Supplier Quality Engineer

Supplier Quality Engineer – Defence / Aerospace

UK | Hybrid / On-site (London) | Supplier Travel Required

We’re working with a rapidly growing European defence technology company developing some of the most advanced high-speed flight systems currently being built in Europe.

The business has already taken clean-sheet technology from concept through to successful flight testing at Mach 6+ in under a year and is now scaling the industrial and supplier capability required to turn breakthrough engineering into repeatable, flight-ready hardware.

As part of that growth, they’re looking for a Supplier Quality Engineer to take real ownership of supplier quality across a technically demanding UK and European supply chain.

This is not a paperwork-heavy quality role.

You’ll be working directly with engineering, manufacturing, procurement and suppliers, making sure complex hardware is manufactured correctly, properly evidenced, fully traceable and ready for use in safety-critical defence applications.

The Role

You’ll work across suppliers manufacturing complex mechanical, metallic, electronic, composite and flight-critical components.

Your focus will be making sure suppliers can consistently deliver the right parts, to the right specification, with the right processes, inspection evidence and traceability behind them.

You’ll be involved across the full supplier lifecycle, from initial assessment and qualification through to production readiness, supplier development and problem resolution.

Responsibilities include:

• Owning supplier quality activity across assigned suppliers and programmes
• Assessing and qualifying new suppliers alongside engineering and procurement
• Reviewing supplier capability against drawings, specifications and production requirements
• Supporting supplier onboarding and quality requirement flow-down
• Leading and supporting First Article Inspection / AS9102 activity
• Reviewing Certificates of Conformity, inspection records, material certificates, special process evidence and traceability documentation
• Managing supplier NCRs, SCARs, CAPA and corrective actions
• Running root cause investigations using tools such as 8D, 5 Why and Fishbone
• Improving supplier process capability, right-first-time performance and documentation standards
• Supporting incoming inspection and supplier release strategy
• Working directly with engineering to resolve tolerance, drawing, manufacturability and requirement issues
• Supporting MRB, concession and deviation processes
• Auditing supplier facilities and assessing manufacturing capability
• Visiting suppliers to investigate issues and drive recovery plans
• Helping build a scalable supplier quality system aligned with AS9100

What We’re Looking For

You must come from a technically demanding hardware environment such as:

You should have experience dealing directly with suppliers and solving real manufacturing and quality problems.

We’re particularly interested in people who have experience with:

• Supplier Quality Engineering / Supplier Development
• First Article Inspection and AS9102
• AS9100, ISO 9001, AQAP or similar standards
• Supplier auditing and qualification
• NCR / SCAR / CAPA processes
• Root cause and corrective action
• Technical drawings and engineering specifications
• Material and component traceability
• Special processes and inspection planning
• Configuration control
• Machined and fabricated components
• Electronics and harnesses
• Composites
• Additive manufacturing
• Complex mechanical or propulsion-related hardware

Most importantly, you need to be comfortable getting close to the hardware and challenging suppliers when the process, evidence or manufacturing capability isn’t good enough.

Why Join?

This is an opportunity to join a highly ambitious engineering organisation at a genuinely exciting stage of growth.

You’ll get:

• Significant ownership from day one
• Exposure to genuinely cutting-edge defence and aerospace technology
• The opportunity to influence supplier strategy rather than inherit a finished system
• Direct access to engineering, manufacturing, procurement and programme leadership
• The chance to help build the supplier quality function as the company scales
• A fast-moving environment without the bureaucracy of a traditional aerospace prime
• Exposure to complex, flight-critical hardware and some of the most technically challenging engineering programmes in Europe

The company operates more like an elite engineering startup than a traditional defence organisation - high ownership, fast decision-making and a strong bias towards getting hardware built, tested and flying.

Location

London based, with regular on-site presence and supplier travel required.

This is a hands-on engineering role and will suit someone who wants to stay close to the hardware, suppliers and manufacturing decisions rather than operate remotely from spreadsheets and scorecards.

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