Manager, Supplier Development and Quality

As the Manager of Supplier Development and Quality, you will play a critical role in partnering with cross-functional teams to define, develop, qualify, and sustain the supplier base supporting Castelion vehicle and missile subsystems. This role requires an experienced quality and supplier development leader who can work closely with engineering, manufacturing, and supply chain to ensure suppliers meet technical, quality, and delivery requirements throughout development and production. You will lead supplier qualifications, audits, performance management, and continuous improvement initiatives to align near-term development schedules with long-term quality, reliability, and scalability objectives. We seek intelligent, collaborative, and driven leaders who are passionate about building robust supplier partnerships and quality systems from the ground up. If you thrive in fast-paced, high-accountability environments and are motivated by making a tangible impact on mission-critical hardware, we want to hear from you.

Responsibilities

• Lead supplier development activities in collaboration with engineering, manufacturing, and strategic sourcing to ensure suppliers are capable of meeting quality, technical, and schedule requirements for development and production programs.
• Evaluate, qualify, and approve suppliers based on quality systems, technical capability, reliability, risk, and cost, building a resilient and scalable supplier base to support Castelion's rapid development and production cadence.
• Define and manage supplier quality requirements, including audits, qualifications, AS9102 FAIRs, certifications, and ongoing compliance to aerospace and company standards.
• Collaborate with cross-functional stakeholders to drive supplier performance improvements in quality, delivery, cost, and service while identifying and mitigating supply chain and compliance risks.
• Support contract reviews and negotiations by ensuring quality, technical, and regulatory requirements are clearly defined, achievable, and enforceable with suppliers.
• Facilitate design-for-manufacturability and design-for-quality reviews with engineering and suppliers to proactively reduce risk and improve producibility.
• Partner with engineering and operations to address nonconforming material, supplier escapes, and rejected hardware through root cause analysis and corrective action, with a focus on prevention and continuous improvement.
• Establish and maintain supplier performance metrics, reporting regularly to stakeholders on quality trends, risks, and critical issues.
• Build and maintain strong supplier relationships through regular engagement, performance reviews, and development plans.
• Ensure supplier compliance with company policies, quality management systems, and applicable customer, industry, and government regulations.

Basic Qualifications

• Educational Background: Bachelor's degree or equivalent
• Technical Proficiency: 6+ years of experience working in a related field, program, or project

Preferred Skills and Experience

• Aerospace Quality Systems: Experience operating within AS9100-compliant environments, including supplier qualification, audits, AS9102 FAIRs, corrective actions, and ongoing supplier compliance.
• Manufacturing & Technical Expertise: Broad knowledge of aerospace manufacturing processes and suppliers, including machined parts, composites, chemicals, and avionics and their relevant specifications, typical customer requirements, and certifications.
• Supplier Development & Analytics: Strong root cause and corrective action capability using structured problem-solving methods (e.g., 8D, Six Sigma, Lean), supported by data-driven analysis in Excel, SQL, or similar tools.
• Business & Quality Systems: Familiarity with ERP, MRP, and Quality Management Systems to manage supplier data, nonconformances, and documentation accuracy.
• Security Clearance: Active U.S. Government security clearance or the ability to obtain one.

Leadership Qualities

Bias to Action and Creative Problem Solving. Desire and experience questioning assumptions in ways that lead to break through ideas that are ultimately implemented. Successfully bring in applicable processes/concepts/materials from other industries to achieve efficiency gains. Ability to personally resolve minor issues in development without requiring significant support.

High Commitment, High Initiative. A successful candidate will have a genuine passion for Castelion's mission and consistently look for ways to contribute to the company's technical goals and prevent hardware blockers. Ability to work in a fast paced, autonomously driven, and demanding atmosphere. Strong sense of accountability and integrity.

Clear Communicator. Proactively communicates blockers. Trusted in previous roles to be voice of company with regulators, suppliers, gate keepers and customers. Capable of tactfully managing relationships with stakeholders to achieve company-desired outcomes without compromising relationships. Emails, IMs and verbal interactions are logical, drive clarity, and detailed enough to eliminate ambiguity.