Director of Quality
Anduril Industries · Costa Mesa, CA
- Level
- Director+
- Team
- Quality
- Degree
- Required (or equivalent experience)
- Experience asked
- 10+ years
- Industry
- Aerospace & defense
- Posted
- 30+ days ago
The role in 30 seconds
A director-level quality role at Anduril Industries (aerospace & defense) in Costa Mesa, CA.
- They ask for
- 10+ years · degree required (or equivalent experience)
- Tools it names
- Six Sigma, Root cause, FMEA, PPAP, APQP, Control plans
Read from the posting. The full description is below.
From the plant jobs report · week of October 19, 2026
Quality Engineer roles in California: typical posted base $101k–$149k.
Median of the low and high ends of 84 live postings that list pay, out of 179 quality engineer openings in California, read from manufacturers' own careers sites.
California plant jobs report →Pay by team and state →What moves pay →
How this role compares
Against 178 other live quality postings in California.
- Base pay
- Not listed in this posting
- Experience asked
- More than usual (10+ vs 5+)
Typical $100k–$149k, from 82 postings that list pay.
Similar roles usually ask 5+ years.
Skills these teams ask for most
- ✓ Root cause 78%
- ✓ FMEA 56%
- ✓ Supplier quality 49%
- ✓ AS9100 44%
- ✓ Validation (IQ/OQ/PQ) 44%
- ✓ ISO 9001 40%
✓ = this posting asks for it too. % = share of similar postings that mention it.
At a glance
Pulled from the posting text. If it's not listed here, the posting didn't say.
How to get in at this plant
Five moves over a week or two. The first one takes ten minutes.
- 1
Pick 2–3 people on the Quality team at Anduril Industries
We found 2 people at this company and state: 2 in this kind of role. Engineers who joined in the last year or two reply the most. See them ↓
- 2
Send a short, curious note
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Write to Jonathan → (free) - 3
Turn a reply into a short call
Questions worth asking about this team:
- What does a normal week look like on your team?
- Which standards drive the work here: ISO 13485, IATF 16949, AS9100?
- How much of the job is customer complaints versus prevention?
- How did you land the job? What stood out in your interviews?
- 4
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If the call went well, ask whether they’d pass your résumé to the hiring manager. Send your résumé link, apply that day, and let them know.
- 5
Bring proof to the interview
One page of before-and-after numbers from projects you led: scrap, OEE, cycle time, cost. Plant managers hire on results.
This plant: Anduril Industries in Costa Mesa
156 other open roles at this site · 2 people we found in quality roles at Anduril Industries.
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Full description from Anduril IndustriesAs posted on their careers site.ShowHide
requirements
and quality standards
- ✓Lead production readiness assessments, validating process capability, tooling, training, and quality systems
- ✓Own product quality scorecards tracking first-pass yield, defect rates, warranty returns, and field reliability
- ✓Facilitate post-launch reviews to capture lessons learned and feed insights into the Product Development playbook
Required qualifications
- ✓Bachelor's degree in engineering or equivalent technical experience with 5 – 10 years of industry experience that includes Quality management within the defense, aerospace or or other end system hardware.
- ✓Proven experience leading Product Quality Engineering in complex product development environments
- ✓Strong background in DFMEA, Control Plans, DOE, Six Sigma, DFSS, statistical methods, and reliability engineering
- ✓Proven track record of developing and implementing global Quality strategies.
- ✓Experience leading large-scale organizational change and driving cultural transformation.
- ✓Deep knowledge of Quality Management Systems and standards such as ISO9001, AS9100, etc.
- ✓Experience in interfacing with agencies and managing regulatory compliance.
- ✓Experience in a variety of Quality domains, including design, production, supply chain, etc.
- ✓Experience in large-scale risk assessment and management at a corporate level.
- ✓Strong knowledge in one or more technical or production industry areas as it relates to design for Quality, root cause corrective action, measurement analysis, etc.
- ✓Working knowledge of product development methodologies such as Failure Modes and Effects Analysis (FMEA), Advanced Product Quality Planning (APQP), Production Part Approval Process (PPAP) elements such as Measurement Systems Analysis (MSA), and Geometric Dimens
Show full description ↓Show less ↑
Anduril Industries is a defense technology company with a mission to transform U.S. and allied military capabilities with advanced technology. By bringing the expertise, technology, and business model of the 21st century’s most innovative companies to the defense industry, Anduril is changing how military systems are designed, built and sold. Anduril’s family of systems is powered by Lattice OS, an AI-powered operating system that turns thousands of data streams into a realtime, 3D command and control center. As the world enters an era of strategic competition, Anduril is committed to bringing cutting-edge autonomy, AI, computer vision, sensor fusion, and networking technology to the military in months, not years.
Director of Quality – Product Quality Engineering
The Director of Quality serves as the executive amplifier and strategic integrator for the VP of Quality—ensuring that intent becomes action, and action scales across teams. This role drives Product Development excellence, builds world-class Product Quality Engineering capabilities, and establishes a culture of statistical rigor and continuous improvement.
What you’ll do
- •Support the VP of Quality in evolving priorities and organizational needs, adapting capacity and focus as required
- •Enable Quality team leaders and division members to maximize efficiency and quality output through coaching and resource alignment
- •Build internal delivery rhythms, KPIs, and OKRs that drive team alignment, execution fidelity, and risk management
- •Lead cross-team initiatives requiring executive sponsorship and accountability, acting as go-to problem solver for ambiguous challenges
- •Partner with Quality Systems Engineering to deploy and track KPIs through scorecards to inform decisions at QBR, MDPR
- •Foster cross-functional relationships, embedding quality and compliance fluency throughout partner functions
- •Provide strategic oversight and ensure product line governance in accordance with DCMA compliance and federal mandates
- •Serve as the connective tissue across the organization—coordinating, communicating, and facilitating
- •Own Product Quality Engineering strategy across all new product development by appropriately leveraging the following functions at the appropriate phase gates: Reliability, System Safety, Supplier Quality, and Quality Systems Engineering
- •Own day ‑ to ‑ day factory quality engineering and sustainment; owns Productization/Recovery execution (productionization, stabilization, ramp support).
- •Ensure efforts to embed Quality at the source are executed and implemented by operationalizing findings from Design for Quality, DFM, and FSS risk magement methodologies.
- •Develop and execute mitigation strategies identified through root cause analysis, FMEA, and trend analysis; translating findings into design improvements and process enhancements.
- •Drive DFMEA and PFMEA activities, coaching teams to proactively identify and mitigate risks before they materialize
- •Establish product validation and verification protocols (DV, PV, reliability testing) aligned with industry best practices
- •Drive design review governance, supporting critical phase-gate reviews to ensure quality criteria are satisfied at each milestone
- •Partner with R&D, Engineering, Manufacturing, and Supply Chain to create closed-loop corrective action systems that feed learnings into next-gen designs
- •Build and lead a high-performing Product Quality Engineering team with expertise in statistical methods, DOE, MSA, and process capability
- •Establish a center of excellence for statistical analysis, providing tools, templates, mentorship, and governance for data-driven decision-making
- •Lead capability maturity assessments for product development processes, implementing improvement roadmaps
- •Serve as Quality voice in PDP governance, aligning product strategy, customer expectations, regulatory requirements, and manufacturing capabilities
- •Partner with Supplier Quality to ensure early establishment of supplier quality engagement protocols, co-developing quality agreements and performance metrics
- •Drive Voice of the Customer integration into product