Senior Supplier Development & Quality Engineer Torrance, CA; Rio Rancho, NM; Allen, TX Supply Chain

• Supply Chain

Why Castelion, Why Now

Castelion is moving incredibly fast to develop and deliver advanced defense systems at a time when execution matters more than ever. We believe focus, ownership, and excellence are decisive advantages - and we're building a world-class team to turn bold ideas into real capability.

This is a rare opportunity to join at an early stage, where you'll have significant ownership, collaborate with exceptional teammates, and make a direct, measurable impact on our mission and the future of the company - regardless of your function.

Senior Supplier Development & Quality Engineer

As a Senior Supplier Development & Quality Engineer, you will own supplier development and supplier quality for a portfolio of suppliers supporting Castelion’s mission-critical vehicle and missile hardware. You will work at the intersection of engineering, manufacturing, quality, and strategic sourcing to turn designs into capable, repeatable, and scalable production processes while ensuring compliance to technical and quality requirements.

This position combines supplier development and supplier quality responsibilities. Based on the selected candidate’s experience and the organization’s needs, the role may be aligned primarily to Supplier Development Engineering or Supplier Quality Engineering while continuing to support both functions.

You will be the technical and quality point of contact for assigned suppliers, from early supplier selection and design-for-manufacturability through qualification, first article approval, production ramp, and sustained improvement. This role is hands‑on: you will spend time with suppliers, review hardware and process data, lead structured problem solving, and drive issues to closure. Success means building supplier capability without slowing Castelion’s development cadence—and establishing a supply base that can deliver safe, reliable hardware at production scale.

We are looking for an intelligent, collaborative, and driven engineer who can make sound, risk‑informed decisions while operating with urgency, ambiguity, and incomplete information. If you enjoy solving difficult manufacturing problems, building processes from the ground up, and seeing your work become flight or mission hardware, we want to hear from you.

Responsibilities

• Lead on‑site supplier recovery efforts involving constrained capacity, production delays, material shortages, tooling issues, sub‑tier dependencies, and competing priorities; establish executable recovery plans with clear owners, milestones, and escalation points.
• Serve as the primary technical and quality interface for suppliers; translate drawings, specifications, quality clauses, and acceptance criteria into practical manufacturing, inspection, and control plans.
• Partner with Design Engineering, Manufacturing Engineering, Quality, Test, and Strategic Sourcing during new product introduction to evaluate suppliers, select processes, and reduce manufacturing risk before design freeze.
• Conduct design‑for‑manufacturability and design‑for‑quality reviews covering materials, tolerances, special processes, inspection methods, tooling, capacity, and scalability.
• Plan and execute supplier qualification activities, quality‑system and process audits, special‑process reviews, and production‑readiness reviews within AS9100- or ISO 9001‑based quality systems.
• Own supplier quality deliverables, including AS9102 FAIRs, PPAP or equivalent submissions, control plans, PFMEAs, work instructions, inspection plans, material certifications, and objective evidence of process capability.
• Drive resolution of nonconforming material, supplier escapes, audit findings, yield losses, and late deliveries through…