Design Assurance Group Leader

Overview

In this role, you lead a specialist Quality Assurance and Product Assurance team within the UK Astronomy Technology Centre to ensure the quality and integrity of spaceflight and astronomical instrumentation products. You shape the group’s strategy and embed quality from project start to finish, working with engineering, manufacturing, procurement and customers. You will gain mentoring from an experienced leader while developing your own leadership capabilities in a world-leading science environment. This is a chance to drive assurance across high‑stakes programmes and help deliver complex missions.

Pay / Benefits

• 30 days holiday
• Flexible working hours
• Pension scheme
• Employee discounts
• Learning and development opportunities

Responsibilities

• Lead and develop the Quality Assurance and Product Assurance team
• Set the group’s strategy and priorities aligned with organisational goals
• Provide QA and PA leadership across spaceflight and astronomical instrumentation programmes and implement QA/PA plans
• Champion design-for-quality across products and processes
• Provide independent assurance, technical challenge and advisory support to project and engineering teams
• Apply QA/PA processes through the product lifecycle and manage risks
• Support engineering reviews, qualification, verification, validation and acceptance activities
• Oversee non-conformance management, corrective/preventive actions, root-cause analysis and lessons learned
• Flow down QA/PA requirements to suppliers and manufacturing partners
• Support audits, investigations and programme reviews
• Build relationships with customers and external stakeholders on QA matters
• Provide clear, evidence-based assurance reporting to senior leadership
• Identify opportunities to improve processes, tools and ways of working
• Develop capability and expertise of the QA/PA team
• Interact with the wider assurance community in STFC

Key requirements

• Experience leading others including staff development and recruitment
• Excellent written and verbal communication and presentational skills
• Knowledge of technical standards relevant to space projects (ECSS, ESCC, NASA, MIL or equivalents)
• Experience working within a formal Quality Management System (ECSS or similar) and developing/maintaining such a system
• Experience leading, reviewing and approving technical work and conformance documentation; participation in gate reviews, change control, non-conformance, product data management, safety and reliability
• Understanding of main engineering aspects (mechanical, optical, electronics, software) and challenges of space/astronomy equipment
• Strong engineering judgement, passion for quality, curiosity and leadership ability

• ledership
• communication
• stakeholder management
• ECSS/ESCC/NASA/MIL standards
• Quality Management System (QMS) development and maintenance
• Non-conformance management and root-cause analysis

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