Senior Manager

The role in plain English

TRC Talent Solutions is hiring two long term contract Senior Product Quality Engineers for a rapidly growing avionics manufacturer in San Jose, CA. This isn't just another quality job. You'll be working on composite structures and airframe components for actual aircraft. That means every decision you make directly affects whether something flies safely or not. If that sounds serious, it should be.

What you'll actually do

• Make sure the airframe, its components, assemblies, and systems meet design specs, quality benchmarks, safety standards, regulatory requirements, and industry specific rules
• Work side by side with design engineers and manufacturing engineers to move products smoothly from the drawing board into production; offer technical guidance when quality issues come up
• Help build and roll out Advanced Product Quality Planning tools including PFMEAs, control plans, and SPC
• Take the lead on establishing inspection plans from scratch
• Run or support First Article Inspections following SAE AS9102 guidelines
• Handle Material Review Board dispositions when nonconforming materials appear
• Find opportunities to improve airframe manufacturing processes through root cause analysis and CAPA (corrective and preventive actions)
• Write reports that sum up quality performance metrics, findings from investigations, and recommendations for fixes
• Develop KPIs that tell you how healthy your manufacturing systems really are ; then use those numbers to drive improvement
• Spot potential risks early and work across teams to reduce them while building contingency plans
• Train team members and other stakeholders on quality standards, practices, and tools they need to know
• Help plan the company's inspection process so everything aligns with FAA conformity inspections and certification requirements

What you need to bring

• A Bachelor's degree in Engineering ; Aerospace, Mechanical, Electrical or Industrial ; plus at least 5 years of relevant experience after that degree
• A solid track record creating and approving first article inspections; you should know the tools used for inspection fairly well by now
• Hands on experience with MES systems; specifically creating inspection plans electronically within them
• Real APQP experience: creating PPAPs, DFM studies, MSAs (Measurement System Analysis), FMEAs (Failure Mode Effects Analysis), and SPC (Statistical Process Control)
• A background in aerospace manufacturing or another highly regulated industry environment is non negotiable here ; this isn't a jump into the deep end kind of role if you haven't done it before
• The ability to participate actively in design reviews; part of that means assessing whether dimensional requirements can actually be verified using GD&T per ASME Y14.5 (Geometric Dimensioning & Tolerancing)
• A working knowledge of key quality standards: AS9100, AS9102 specifically but also AS9103 if you've touched it before ; bonus points for exposure to AS9145 or AS6500 as well but those aren't strictly required off the bat here unless listed under bonus qualifications below which we cover next paragraph instead...

The extras that'll set you apart (nice to haves)

But honestly? These aren't required - just stuff our client really likes seeing:
SAP:. If Every client needs someone who knows their way around SAP these days practically anyway right? So yeah experience helps here too obviously Real time dashboards built using Sigma Computing platform OR Microsoft Business Intelligence stack including Power BI typically works great too actually this is true across many roles like yours lately indeed also along those same lines... Experience working directly with FAA conformity inspections & dealing directly designated representatives? Absolutely huge plus especially given this companies closeness regulatory oversight overall nowadays frankly spoken matter factly enough maybe even critical eventually though not mandatory stated yet currently here exactly equal manner wise exactly thank goodness right?!