Quality Engineer

With over 100 years of engineering excellence, Ridgway Machines is a world-leading manufacturer of precision taping and winding machines for the electrical, energy, and oil & gas industries. Recently acquired by Tokamak Energy to accelerate superconducting technology, we're involved in some of the world's most exciting engineering projects—including ITER's Fusion Power Plant and CERN's Large Hadron Collider.

From innovative designs to global customer support, we deliver expert solutions for clients worldwide. Based at Meridian Business Park in Leicester, we're a skilled team of specialist engineers working at the cutting edge of power generation machinery.

We are looking for a Quality Engineer to join our growing Quality team, reporting to the Quality Manager. This is a hands‑on role that will play a key part in driving right‑first‑time delivery, reducing quality issues, improving supplier performance, and strengthening quality processes across the full machine lifecycle.

This position has been created to provide additional quality engineering capability as the business grows. The successful candidate will take ownership of day‑to‑day quality activities, helping to ensure products, processes and suppliers consistently meet customer, engineering and regulatory requirements while supporting wider continuous improvement initiatives.

Working closely with Engineering, Project Management, Purchasing, Production, Machine Build and Installation teams, you will have the opportunity to influence quality standards across multiple functions and become a trusted technical partner throughout project delivery.

• Maintain and improve quality processes, procedures and systems.
• Support quality planning and inspection activities across design, fabrication, machining, assembly, testing and installation.
• Review engineering drawings, specifications and customer requirements from a quality perspective.
• Develop and maintain inspection and test plans.
• Carry out first‑off, in‑process and final inspections.
• Support Factory Acceptance Testing and final machine release activities.
• Manage quality records, documentation and traceability requirements.
• Identify and mitigate quality risks throughout project execution.
• Support ISO 9001 compliance, quality plans, document control and calibration activities.
• Conduct internal, supplier, product and process audits.
• Manage internal non‑conformances and corrective actions through to completion.
• Lead or support root cause investigations using structured quality methodologies.
• Analyse quality performance data and produce meaningful KPI reporting.
• Work with suppliers to resolve quality concerns and improve performance.
• Carry out supplier visits to verify quality standards and monitor high‑risk or high‑value fabrications and components.
• Support the investigation and resolution of customer quality issues.
• Drive continuous improvement initiatives that reduce defects, rework, scrap and customer complaints.

In this role, you will help the business to:

• Improve right‑first‑time performance.
• Resolve quality issues earlier in the process.
• Reduce repeat non‑conformances.
• Improve supplier quality performance.
• Increase the effectiveness of corrective actions.
• Use quality data to drive measurable business improvements.
• Embed a proactive quality culture across the organisation.

Essential

• Experience applying quality standards within an engineering or manufacturing environment where interpretation of engineering drawings and technical specifications forms a part of the role
• Strong knowledge of ISO 9001 and practical quality management systems.
• Ability to read and interpret engineering…