Senior Quality & Manufacturing Lead

VAST Data; California (MO); On-site; USD 120,000 - 150,000; Full time

Job summary

VAST Data, located in California, is looking for an experienced Senior Quality & Manufacturing Lead to spearhead quality efforts across manufacturing and supplier operations. The candidate will be responsible for driving quality initiatives, managing corrective actions, and enhancing product reliability.

The ideal candidate should have strong technical skills, 7+ years in quality engineering, and familiarity with manufacturing processes. The position offers a chance to contribute significantly at an important time in VAST Data’s growth.

Qualifications

• 7+ years of experience in quality engineering within enterprise hardware.
• Strong experience across supplier, manufacturing and field quality operations.
• Proven track record driving measurable quality improvements.

Responsibilities

• Lead quality initiatives to improve product reliability and customer experience.
• Drive corrective and preventive actions for recurring quality issues.
• Develop and maintain quality dashboards and executive-level reporting.

Skills

Quality engineering

Analytical skills

Problem-solving

Project coordination

Communication skills

Education

Bachelor's degree in Engineering or a related technical field

Tools

Jira

Tableau

Confluence

Job description

We are seeking an experienced Senior Quality & Manufacturing Lead to lead quality initiatives across manufacturing, supplier, and field operations for enterprise hardware products. This role is responsible for driving systemic quality improvements, managing cross-functional quality activities, and ensuring effective processes are in place throughout the product lifecycle.

The ideal candidate combines strong technical and analytical skills with strategic thinking, operational discipline and proven execution. This individual must be highly organized, data driven and capable of driving corrective actions across internal teams, suppliers, manufacturing partners and field organizations.

VAST Data is the data platform company for the AI era. We are building the enterprise software infrastructure to capture, catalog, refine, enrich and protect massive datasets and make them available for real‑time data analysis and AI training and inference. Designed from the ground up to make AI simple to deploy and manage, VAST takes the cost and complexity out of deploying enterprise and AI infrastructure across data centre, edge and cloud.

Our success has been built through intense innovation, a customer‑first mentality and a team of fearless VASTronauts who leverage their skills & experiences to make real market impact. This is an opportunity to be a key contributor at a pivotal time in our company’s growth and at a pivotal point in computing history.

Key Responsibilities

Quality Leadership & Improvement

• Lead quality initiatives across supplier, manufacturing and field operations to improve overall product reliability and customer experience.
• Drive systemic corrective and preventive actions (CAPA/SCAR/RCCA) for recurring quality issues.
• Analyze quality trends, failure data and operational metrics to identify risks and improvement opportunities.
• Develop and implement quality processes, standards and best practices across the organisation.
• Support continuous improvement initiatives focused on reducing defects, RMAs, DOA/ELF events and operational escapes.

Supplier, Manufacturing & Field Quality

• Partner with suppliers and manufacturing partners to drive quality expectations, process improvements and issue resolution.
• Support supplier audits, qualification activities, FAI reviews, process validations and production readiness assessments.
• Lead field quality investigations, failure analysis coordination and customer‑impact escalations.
• Track quality issues from identification through containment, corrective action, validation and closure.
• Collaborate with engineering, operations, manufacturing and support teams to ensure alignment on quality objectives and execution.

Data, Reporting & Program Execution

• Develop and maintain quality dashboards, metrics and executive‑level reporting.
• Ensure accurate tracking, documentation and communication of quality activities, corrective actions and program status.
• Drive disciplined issue management processes including action tracking, ownership accountability and closure verification.
• Support NPI and sustaining programmes with quality planning, risk assessments and release readiness reviews.
• Present quality performance, trends and strategic improvement plans to leadership teams.

Required Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Engineering or a related technical field.
• 7+ years of experience in quality engineering within enterprise hardware, manufacturing, storage or data centre technologies.
• Strong experience across supplier, manufacturing and field quality operations.
• Proven track record driving measurable quality improvements and systemic corrective actions.
• Experience leading failure analysis, RCCA/SCAR processes and quality escalations.
• Strong analytical, organisational and problem‑solving skills.
• Excellent documentation, tracking and project coordination capabilities.
• Experience developing quality metrics, dashboards and executive reporting.
• Strong communication skills with ability to work across technical and operational organisations.

Preferred Qualifications

• Familiarity with enterprise server, storage, SSD or AI infrastructure platforms.
• Experience with manufacturing audits, supplier management and production process validation.
• Knowledge of quality methodologies including CAPA, FMEA, SPC, 8D and root cause analysis tools.
• Experience with Jira, Tableau, Confluence or quality management systems.
• ASQ CQE certification or equivalent quality certification preferred.