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Senior Engineer, Manufacturing Quality

QuantumScape · California

Apply on QuantumScape ↗
Level
Senior
Team
Quality
Base pay
$113k–$163k
Degree
Required
Experience asked
5+ years
Certification
Black Belt preferred
Industry
Automotive
Posted
16 days ago

The role in 30 seconds

A senior quality role at QuantumScape (automotive) in California. In this role, you will connect upstream process and metrology data to downstream yield, electrical test, and reliability outcomes, turn those correlations into specifications and control strategies, and drive them into production with process owners across.

They ask for
5+ years · degree required · Black Belt preferred
Tools it names
Six Sigma, Black Belt, Root cause, SPC, MSA / Gage R&R, DOE
Base pay
$113k–$163k

Read from the posting. The full description is below.

From the plant jobs report · week of November 2, 2026

Quality Engineer roles in California: typical posted base $101k–$149k. This one lists $113k–$163k.

Median of the low and high ends of 109 live postings that list pay, out of 211 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 210 other live quality postings in California.

Base pay
About 11% above similar roles

Typical $100k–$149k, from 105 postings that list pay.

Experience asked
Typical (5+ years)

Similar roles usually ask 5+ years.

Skills these teams ask for most

  • ✓ Root cause 78%
  • FMEA 53%
  • Validation (IQ/OQ/PQ) 44%
  • Supplier quality 44%
  • AS9100 42%
  • ISO 9001 36%

✓ = this posting asks for it too. % = share of similar postings that mention it.

It asks for 5+ years. If you're close, apply anyway: requirements are a wish list. Talk to someone doing this work there first.

At a glance

Lifts up to 25 lbs

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. 1

    Pick 2–3 people on the Quality team at QuantumScape

    Engineers who joined in the last year or two reply the most. Use the team search on this page to find them.

  2. 2

    Send a short, curious note

    One real question about their work. No favors yet. Each person gets a different note, written for this role.

  3. 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?
    • The posting mentions a Black Belt. Does the company sponsor certification?
    • How did you land the job? What stood out in your interviews?
  4. 4

    Apply with someone vouching for you

    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. 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.

Full description from QuantumScapeAs posted on their careers site.Show

requirements

  • ✓Work is performed in a dry room, fume hood, lab area, or glovebox requiring the use of fine motor skills
  • ✓Sitting or standing for extended periods of time
  • ✓Reaching and twisting motions with hands
  • ✓Lifting up to 25 lbs.

ONSITE: This position is required to work onsite 5 days per week to meet the minimum essential duties and

requirements

of this position. As an on-site R&D and manufacturing operations organization, in-person face to face interaction is essential to building authentic relationships, trust, teamwork, and collaboration.

We are an equal oppor

Show full description ↓

QuantumScape is on a mission to transform energy storage with solid-state lithium-metal battery technology. The company’s next-generation batteries are designed to enable greater energy density, faster charging and enhanced safety to support the transition away from legacy energy sources toward a lower carbon future.

About the team: Manufacturing Quality is a diverse group of engineers and data scientists who bring deep expertise in materials science, electrochemistry, statistics, and machine learning. Our team thrives on data-driven decision-making and a shared commitment to drive continuous improvement to QuantumScape’s solid-state battery technology. We work closely with the Manufacturing, Reliability, and R&D, groups to identify failure modes, refine critical-to-quality specifications, and implement robust control strategies across all process areas.

What we need: We are seeking a Senior Engineer, Manufacturing Quality who has built their career on the manufacturing floor — as a process, manufacturing, yield, or quality engineer — and who uses production data to reduce variation. In this role, you will connect upstream process and metrology data to downstream yield, electrical test, and reliability outcomes, turn those correlations into specifications and control strategies, and drive them into production with process owners across QuantumScape’s cell and separator manufacturing lines. This is neither a data science role nor a quality-systems role: the ideal candidate pairs hands-on process knowledge with rigorous, practical data analysis, is passionate about optimizing tools and processes, and values consistency and documentation. If this role sounds like a good fit, we’d like to hear from you.

What You’ll do

  • •Drive process variation down using production data: decompose variation by source (tool-to-tool, lot-to-lot, material and supplier, shift), quantify each contributor, and partner with process owners to eliminate the dominant ones, center and tighten process windows, and demonstrate sustained capability (Cpk) improvement.
  • •Lead correlation projects that link upstream process parameters, material attributes, and in-line metrology to downstream yield, electrical test, and reliability outcomes; query and analyze the data with JMP or equivalent tools, and translate findings into concrete process, specification, and control changes on the manufacturing line.
  • •Collaborate with process teams to identify yield improvement and defect reduction opportunities, confirm root cause through DOEs and engineering experiments, and lead improvement projects with process owners from problem definition to closure.
  • •Develop subject-matter expertise on battery components and process steps; partner with process, equipment, and R&D engineers to define critical-to-quality (CTQ) characteristics and set specification limits grounded in process capability and product performance data.
  • •Collaborate cross-functionally to establish repeatable measurement processes for cells and components, validated through MSA/Gage R&R, with results captured in the database and used as CTQs and specifications for process-quality tracking.

Skills You’ll Need

  • •Bachelor’s degree in Engineering (Chemical, Mechanical, Materials Science, Electrical, Metallurgy, Industrial, or related discipline) + 5 years of experience in a process, manufacturing, yield, or quality engineering role; Master's degree + 3 years.
  • •Hands-on experience as a process, manufacturing, yield, or quality engineer in a complex manufacturing environment (battery, semiconductor, display, data storage, or similar).
  • •Demonstrated track record of reducing variation: isolating sources with variance components and multi-vari analysis, separating measurement from process variation, and sustaining Cpk gains.
  • •Experience of driving correlation projects with production data and converting the results into specifications, control limits, or process changes that were implemented in production.
  • •Strong applied statistics on manufacturing data in JMP or Minitab: regression, hypothesis testing, t-tests, ANOVA, DOE, SPC.
  • •Working knowledge of quality tools — structured root cause analysis (Fishbone, 5 Whys, 8D), MSA (Gage R&R)
  • •Excellent communication, presentation, and leadership skills — able to distill key insights from large data sets and influence stakeholders to drive quality and yield improvements.
  • •Adaptable to shifting priorities in a fast-paced manufacturing environment and a first-principles thinker who reasons from underlying physics, process mechanics, and data rather than defaulting to convention.

Nice to have

  • +Fundamental understanding of battery electrochemistries and failure mechanisms; familiarity with electrical test and metrics.
  • +Six Sigma Green/Black Belt, Certified Quality Engineer (CQE), or equivalent.
  • +Experience in cleanroom/dry-room manufacturing.
  • +Programming skills, especially in Python

Physical

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