Head of Quality

CubeSpace ADCS; Stellenbosch; On-site; ZAR 900,000 - 1,200,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Flexible hours

Generous leave policy

Daily lunch

Job summary

CubeSpace designs and manufactures satellite attitude determination and control systems, where reliability and customer assurance are paramount. The Head of Quality owns QA, compliance, and the path to ISO 9001 and AS9100D certification across the business.

Role includes setting quality standards, training inspectors, auditing processes, and ensuring product release with robust evidence. The successful candidate leads a QA team and partners with Supply Chain on supplier quality, audits and CAPA.

Qualifications

• Engineering, science or quality degree or equivalent demonstrable professional experience.
• 8–10+ years in quality within aerospace, space, defence, medical device or comparable high-reliability manufacturing.
• 2–3+ years leading a quality function or team.
• Strong working knowledge of ISO 9001, AS9100D, AS9102 and AS5553; root-cause analysis and CAPA.
• Able to read and interpret engineering drawings, specifications and test data.

Responsibilities

• Total ownership of quality assurance, the QMS and certification.
• Assure development and implementation of QC and inspection processes across departments.
• Independent verification and release of products prior to shipment; maintain Certificate of Conformance.
• Own supplier quality, internal audits and nonconformance management with CAPA.
• Lead and develop the QA team; recruit where needed; foster evidence-driven quality culture.

Skills

Quality leadership

ISO 9001

AS9100D

Regulatory compliance

Auditing

Education

Engineering or science degree

Tools

ERP systems

PLM systems

CAPA tools

Job description

CubeSpace (CS) is seeking an experienced, independent-minded Head of Quality to take ultimate ownership of quality assurance and compliance across the business.

CS designs and manufactures satellite attitude determination and control systems in an environment where reliability expectations, mission value and customer assurance requirements are of the utmost importance. The Head of Quality is the ultimate owner of quality assurance and compliance across the business: setting the standards that every department’s quality control works to, qualifying and training the people who inspect, assuring through audit and evidence review, and holding the independent authority to accept and release product before it reaches a customer.

The role also owns CS’s regulatory, product and management-system compliance, including leading CS to certification and beyond. Success is a business where every department owns the quality of its own output, and every product, leaving the organisation, carries evidence a customer can trust and rely on.

Key Responsibilities:

1. Total ownership of quality assurance, the QMS and certification

• Own the Quality Management System end to end: policy, scope, process model, quality objectives, documented information and document control.
• Lead CS to ISO 9001 certification within the agreed window, then build and execute the roadmap to AS9100D certification, sustaining each through surveillance and recertification audits.
• Define the quality KPI set, chair or run management review, and report QMS and product-quality performance to top management.
• Drive measurable improvement in first-pass yield, escapes, scrap, rework, RMA and cost of quality, and own the Quality OKRs within the Flight Plan strategic planning cycle.

2. Assurance and training of the production quality control process

• Set and own the acceptance criteria, inspection methods, hold points and control plans that every producing department's QC works to — approved by Quality, not set independently by each department.
• Qualify, train, authorise and, where necessary, withdraw the authority of every inspector across the business, and maintain the controlled list of who may inspect and stamp, with competence and certification records.
• Assure devolved QC through product and process audits, spot checks at defined sampling rates and systematic review of each department's inspection evidence, and govern the calibration and measurement system it depends on.
• Make each department head visibly accountable for the conformity of their own output and the competence of their inspectors.

3. Independent verification, acceptance and release

• Act as the internal customer for everything CS sells: independently verify and quality-assure any product destined for an external customer before it is dispatched.
• Review the End-Item Data Pack and the department's QC evidence, perform independent acceptance checks and product audits, and authorise shipment through the Certificate of Conformance — no producing department may self-release past this gate.
• Independently verify key characteristics, safety-critical items and first articles.
• Hold unrestricted authority to stop or hold any product or process on conformity or safety grounds, and to access any area or record.

4. Supplier quality, internal audit and nonconformance

• Own supplier quality end to end in partnership with Supply Chain: vetting and approval, the approved-supplier list, supplier audits, source release and first article at the supplier, scorecards and supplier corrective action (SCARs). Supplier site work, customer visits and certification activity involve occasional domestic and international travel, in the region of 10% of working time.
• Own counterfeit-part prevention and detection (AS5553) and the EEE parts and materials assurance appropriate to the reliability class of each product line.
• Own the internal audit programme across general business and regulated product assembly and test processes, build a qualified internal auditor pool, and host external certification, customer and regulatory audits.
• Own nonconformance control and disposition authority through the review board, and own CAPA, RMA and warranty quality with verified corrective-action effectiveness.

5. Compliance, people and leadership

• Own product and space regulatory compliance: ISO 9001 and, ultimately, AS9100D; applicable ECSS practice, product safety, and materials and substance declarations (RoHS, REACH).
• Own the quality interface to configuration management so that what is shipped matches what was approved, keep compliance evidence audit-ready, and report the compliance position to the Executive Committee.
• Identify, quantify and escape legal and contractual risk arising from quality, warranty and regulatory obligations.
• Lead, mentor and develop the quality assurance team — three to four direct reports across Quality Assurance and training, Supplier Quality, Product Acceptance & Release, and Process & Systems Assurance — recruit the roles not yet filled, own the company-wide inspector qualification and training programme, and foster an evidence-driven, non-punitive quality culture in which nonconformities are surfaced early.
• Demonstrated experience taking an organisation through ISO 9001 or AS9100 certification and sustaining it - stepping an ISO 9001 system up to AS9100 is a distinct advantage.
• A relevant engineering, science or quality degree, or equivalent demonstrable professional experience.
• Approximately 8-10+ years in quality within aerospace, space, defence, medical device or comparable high-reliability electronic and electro-mechanical manufacturing, including at least 2-3 years leading a quality function or team.
• Strong working knowledge of ISO 9001, AS9100D, AS9102 (first article) and AS5553 (counterfeit parts); root-cause analysis and CAPA methodology; review-board disposition; calibration and measurement systems management; configuration management; statistical sampling, process capability and key-characteristic control.
• ERP- and PLM-based quality workflows, confident use of quality data to direct where assurance effort goes, and the ability to read and interpret engineering drawings, specifications and test data.
• Independence and personal integrity under commercial and schedule pressure, high attention to detail without losing sight of the system, and pragmatism at pace while the business scales.
• Experience of a QA/QC split or built-in-quality operating model, proven end-to-end ownership of supplier quality, and proven ownership of an internal audit programme including hosting external certification, customer and regulatory audits.
• Legally entitled to work in South Africa, and based in or willing to relocate to the Stellenbosch area.

Advantageous:

• Certified QMS Lead Auditor for ISO 9001 or AS9100.
• Space-sector heritage: ECSS, ESA or NASA practice; flight-hardware qualification and acceptance test campaigns; EEE parts control, derating, screening and DPA; cleanroom AIT.
• Experience with nano- or micro-satellite product lines, or with a satellite subsystem or component supplier.
• IPC workmanship standards (IPC-A-610, J-STD-001, IPC/WHMA-A-620), including trainer or CIS certification.
• ISO 27001 and POPIA compliance experience; Lean, Six Sigma or an equivalent continuous-improvement qualification.
• Work that leaves the atmosphere. Contribute to meaningful global space missions with work that has real impact.
• Be part of an innovative environment working with advanced space technologies.
• Work with a team worth learning from, and gain exposure to advanced space technologies and diverse satellite programs.
• Work in a collaborative and mission-driven environment built for the work. Free-form workspaces, a coffee bar, a playroom, daily lunch, a generous leave policy and flexible hours where the role allows.