Design Quality Manager

Job Description
At BAE Systems, we're committed to delivering cutting-edge technology that protects those who protect us and empowers those who move the world. This commitment requires a proactive approach to quality, integrated throughout the design process. We are building a dedicated Design Quality organization and are seeking a passionate and experienced leader to shape its future. This is a unique opportunity to establish a new function within a leading aerospace and defense company, driving a significant cultural shift and making a demonstrable impact on product quality and innovation.

BAE Systems is looking for a highly motivated Design Engineering Quality Manager to lead and develop the design quality engineering team within the Precision Strike business area. The Design Quality Manager will be responsible for talent development and mentoring, standardizing work including tools, monitoring and control ensuring program success, providing technical and quality science expertise, and working systemic opportunities across the business area.

The Design Quality Manager will serve as an assurance partner with engineering leadership and teams by influencing and providing technical guidance on design quality assurance, APQP tools and processes, influencing new part selection, ensuring requirements are validated, driving a robust change control process, and optimizing processes to identify and eliminate defects early in the product lifecycle.

As this is a new role and function within the organization, the successful candidate will play a critical role in establishing a proactive Design Quality organization. This role will introduce a dedicated, collaborative quality function focused on ‘quality built-in’ from the earliest stages of design, with proactive identification and mitigation of risks. Successfully implementing this change will require strong communication, influencing skills, the ability to build trust across diverse teams, and the development of strong relationships with key stakeholders across engineering, program management, manufacturing, and supply chain.

Key Responsibilities

• Leadership & Team Development: Lead, mentor, and grow a team of design quality engineers. Establish goals and standards of performance.

• Strategic Alignment & Planning: Partner with other cross functional peers, quality leaders and team members, and product line area leaders to ensure alignment with business objectives and strategy. Understand industry trends and best practices to ensure BAE Systems develops and maintains quality and technical differentiators.
• Quality Planning & Execution: Support proposals, reviews, and project assessments. Review design quality assurance project bid estimates and tailor against contract requirements to develop and execute the design quality assurance plan. Lead quality reviews to ensure adherence to quality criteria and identify potential risks. Monitor and influence product development throughout the lifecycle across programs.
• Requirements Validation: Ensure internal and external product requirements are understood, validated, and properly traced to design, implementation, and testing and support qualification testing inclusive of system test set-up conformity, test monitoring, and review of qualification test reports and failure investigation reports. Ensure proper implementation and validation of design changes.
• Test Solution Design and Validation: Ensure test strategies/solutions are properly designed to qualify products and factory acceptance tests meet the customer intent.
• APQP/AS9145: Champion Advance Product Quality Planning (APQP) activities, ensure risk areas are adjudicated and actioned, and evaluate trends across the business area.
• Design Optimization: Ensure that system design guidelines, process and factory capabilities, and best practices such as Design for Manufacturability (DFM) are utilized.
• Design Reviews: Influence outcome of design reviews and provide constructive design related feedback on engineering documentation including engineering models, test plans, and other development artifacts and facilitate risk assessments.
• Process Compliance and Continuous Improvement: Ensure compliance to design processes, collect and analyze design quality metrics, and cross-pollinate best practices across programs to facilitate a culture of continuous improvement. Develop and track key performance indicators (KPIs) to measure the effectiveness of the Design Quality program and drive continuous improvement initiatives to increase efficiency, improve quality, and promote agility.

Required Education, Experience, & Skills

• Bachelor of Science Degree in Engineering or a relevant technical field with 10+ years of related work experience.
• Experience building and leading engineering or quality teams.
• Capable of obtaining a U.S. Department of War (DoW) secret security clearance with ability to obtain special access clearances.
• Communication & Collaboration: Excellent written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to present complex technical information to both technical and non-technical audiences. Demonstrated ability to build rapport and collaborate effectively with cross-functional teams.
• Influence & Problem Solving: Demonstrated ability to influence stakeholders at all levels of the organization to adopt best practices. Strong analytical and problem-solving skills, with a demonstrated ability to identify root causes and implement effective solutions.
• Business Acumen: Strong business acumen and risk management skills leveraged to ensure that solutions meet the needs of the business and warfighter.
• Technical Expertise: Experience in the product development life cycle including requirements capture and verification, design and development, and system level integration and testing including understanding the purpose of tests and method to validate.

Preferred Education, Experience, & Skills

• Full life cycle experience, from development experience through full scale production of hardware, software or firmware. Program or product management including Agile development experience.
• Experience with Quality Sciences (8D/RCCA and Lean Six Sigma GB/BB), AS9100/ISO 9001 standards, and Capability Model Maturity Integration (CMMI).
• Experience in aerospace and defense, automotive, or medical industry.
• Knowledge of military aerospace testing standards.
• Experience in model-based engineering. Experience with APQP (DFMEA, PFMEA, and Control Plan development).

Pay Information
Full-Time Salary Range: $153377 - $260743

Please note: This range is based on our market pay structures. However, individual salaries are determined by a variety of factors including, but not limited to: business considerations, local market conditions, and internal equity, as well as candidate qualifications, such as skills, education, and experience.

Employee Benefits: At BAE Systems, we support our employees in all aspects of their life, including their health and financial well-being. Regular employees scheduled to work 20+ hours per week are offered: health, dental, and vision insurance; health savings accounts; a 401(k) savings plan; disability coverage; and life and accident insurance. We also have an employee assistance program, a legal plan, and other perks including discounts on things like home, auto, and pet insurance. Our leave programs include paid time off, paid holidays, as well as other types of leave, including paid parental, military, bereavement, and any applicable federal and state sick leave. Employees may participate in the company recognition program to receive monetary or non-monetary recognition awards. Other incentives may be available based on position level and/or job specifics.


About BAE Systems Electronic Systems
BAE Systems, Inc. is the U.S. subsidiary of BAE Systems plc, an international defense, aerospace and security company which delivers a full range of products and services for air, land and naval forces, as well as advanced electronics, security, information technology solutions and customer support services. Improving the future and protecting lives is an ambitious mission, but it’s what we do at BAE Systems. Working here means using your passion and ingenuity where it counts – defending national security with breakthrough technology, superior products, and intelligence solutions. As you develop the latest technology and defend national security, you will continually hone your skills on a team—making a big impact on a global scale. At BAE Systems, you’ll find a rewarding career that truly makes a difference. Electronic Systems (ES) is the global innovator behind BAE Systems’ game-changing defense and commercial electronics. Exploiting every electron, we push the limits of what is possible, giving our customers the edge and our employees opportunities to change the world. Our products and capabilities can be found everywhere – from the depths of the ocean to the far reaches of space. At our core are more than 14,000 highly talented Electronic Systems employees with the brightest minds in the industry, we make an impact – for our customers and the communities we serve.

This position will be posted for at least 5 calendar days. The posting will remain active until the position is filled, or a qualified pool of candidates is identified.