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Portal Space Systems is building spacecraft for orbital operations and in-space mobility. The Senior Supplier Quality and Materials Engineer ensures suppliers consistently manufacture compliant, reliable spaceflight hardware while providing deep materials and manufacturing-process expertise during sourcing and engineering decisions.
Key responsibilities include leading supplier qualification, auditing, development, and corrective action; evaluating materials, special processes, and manufacturing capability; and managing technical and quality risk across the supply chain.
Technical Sourcing & Supplier Qualification: Partner with Supply Chain and Engineering on supplier identification, evaluation, and source selection. Lead supplier qualification through technical capability reviews, quality-system audits, manufacturing assessments, and risk-based qualification plans. Review drawings, specifications, BOMs, tolerances, GD&T, and material requirements to identify manufacturability and supply risks. Establish NPI gates, review manufacturing and inspection plans, and evaluate alternate suppliers and materials to improve quality, cost, lead time, and supply-chain resilience.
Materials & Manufacturing Process Engineering: Serve as subject matter expert for materials and manufacturing processes across the supply chain. Advise Design and Build Engineering on material selection, producibility, and supplier capability. Evaluate material selections for mechanical performance, manufacturability, reliability, availability, cost, and suitability for space environments. Assess metallic and non-metallic materials including aluminum, steels, titanium, nickel and copper alloys, composites, polymers, adhesives, elastomers, and coatings. Provide technical oversight for special processes such as heat treatment, welding, brazing, soldering, machining, sheet-metal forming, additive manufacturing, chemical processing, plating, anodizing, coatings, bonding, composites, cleaning, and non-destructive inspection. Develop and approve material and process specifications, supplier technical requirements, and qualification plans.
Supplier Quality, Development & Corrective Action: Establish supplier quality expectations and flow down technical, quality, inspection, and certification requirements. Monitor supplier performance through scorecards, defect data, yield, corrective actions, delivery performance, and Statistical Process Control. Work directly with supplier teams to improve technical capability and process maturity. Lead material and manufacturing failure investigations, nonconformance and SCAR investigations, and coordinate laboratory analysis. Maintain knowledge of aerospace standards and verify supplier certifications, Certificates of Conformance, and First Article Inspection Reports.
