Staff Quality Engineer

VoltForce; Oakland (CA); On-site; USD 140,000 - 210,000; Full time

Job summary

VoltForce | Staff Quality Engineer role in the San Francisco Bay Area focuses on establishing and scaling robust quality practices across hardware, firmware, and software. You will drive verification and validation, strengthen documentation, and define QMS frameworks to ensure product reliability from concept through release.

This startup-paced environment requires a proactive leader who can implement practical quality systems while growing with the company.

Qualifications

• B.S. in Engineering, Physics, or related field with 8–12 years of experience.
• Experience in product engineering, design engineering, systems engineering, or manufacturing engineering.
• Experience supporting products from concept through development, verification and validation, and release.

Responsibilities

• Design, execute, and analyze quality tests across hardware, firmware, and software.
• Inform verification and validation strategy and execution for the standalone tool.
• Establish and implement foundational quality systems, including QMS and SOPs.
• Develop and maintain traceability between requirements, risks, tests, and evidence.
• Support process validation activities for manufacturing, assembly, calibration, and test processes.
• Apply statistical methods to evaluate product and process performance.
• Drive root cause investigation, nonconformances, and CAPA actions.
• Contribute to design reviews, risk assessments, and quality planning.

Skills

Quality engineering

Statistical methods

Root cause analysis

Documentation practices

Cross-functional collaboration

Audit readiness

Education

B.S. in Engineering or related field

Tools

Jama

Minitab

DoE

QMS

Job description

Confidential client. Search led by VoltForce.

Location:

San Francisco Bay Area (on-site)

Job Type:

Full-time

About The Company

VoltForce is working with an early-stage materials-inspection company on the search for a Staff Quality Engineer. Our client helps manufacturers make better, safer, and more reliable micro- and nano-scale materials, the building blocks of critical sectors like energy storage, semiconductors, aerospace, and power systems. As demand surges and production grows more complex and faster, small undetected variations during manufacturing lead to waste, lower performance, higher cost, and safety risk, leaving manufacturers with little visibility into the quality of what they produce.

The company's platform changes that. It non-destructively probes materials during production, pairing a novel sensing approach with physics-informed machine learning to capture real-time signals that conventional measurement techniques cannot access. Those signals give manufacturers rare visibility into how materials behave as they are made.

The company turns that hidden data into actionable intelligence, helping manufacturers reduce variability and increase yield and performance. The platform can run as a standalone tool or integrate directly into production lines, it is already in early deployment with leading global manufacturers, and the first commercial product is on the way.

Role Overview

Our client is seeking a Staff Quality Engineer to establish and scale quality practices that support exceptional product quality across the organization. In this role, you will help ensure the reliability and performance of the company's products while building the processes needed for dependable product deployment and long-term operational excellence.

Working closely with engineering teams across every phase of product development, you will drive verification and validation testing, strengthen documentation practices, and analyze quality metrics to assess product and process performance. You will also define and evolve practical quality systems that bring rigor, traceability, and consistency as the company grows.

This position is well suited for a self-driven quality leader who has a clear vision for effective quality practices, is comfortable navigating complex technical products, and can bring structure to areas of ambiguity without slowing the pace of development. You will guide quality strategy from concept through commercial release, design and execute robust test approaches, and contribute at a high level in a collaborative, fast-moving engineering environment.

What You'll Do

• Design, execute, and analyze quality tests across hardware, firmware, and software to ensure product performance, reliability, and conformance to requirements
• Inform verification and validation strategy and execution for the company's standalone commercial tool, including system-level test planning, validation readiness, support for product release, and process validation
• Establish and implement foundational quality systems, including QMS processes, SOPs, work instructions, templates, and controlled documentation practices
• Develop and maintain traceability between requirements, risks, test methods, test results, and product quality evidence
• Support process validation activities for manufacturing, assembly, calibration, and test processes, including development of validation plans and acceptance criteria
• Apply statistical methods to evaluate product and process performance, including test method effectiveness, repeatability, process capability, and variation analysis
• Drive root cause investigation, nonconformance resolution, and corrective and preventive actions for product and process quality issues
• Contribute to design reviews, risk assessments, inspection strategies, and quality planning from concept through commercial release
• Help create scalable quality practices that are appropriate for a startup environment and can grow with the company
• Support quality needs across the company's broader product portfolio beyond the standalone commercial tool as products mature and expand

What We're Looking For

• B.S. in Engineering, Physics, or a related technical field with 8 to 12 years of relevant industry experience
• Prior direct experience in product engineering, design engineering, systems engineering, or manufacturing engineering
• Experience supporting products from concept through development, verification and validation, manufacturing readiness, and commercial release
• Working knowledge of ISO 9001 and QMS documentation practices and contributing to audit readiness
• Experience working with requirements and test management tools (e.g., Jama or similar)
• Experience working with contract manufacturers, including both designing and executing test protocols at the contract manufacturer's site
• Strong statistical background, including experience with DoE, gauge R&R, multi-variate analysis, and use of statistical analysis software such as JMP or Minitab
• Familiarity with quality frameworks and tools such as FMEA, CAPA, NCR, control plans, MSA, and document control systems
• Experience with manufacturing transfer, pilot builds, process development and validation, and new product introduction (NPI)
• Ability to implement practical quality systems, documentation structures, and standard operating procedures in a startup or other fast-paced environment
• Strong problem-solving skills and experience with root cause analysis, corrective actions, and structured decision-making
• Strong written and verbal communication skills, particularly in documenting quality evidence and communicating technical findings clearly across disciplines

Nice to Have

• Experience with software quality engineering, including test automation, software verification, or quality control for data processing and analysis workflows
• Experience with metrology, instrumentation, imaging systems, or other technically complex capital equipment
• Familiarity with advanced manufacturing environments such as batteries, semiconductors, electronics, energy, or industrial automation
• CQE (Certified Quality Engineer) or CRE (Certified Reliability Engineer) certification