MTL Quality Assurance Manager

Laboratory Testing, Inc.

• $95K — $115K *
Aerospace & Defense
5 - 7 years of experience
Job Overview by Ladders

Qualifications

  • Bachelor's degree in materials science, engineering, or a related field.
  • 7+ years of progressive technical or quality experience, including 3+ years in quality assurance within aerospace systems manufacturing.
  • Experience hosting accreditation, registrar, or customer audits with real corrective action ownership.
  • Ability to qualify as a Lead Auditor under ASME NQA-1 quality management system.
  • Familiarity with laboratory or business information systems such as LIMS or ERP.

Responsibilities

  • Implement, maintain, and improve accredited quality system for the Materials Testing Lab.
  • Lead and manage audit programs for customer, accreditation, and internal audits.
  • Own corrective and preventive action processes and document control management.
  • Partner with operations teams to translate accreditation requirements into actionable steps.
  • Build QA relationships and accountability across multiple business units.

Benefits

  • Comprehensive health and dental insurance.
  • 401k plan with company match.
  • Short-term and long-term disability coverage.
  • Paid holidays and generous paid time off (PTO).
  • Advancement opportunities within the company.
Full Job Description
QA Manager, Materials Testing Lab

The Role

LTI tests parts that cannot fail, and the quality system is what makes those results trustworthy. Reporting to the Director of Quality and Cybersecurity, the QA Manager for the Materials Testing Lab implements, maintains, and improves LTI's accredited quality system and serves as the first line of corporate quality oversight across the business units. It is a hands-on seat: you work shoulder to shoulder with lab and operations leadership, subject matter experts, engineers, technicians, auditors, customers, and suppliers rather than managing from a distance. On-site presence is expected wherever the work requires it, principally at LTI's Hatfield, Pennsylvania campus, with travel of roughly 10 to 20 percent to other LTI sites, newly acquired facilities, vendors, and occasional industry conferences.

Audit Program & Accreditation

You own the audit program end to end. You host and lead customer audits, accreditation audits (Nadcap aerospace and A2LA ISO/IEC 17025), and nuclear customer audits under NIAC, ASME NQA-1, and 10 CFR 50 Appendix B, and you lead the internal audit program that keeps LTI ready for all of them. You represent quality directly to auditors, customers, and executive leadership, and you own the outcome of those audits in partnership with Operations rather than handing findings across the fence.

Corrective Action & Document Control

You own corrective and preventive action, not just the paperwork that surrounds it. You coach functional owners through real root-cause rigor, build error-proofing into the corrective action process, and verify effectiveness before anything closes. Document control and change management governance sit with you as well: revisions move on time, approvals are right, and records hold up under scrutiny.

Operations Partnership

The test labs and Operations teams are your customers as much as any external customer is. You translate accreditation and regulatory requirements into steps a lab can actually run, then roll up your sleeves to implement and sustain them. Before raising a requirement, you verify that it genuinely applies and is right-sized, and you bring a workable solution to the people who have to live with it. The measure of your work is accurate, on-time test reporting, satisfied customers, and clean external audits, not the volume of findings you issue.

Quality Across the Business Units

You build QA capability and working relationships across every business unit: destructive testing, calibration, non-destructive testing, and Assured in Ridgway. Corporate quality is a small team by design, so you drive accountability through credibility and partnership rather than formal line authority, working alongside the quality and QC resources embedded in each unit. As LTI acquires, you lead or support quality due diligence before the deal and integration after it, partnering with the Director on newly acquired sites.

Compliance & Continuous Improvement

You support government and defense compliance activity, working with me and the Customer Questionnaires group on customer questionnaires, FAR flowdowns, certifications and representations, and export control fundamentals. You also drive the initiatives that make quality faster and simpler, automating manual steps, streamlining processes, and applying AI and automation where they remove work without weakening control.

What Makes This Different

A system that performs in the test lab, not one that looks compliant

LTI wants a quality system that holds up under pressure and improves the accuracy of the testing itself, not one built for audit optics.

Breadth most quality leaders never get in one seat

ISO/IEC 17025, Nadcap, and nuclear NQA-1 requirements all run through this role, across destructive testing, calibration, and non-destructive testing.

Scope grows as the company does

As LTI adds sites through acquisition, this role picks up the quality diligence, integration, and oversight that come with them.

Who We Are Looking For

This role fits a few different backgrounds well:

  • A quality leader from an AS9100 aerospace manufacturer with real process complexity, including controlled drawings, control plans, and process routers, who is ready to bring that discipline into a testing and calibration environment.
  • A quality manager from an accredited laboratory who has owned ISO/IEC 17025 or Nadcap accreditation and is ready to take on multi-site, corporate-level quality oversight.
  • A quality professional from a regulated multi-site or matrixed environment who has coordinated quality across more than one facility or business unit.


The role also carries a few firm requirements:

  • A bachelor's degree in materials science, metallurgical, mechanical, chemical, or industrial engineering, or a related technical or physical science discipline. A relevant ASQ certification such as CQE, CQA, or CMQ/OE, or equivalent progressive experience, may substitute.
  • Seven or more years of progressive technical or quality experience, including at least three years in quality assurance in or supporting aerospace systems manufacturing, with demonstrated experience personally hosting accreditation, registrar, or customer audits, and owning the resulting corrective action from root cause through closure, including at least one complex, cross-functional CAR, not a single-department response, resulting in an actual process or system change rather than documentation closure alone.
  • The ability to qualify as a Lead Auditor under LTI's quality management system (ASME NQA-1). Prior Lead Auditor experience is a plus but is not required.
  • Working understanding of measurement uncertainty, method validation, and proficiency testing, sufficient to speak to it credibly in an audit, without needing to personally perform the calculations.
  • Experience authoring or substantively revising controlled procedures, not only executing existing ones.
  • Familiarity with laboratory or business information systems such as LIMS, ERP, or comparable platforms.
  • Willingness to travel regularly to LTI sites, newly acquired facilities, vendor locations, and occasional industry conferences.


Beyond background, you will thrive here if you:

  • Tell the difference between a quality system that looks right on paper and one that actually performs in the test lab, and prioritize the second.
  • Solve problems to root cause and drive the fix to closure, in partnership with the teams who execute it.
  • Communicate clearly and get to the point, in writing and in the room, with technicians, auditors, and executives alike.
  • Stay composed and adaptable when priorities shift and demands compete, and make sound decisions without waiting for direction.
  • Bring a continuous improvement toolkit, such as Lean, Six Sigma, kaizen, value stream mapping, or statistical process control, and use it in practice.
  • Are AI-native: you default to AI tools for research, analysis, and problem-solving, and can point to specific examples of using AI to create real business impact.
  • Follow through: you close the loop, and nothing falls through the cracks.


LTI runs on the Kanbrick Business System, the operating playbook Kanbrick installs across its partner companies to build enduring businesses, brick by brick. This is a seat with real ownership in a company built to last.

This position requires use of information or access to processes subject to national security controls under U.S. export laws including but not limited to International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR). In accordance with ITAR, to be qualified to work in this facility, applicants must be a US Person, which is defined as a US National, US Permanent Resident, and certain categories of Asylees and Refugees.

LTI is a multi-year recipient of the Best Places to Work and offers a full and comprehensive benefit package which includes Health, dental, 401k with company match, LTD, STD, Company Paid Holidays, Paid Time Off (PTO), advancement opportunities, and more!

*We are not working with agencies and are unable to offer sponsorship.

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