Director, Product Quality

Ingersoll Rand•Davidson, NC

12d

About The Position

The Product Quality Leader owns the organization’s response to product quality issues that affect customers. The role sets priorities, drives escalation and resolution, and establishes preventive systems that reduce recurrence and strengthen product reliability. Working across Product Management, Engineering, Quality, Supply Chain, Customer Support, Services, and Executive Leadership, the role advances organizational quality performance through proactive risk identification, defect prevention, systemic process weakness correction and continuous improvement. Success is reflected in fewer customer disruptions, stronger product quality and reliability performance, and the organization’s ability to deliver consistently superior customer product experience.

Requirements

Customer Advocacy
Continuous Improvement Mindset
Change Leadership
Data-Driven Decision Making
Cross-Functional Collaboration
Root Cause Analysis
Quality Systems Management
Strategic Thinking
Excellent Communication and Executive Presence

Nice To Haves

Bachelor’s degree in engineering, Quality Management, Computer Science, Business, or related field.
10+ years of experience in product quality, engineering, technical support, or operational leadership roles.
5+ years of leadership experience managing cross-functional teams.
Proven experience leading resolution of critical customer-impacting issues.
Strong expertise in quality management systems, root cause analysis, and continuous improvement methodologies.
Knowledge of reliability engineering, incident management, and customer support operations.
Experience working cross functionally and directly with executive leadership and strategic customers.
Demonstrated success in driving organizational change and accountability.

Responsibilities

Champion a prevention-focused quality culture by ensuring quality is designed, validated, and monitored throughout the product lifecycle.
Proactively validate quality controls to identify and mitigate risks before they result in customer impact.
Develop and execute a zero-tolerance strategy for delivered product startup and launch-related quality issues.
Develop and maintain standardized quality performance metrics and KPIs across all production facilities.
Institutionalize problem-solving (e.g. 9-Step) and knowledge-sharing processes by embedding lessons learned into standards, procedures, and operating practices.
Define clear ownership, accountability, and performance expectations for quality-related deliverables.
Identify and eliminate process deficiencies that contribute to recurring product quality and reliability issues and verify that the resulting controls prevent recurrence.
Establish governance, escalation criteria, and response protocols for critical product quality incidents.
Lead rapid containment, mitigation, communication, and resolution efforts for customer-impacting quality events.
Ensure corrective actions address root causes and drive sustainable, systemic improvements.
Establish and maintain a Repeat Issue Prevention Program focused on reducing the recurrence of customer-impacting defects.
Partner with Engineering and Product Management to prioritize quality and reliability risks within product roadmaps and lifecycle planning, preventing known defect patterns from reoccurring in future New Product Development (NPD) releases.
Ensure Failure Mode and Effects Analysis (FMEA), fault-tree analysis, and reliability risk assessments are embedded as standard practices for critical products and services.