Supplier Quality Engineer

Duration: The initial end date is 31/12/2026, there is a possibility for extension.

Job Type: This is an almost fully remote role, on rare occasions the team will be expected to be onsite at the Darlington. This role may require travel to supplier sites within the UK or mainland Europe.

Description:

The Supplier Quality Engineer utilizes strong quality and technical skills to develop suppliers and products that can meet customer requirements; requires strong partnerships with the external supply base, with supply chain teams and with engineering to achieve results.

Key Responsibilities:

• Build strong relationships with all critical partners to improve quality and business outcomes, including: external suppliers, external customers, and internal customers and stakeholders, such as Purchasing, Manufacturing and Engineering.
• Support the cross-functional supplier selection process for any given component.
• Collaborates with external suppliers to validate that the manufacturing process is designed in a manner that enables conformance to the engineering print, engineering standards and customer specific requirements.
• Apply industry common Advanced Product Quality Planning (APQP) processes, Automotive Industry Action Group (AIAG) tools, and client specialty tools to develop zero defect components within the external supply base.
• Embrace continuous improvement in the external supply base by contributing to product and process focused projects that utilize industry proven methodologies, such as lean and six-sigma.
• Conduct external supplier audits in support of supplier risk mitigation, supplier readiness, and supplier performance improvement.
• Support quality improvement plans within the external supply base in order to improve supplier performance.
• Ensure resolution of external supplier related quality challenges, by leading root cause analysis, by supporting development of corrective actions and by verifying the effectiveness of corrective actions.