Director, Supplier Quality

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The Quality & Reliability organization is a five-pillar team – Quality Systems, Supplier Quality, Manufacturing Quality, Product Quality & Reliability, and Customer Quality – built to drive end-to-end quality ownership from supplier through process to product to customer. We are a tightly integrated group of quality engineers, reliability engineers, auditors, and methodologists working alongside Manufacturing Operations, Microscopy & FA, and Facilities to enable Quantum Scape’s transition from R&D to high-volume commercial production.

The team prides itself on bottoms-up accountability, prevention over detection, and surfacing problems early so they get fixed once.

The Quality & Reliability organization is seeking a Director, Supplier Quality to own the Supplier Quality pillar and push quality upstream – to the source. Today, supplier quality at Quantum Scape is largely limited to incoming inspection (IQC) at our dock; this role exists to change that. This leader will build a supplier base that ships first-time-right material, drive incoming defects toward zero, and eliminate the material and labor waste that comes from catching problems at our dock instead of at the supplier’s line.

The core mandate is to move quality left: qualify suppliers rigorously, transfer clear defect and acceptance requirements to them, and hold them accountable for meeting those requirements before material ever reaches Quantum Scape. As we move from R&D into high-volume commercial production and bring on strategic manufacturing partners, this leader will own a seamless quality handoff with those partners. We are looking for a proven track record applying lean principles to supplier quality – someone who thinks in terms of waste elimination, flow, and prevention, not inspection.

If you have driven measurable supplier quality improvements at scale in regulated, high-volume manufacturing, we’d like to hear from you.

• Own the Supplier Quality pillar end-to-end – supplier qualification and approval, supplier PFMEA, APQP and PPAP execution, supplier audits and scorecards, and supplier excursion / corrective-action (8D) management – driving incoming defects toward zero at the source
• Set and continuously improve IQC strategy and dock-to-stock qualification – deploying a risk-based verification model that reduces non-conforming material escapes while retiring redundant incoming inspection as supplier capability is proven
• Embed and co-locate supplier development engineers at key suppliers to drive APQP, PPAP, and supplier PFMEA at the source before parts arrive – moving Quantum Scape from inspection at the dock to capability at the supplier, consistent with battery-industry best practice that particle and contamination control starts with raw-material suppliers
• Drive “quality left” to suppliers – transferring clear defect definitions, acceptance criteria, and control requirements (defined with Manufacturing Quality from Product Quality & Reliability characterization) so suppliers own conformance before material ships, not Quantum Scape at receiving
• Apply lean and waste-elimination discipline across the supplier base – attacking material and labor waste (scrap, sort, rework, expedites, over-inspection) and giving suppliers and the floor clear, real-time guardrails on which defects matter and which levers move the needle
• Lead upstream particle and contamination control at the source – critical for solid-state cell manufacturing – and hold suppliers to zero-defect expectations on critical characteristics
• Own a seamless supplier and manufacturing-partner quality handoff as Quantum Scape scales into high-volume commercial production and IFM/partner transitions – ensuring continuity of quality acceptance and clear ownership through every transition
• Partner with Supply Chain to make quality a first-class criterion in supplier selection and strategic sourcing, and with Manufacturing Operations on the planned transition of IQC execution into the line organization
• Establish and report supplier quality metrics (PPM, cost of poor quality, supplier…