Hardware Quality Engineer, Sr

Watchfire Signs - Danville, IL

Full-time - Mid Level

Danville, IL

Miscellaneous Manufacturing

About the position

The Senior Quality Engineer is a pivotal role within the quality team, responsible for the planning, development, and maintenance of quality systems, policies, programs, and initiatives. This position ensures that all company products and services meet customer expectations while safeguarding the company's interests. The quality team plays a crucial role in overseeing and assisting with the development and production of mechanical, electronic, and software products and services. As a Senior Quality Engineer, you will apply standard engineering techniques to evaluate product conformance through established quality processes and identify opportunities for improvement. In this role, you will conduct root cause analysis of defects or other quality failures to ensure that established quality standards are not only met but exceeded. You will be responsible for establishing, implementing, maintaining, and enforcing quality system processes that support products in both development and production environments. Additionally, you will maintain the document control process, providing oversight and feedback to both publishers and users of controlled documentation. Your responsibilities will also include developing and executing test plans and detailed test cases based on requirements and customer feedback. You will provide quality assurance domain expertise to inspection, manufacturing, and testing teams, ensuring adherence to the New Product Introduction (NPI) procedure. This involves testing components, evaluating suppliers, establishing and auditing robust process standards, and developing product performance testing to ensure industry-leading quality products. Furthermore, you will analyze production defects, field returns, and customer complaints to determine root causes and develop effective corrective actions. Leading and coaching continuous improvement events using structured processes and tools like Six Sigma and lean manufacturing will also be a key part of your role. You will provide status updates on the performance of the Quality Management System (QMS) through appropriate Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) and initiate corrective actions, preventive actions, and continuous improvement projects.

Responsibilities

• Establish, implement, maintain, and enforce quality system processes that support products in development and production environments
• Maintain the document control process and provide oversight and feedback to publishers and users of controlled documentation
• Develop and execute test plans and detailed test cases based on requirements and/or customer feedback and prioritization
• Provide quality assurance domain expertise to inspection, manufacturing, and test for the Manufacturing teams
• Engage with the product development process to ensure adherence to the NPI procedure, test components, evaluate suppliers, and develop product performance testing
• Perform analysis on production defects, field returns, customer complaints, and other relevant data to determine root causes and develop corrective actions
• Lead, train, and coach continuous improvement events using structured processes and tools like Six Sigma and lean manufacturing
• Provide status updates on the performance of the QMS through publishing and distributing appropriate KPIs
• Initiate corrective actions, preventive actions, and continuous improvement projects

Requirements

• Extensive familiarity with quality processes and procedures and ability to devise methods to enforce quality standards
• Knowledge and experience to support Design for Reliability and Manufacturability, Design for Lean Six Sigma, and risk management
• Strong written and verbal communication skills and the ability to work well across the organization at all levels
• Understanding of standard mechanical and electrical measuring techniques, including CMM
• Understanding of multi-level Bills of Materials and Manufacturing workflows and processes
• Ability to conform to shifting priorities, demands, and timelines through analytical and problem-solving capabilities
• Effective problem-solving skills and the ability to drive to root cause quickly
• Ability to identify opportunities to improve departmental processes and procedures to increase efficiency and effectiveness

Nice-to-haves

• Familiarity with ISO9000 Quality Management Principles or experience in an ISO9001 certified organization
• Previous supervision experience preferred