Product Quality Leader

Rehlko•Hattiesburg, MS

1d•$89,800 - $114,100

About The Position

Job Overview The Product Quality Leader manages and owns product quality performance across assigned product families, from supplier through manufacturing and customer delivery. This role serves as the primary quality leader for products supporting top strategic customers, driving a customer-first, preventive quality mindset that reduces risk and prevents defects. The Product Quality Leader leads and develops quality team members while owning product and customer quality outcomes. Embedded within manufacturing and aligned with engineering and cross-functional teams, this role drives defect prevention, structured problem solving, and corrective action to improve First Pass Yield, reduce customer escapes, and lower Cost of Poor Quality.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree in Engineering (Mechanical, Electrical, Manufacturing, Industrial), Operations, Process Management, or a related technical discipline.
Minimum of 5 years of experience in manufacturing, quality, reliability, or operations with demonstrated leadership and cross-functional impact.
Proven experience driving quality improvement, defect prevention, corrective action, and risk mitigation in a manufacturing environment.
Experience leading or supporting continuous improvement initiatives (e.g., Lean Manufacturing, Six Sigma, Kaizen, RCCA, CAPA).
Demonstrated ability to prioritize work, influence cross-functional teams, and deliver results in a fast-paced operational setting.
Experience leading, coaching, or developing team members, formally or informally.
Working knowledge of data analysis and reporting tools preferred (e.g., Excel, Power BI, or similar).

Nice To Haves

Six Sigma Green Belt or Black Belt certification.
Experience supporting products for strategic or key customers in a manufacturing environment.
Background in cost of poor quality (COPQ) reduction, warranty analysis, and reliability improvement.
SAP experience

Responsibilities

Support new product development, design changes, and cost-reduction initiatives by ensuring quality requirements, validation activities, and manufacturability expectations are met.
Apply lessons learned and field feedback to strengthen future product designs and processes.
Manage product quality performance for assigned product families, maintaining accountability for customer escapes, chronic issues, and reliability performance.
Identify and prioritize product and customer risks using manufacturing data, field feedback, and performance indicators.
Lead containment and mitigation actions to protect customers and minimize operational and business impact.
Partner directly with manufacturing operations to improve First Pass Yield, reduce quality holds, and eliminate rework and bottlenecks.
Ensure effective in-process controls, inspection strategies, and verification methods are consistently executed.
Lead structured problem solving and corrective action to identify root causes and implement sustainable solutions.
Analyze quality-related losses and lead initiatives to reduce scrap, rework, test failures, warranty cost, and customer complaints.
Use data-driven methods to prioritize improvement actions with the greatest customer and business impact.