers on quality standards, processes, and best practices
• Stay up to date on industry trends, emerging technologies, and regulatory changes related to consumer product quality, and recommend appropriate actions to maintain compliance and efficiencies.

Knowledge, skills, and abilities:

• Bilingual proficiency in Chinese and English, with excellent written and verbal communication skills in both languages, is a must.
• 8+ years of experience in a supplier quality, quality engineering, or manufacturing engineering role in a high-volume manufacturing environment. Work experience with highly cosmetic products is a plus
• Ability to read and interpret technical drawings. Strong knowledge of quality management systems, methodologies, and tools, such as Six Sigma, Lean Manufacturing, and Statistical Process Control (SPC) as well as GD&T, measurement systems, and testing
• Demonstrated hands-on experience in driving quality improvements and implementing best practices in a manufacturing or product development environment
• Deep understanding of international quality standards and regulations applicable to consumer products
• Excellent analytical, technical writing, and problem-solving skills, with the ability to identify root causes and implement effective corrective actions with creative solutions
• Experience in supplier management, including conducting supplier audits and driving supplier performance improvements
• Excellent interpersonal skills and ability to build relationships with internal teams, suppliers, and external stakeholders
• Have the ability to travel 25-50% of the time to our manufacturing partner facilities on a short and/or long term (up to 2 weeks at a time) basis, sometimes on short notice
• Bachelor's degree in Engineering, advanced degree preferred or equivalent experience

Who are we:

Caraway is a home goods brand on a mission to craft well-designed, non-toxic kitchenware that thoughtfully raises the standards of what you cook with. We’re passionate about creating elevated products, free of chemicals, that are better for you, your family, and the world. We prioritize a holistic approach to the creation of Caraway products. We partner with ethical manufacturers where their employees are safe, paid fairly, given benefits, and work regulated hours. Our eco-friendly manufacturing process releases less CO2 into the environment than traditional non-stick coatings and we engage in sustainable packaging practices, free of single-use plastics and ship in packaging made from recycled materials. We pride ourselves on continuously striving to do and be better - for you and the planet - every step of the process.

Since launching in November 2019, we’ve become one of the fastest growing digitally-native brands of the last decade and are now sold in retailers including Target, Bloomingdale’s, Crate & Barrel, Container Store, Costco, Zola, and many more.

We’ve amassed over 58,000+ five-star reviews from happy customers and hundreds of press hits from the likes of Vogue, Domino, Good Housekeeping, Food & Wine, Architectural Digest, PureWow, Fortune, CNN.

Caraway is a fully-remote company filled with motivated and hardworking innovators and doers. We’re continually developing programs to support our distributed team to ensure a successful remote experience. If you’re looking to join a brand that folks love, read on and apply!

Caraway Life:

Caraway is an exciting, fully remote DTC retail startup company that is bringing kitchenware and home goods into the modern era, leading from a non-toxic and sustainable foundation.

Team: You will be joining a passionate and collaborative fully-remote team that prides itself on high-quality work, supporting one another, sharing our successes, and building a brand we truly love, together.

Culture: At Caraway, we value continuous learning and career growth. We strive to continually optimize our processes, ensuring that we’re thoughtful in everything we do, both internally and externally. We listen to our employees, celebrate our wins, and constantly look for ways to be better for our team, and the world.

Workplace: Being a fully-remote company, we have no headquarters and are truly distributed across the US, with manufacturing support in China. Our leadership team sits on both the East and West Coast of the US and we have folks in a variety of states.

Benefits:

• Competitive salary
• Unlimited PTO
• 11+ paid holidays
• Fully Remote Company
• High quality home and kitchen product + swag, F&F discounts

Caraway is an Equal Opportunity & Affirmative Action Employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, or veteran status