Senior Staff Customer Quality Engineer
Sila Nanotechnologies · Alameda, CA
- Level
- Senior
- Team
- Quality
- Degree
- Required (or equivalent experience)
- Experience asked
- 12+ years
- Industry
- Automotive
- Posted
- 30+ days ago
The role in 30 seconds
A senior quality role at Sila Nanotechnologies (automotive) in Alameda, CA. As a Customer Quality Engineer on the Corporate Quality team you will help create the next generation of battery materials by owning the customer-facing quality relationship for the company's product line.
- They ask for
- 12+ years · degree required (or equivalent experience)
- Tools it names
- Root cause, SPC, FMEA, PPAP, APQP, Control plans
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At a glance
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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 Sila Nanotechnologies
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- 2
Send a short, curious note
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- 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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- 5
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About the role
Who You Are
As a Customer Quality Engineer on the Corporate Quality team you will help create the next generation of battery materials by owning the customer-facing quality relationship for the company's product line. This role is the primary quality interface to our customers — managing qualification, complaint resolution, and ongoing performance — and is accountable for translating customer
requirements
into internal quality commitments that the manufacturing organization can execute against. You are someone who can effectively manage multiple responsibilities, are self-motivated and can work autonomously with minimal guidance. You are comfortable with ambiguity and eager to create structure. You have excellent verbal and written communication skills and are able to collaboratively solve problems and set others up for success.
and Duties
- ◆Serve as the primary quality point of contact for customers, managing the relationship through qualification, launch, and steady-state production.
- ◆Lead PPAP/APQP submissions and approvals for new customer programs and specification/process changes. Coordinate cross-functionally with Manufacturing, R&D, and Plant Quality to ensure submissions meet customer requirements.
- ◆Own customer-specific
requirements
as assigned — interpreting, documenting, and ensuring they are correctly flowed down into internal specifications, control plans, and the QMS.
- ✓Lead customer complaint and RMA investigations. Coordinate 8D problem solving including containment, root cause analysis (5-Why, fault tree analysis, fishbone), corrective/preventive action, and customer-facing communication and closure.
- ✓Represent quality in customer program reviews and host/facilitate audits, and quality business reviews (QBRs). Prepare performance data (PPM, scorecards, corrective action status) for customer-facing reporting.
- ✓Partner with plant manufacturing quality (including QC/analytics lab) to translate customer
requirements
and findings into containment and corrective/preventive actions, and escalate issues that require engineering, supplier, or product-level resolution.
- ✓Maintain and continuously improve customer quality documentation and processes in alignment with ISO/IATF and APQP/PPAP requirements.
- ✓Track and report customer quality performance trends; identify systemic issues and coordinate preventive action ahead of customer escalation.
Knowledge and Skill
Requirements
- ✓Minimum of 12 years of related experience with a Bachelor’s degree; or 8 years and a Master’s degree; or a PhD with 5 years experience; or equivalent experience.
- ✓Experience with battery materials, powder or particle-based products, or closely related chemical/materials manufacturing.
- ✓Demonstrated experience owning customer quality relationships, including PPAP/APQP submissions, CSR management, and complaint/RMA resolution.
- ✓Strong knowledge of IATF 16949 (or equivalent automotive/high-reliability QMS standards) and core quality tools: FMEA, control plans, 8D, SPC, MSA.
- ✓Strong cross-functional collaboration skills; ability to operate effectively across a governance/execution boundary with plant-based quality and manufacturing teams.
- ✓Excellent written and verbal communication skills, including direct experience presenting to customers in QBR or audit settings.
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About Us
We are Sila, a next-generation battery materials company. Our mission is to power the world’s transition to clean energy. To create this future, our team is building a better lithium-ion battery from the inside out today. We engineer and manufacture ground-breaking battery materials that significantly increase the energy density of batteries, while reducing their size and weight. The result? Smaller more powerful batteries that can unlock innovation in consumer devices and accelerate the mass adoption of electric cars to eliminate our dependence on fossil fuels. We're tackling one of the biggest challenges of our time every day, and together we're redefining what's possible. Are you ready to be a part of a team committed to changing the world?
Physical Demands and Working Conditions
- •Operate a computer and other office equipment, such as a laptop, copier/printer, etc in a fixed location
Working at Sila
