Staff Product Quality Engineer

About the role

This role leads actuators quality activities and team for defense technology work. The role supports career growth into other development-stage products.

Software engineers turn product ideas into working code. Engineers work in small teams, review each other's work, and ship in small batches. Most teams follow agile practices such as sprints and daily standups. Engineers also write tests, fix bugs, and improve performance. The field values clear communication as much as technical skill. Engineers spend part of every week on planning, code review, and debugging, not just writing new code. The ability to explain a technical decision in plain words separates strong engineers from the rest.

Key facts

What you'll do

Design risk management is owned to ensure robustness and improve reliability across the product lifecycle from concept through field use.

Requirements definition and improvement is driven to ensure execution of product and process standards.

Product roadmap definition is led from the quality perspective in cross-functional collaboration.

Root cause and corrective action activities are led, including Material Review Board work, with effectiveness reviews and lessons shared across the product team.

Quality metrics are established and a strategy is developed to achieve best-in-class performance.

Quality Management System continuous improvement is supported, with documentation and activities defined and improved.

Investigations, initiatives, and projects are supported at team or organizational level as needed.

Requirements

Bachelor's degree in Engineering or similar technical field is required.

Experience in Mechanical Engineering designs, product development, product launches, manufacturing engineering, and quality in automotives, aerospace/defense, or similar electro-mechanical hardware systems is required.

Technical design review and quality management for PCBA, avionics, systems integration, and mechanical systems expertise is required.

DFMEA and PFMEA experience for new products is required to define and manage design and process risks while identifying robustness actions.

SPC, MSA, and other statistical aspects of design and manufacturing for mechanical components expertise is required.

Mechanical and/or electro-mechanical systems manufacturing processes experience is required.

A strong ownership mindset with demonstrated capability to drive projects from start to completion is required.

Analytical skills for data mining, data quality, metrics generation, issue management systems, and statistical analysis tools such as Matlab, JMP, Minitab, etc. are required.

U.S. TS/SCI security clearance must be obtained and maintained.

Nice to have

Master's degree in a technical field is preferred.

7-10 years of experience in design, development, manufacturing and quality systems for low volume, high complexity manufacturing environments and suppliers is preferred.

Six Sigma Black Belt is preferred.

DFSS experience is preferred.

Design for Robustness & Reliability knowledge is preferred.

Reliability Engineering and testing experience is preferred.

Working knowledge of AS9100/ ISO 9001-based Quality Management System requirements is preferred.

IPC standards experience is preferred.

Experience with government contracts and mil standard requirements is preferred.

Experience with Teamcenter, SolidWorks, Jira, Tableau, and Altium (or other PCBA and harness design software) is preferred.

Actuators experience is preferred.

Skills & tools

Actuators, mechanical and electro-mechanical systems, DFMEA, PFMEA, SPC, MSA, design for robustness, reliability engineering, TS/SCI clearance.

Practical notes

This role requires a U.S. TS/SCI security clearance.

Position is based in Costa Mesa, California.

Good to know

Product quality engineers focus on measurement systems, statistical process control, and design for manufacturing.

Defense technology work often involves strict compliance, traceability, and rigorous documentation.

Actuators convert energy into controlled physical motion for mechanical systems.

Cross-functional collaboration across engineering and manufacturing teams is common in defense hardware development.