Location: Houston Department: DEPENG
The Opportunity The Senior Engineering Quality Leader is responsible for establishing and leading the quality strategy, governance, and execution model across engineering disciplines to ensure designs, technical deliverables, specifications, and engineering outputs meet customer requirements, regulatory expectations, internal standards, and project execution needs. This role partners closely with Engineering, Manufacturing, Construction, Project Management, Supplier Quality, and Operations to embed quality into design development, technical reviews, change control, risk management, and lessons learned. The ideal candidate brings strong engineering quality leadership, quality management system experience, cross-functional influence, and a continuous improvement mindset to prevent defects early, reduce rework, strengthen technical rigor, and improve customer outcomes.
What you will do? TEAM LEADERSHIP AND MANAGEMENT - Lead and develop the Engineering Quality function, providing direction, coaching, performance management, and capability development for engineering quality professionals.
- Set measurable objectives, priorities, and key performance indicators that align engineering quality performance with enterprise quality goals, project outcomes, and customer expectations.
- Provide regular updates to senior leadership on engineering quality performance, risks, corrective actions, and improvement priorities.
ENGINEERING QUALITY STRATEGY AND GOVERNANCE - Develop and implement an engineering quality strategy that ensures quality is built into design, technical standards, specifications, drawings, calculations, BIM deliverables, and engineering work products.
- Establish governance for design reviews, technical quality gates, engineering deliverable reviews, design change control, and release readiness.
- Support and facilitate engineering quality standards, procedures, checklists, and acceptance criteria aligned with customer, regulatory, code, contract, and internal requirements.
- Integrate engineering quality requirements into the Quality Management System and ensure consistent application across projects, product lines, and engineering teams.
DESIGN QUALITY, RISK MANAGEMENT, AND TECHNICAL ASSURANCE - Drive early risk identification and prevention through design reviews, FMEA, constructability reviews, lessons learned, error-proofing, and technical risk assessments.
- Ensure engineering deliverables are complete, accurate, traceable, and ready for downstream manufacturing, procurement, construction, commissioning, and customer acceptance.
- Facilitate root cause analysis and corrective actions for engineering-driven quality issues, including design errors, technical nonconformances, rework, field issues, and customer-impacting defects.
- Establish feedback loops from manufacturing, construction, commissioning, service, and customer experience to improve engineering standards and prevent recurrence.
COMPLIANCE, AUDITS, AND QUALITY MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS - Ensure engineering processes comply with applicable codes, standards, customer specifications, contractual obligations, regulatory requirements, and internal quality policies.
- Support internal and external audits related to engineering quality, documentation control, design control, configuration management, and technical compliance.
- Ensure engineering quality records, approvals, technical deviations, waivers, and corrective actions are properly documented and audit-ready.
COLLABORATION AND STAKEHOLDER ALIGNMENT - Partner with Engineering, Project Management, Manufacturing, Construction, Supplier Quality, Procurement, Commissioning, and Operations to align quality expectations across the full project lifecycle.
- Serve as a key quality representative for engineering-related customer concerns, technical escalations, and cross-functional issue resolution.
- Promote clear ownership, decision rights, and accountability for engineering quality responsibilities across matrixed teams.
PROCESS IMPROVEMENT - Use data, metrics, and trend analysis to identify recurring engineering quality issues, prioritize improvement opportunities, and reduce cost of poor quality.
- Establish continuous improvement rhythms across different levels of organization and lead continuous improvement initiatives that strengthen design quality, engineering handoffs, standard work, technical review effectiveness, and first-pass deliverable quality.
- Advance engineering quality maturity through training, standardization, digital tools, lessons learned, and quality culture development.
Required Qualifications - Bachelor's degree in Mechanical Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Quality Engineering, or a related field; Master's degree preferred.
- Minimum of 8+ years of progressive engineering quality, product quality, or design quality experience with 3 years of leadership experience.
- Proven experience in implementing engineering quality standards and management systems in high-risk industries such as construction, engineering, or manufacturing is highly desirable
- Strong understanding of project/construction engineering and product development processes.
- Experience leading cross-functional teams and influencing at executive and operational levels
- Lean Six Sigma Green Belt or Black Belt certification.
Preferred Qualifications - Comprehensive understanding of industry standards and compliance requirements (e.g., ISO, FDA, GMP, project commissioning standards).
- Proven leadership abilities with experience in managing teams and fostering cross-functional collaboration.
- Proficiency in product lifecycle management, configuration management, risk management, and quality assurance methodologies (e.g., Six Sigma, Lean).
- Strong problem-solving, communication, and organizational skills.
- Ability to thrive under pressure and manage multiple projects simultaneously.
How we support you We believe your best work happens when you feel supported - professionally, personally, and financially. That's why we offer a range of benefits designed to help you thrive, stay healthy, and plan for the future.
- Performance-driven rewards • Competitive pay with incentive opportunities that recognize your results and contributions.
- Comprehensive healthcare • Medical, dental, and vision coverage that supports you and your family's total well-being.
- Security and peace of mind • Life and disability insurance programs that provide protection when it matters most.
- Flexible benefits options • A variety of voluntary benefits so you can personalize coverage to fit your needs.
- Time to recharge • Generous paid time off to relax, travel, and maintain a healthy work-life balance.
- Investing in your growth • Education assistance and tuition support to help you build skills and advance your career.
- Planning for the future • Retirement and savings programs that help you achieve long-term financial confidence.
