Production Quality Engineer (Weld)

Blue Origin•Huntsville, AL

About The Position

This role is part of Blue Origin Operations, which supports manufacturing and supply chain across Blue Origin facilities. The Production Quality Engineer supports development and qualification of manufacturing processes for a new advanced hardware program in a greenfield environment, with the opportunity to help establish operations from equipment selection through process qualification and production-readiness planning. The role provides quality assurance expertise across inspection, manufacturing, and test, and works to improve product and system quality in development and production environments. The position establishes and maintains quality system processes, evaluates quality performance, supports design reviews, validates manufacturing processes, and oversees special-process and build-document approvals. It applies measurement and statistical methods—including measurement system analysis, process capability studies, SPC, acceptance sampling, and design of experiments—to support process control and optimization. The role also handles nonconforming material disposition, leads investigations and corrective actions, drives scrap and rework reductions, conducts quality-system audits, and collaborates with customers and internal teams on quality concerns and training. Applicants must meet the stated U.S. export-control eligibility requirements. Blue Origin describes benefits including medical, dental, vision, life and disability insurance, paid parental leave, a 401(k) with company match, education support, paid time off, and company-paid holidays. Stock options are also mentioned for regular employees working at least 20 hours per week.

Requirements

Bachelor of Science in engineering or an equivalent STEM degree.
At least 6 years of relevant experience.
Quality assurance experience in a production environment.
Familiarity with AS9100 or ISO 9001 quality management systems and/or related quality systems and programs.
Must be a U.S. citizen or national, U.S. permanent resident (current Green Card holder), or lawfully admitted into the U.S. as a refugee or granted asylum.

Nice To Haves

Aerospace, space launch, or military/commercial aviation experience.
AWS Certified Welding Engineer (CWEng) or Certified Welding Inspector (CWI) certification.
Experience with aerospace welding to AWS D17.1 or equivalent aerospace weld standards, such as NASA-STD-5006 or MSFC-STD-504.
Experience with mechanized orbital GTAW systems, such as Arc Machines, Liburdi, or equivalent, including parameter development and qualification.
Experience with dissimilar metal welding (DMW) and transition joints between different alloy systems.
Experience with electron beam welding (EBW), laser beam welding (LBW), or friction stir welding (FSW).
Lean/Six Sigma certification or equivalent.
Customer focus and a track record of working cooperatively with teams of different skills across large geographic distances.
Strong organizational and analytical skills.

Responsibilities

Establish, implement, maintain, and enforce quality-system processes for products in development and production.
Measure, analyze, and improve quality-system performance in line with organizational quality goals.
Participate in engineering design reviews (DFx) and recommend improvements to design quality and manufacturability.
Define and execute process-validation protocols for new and changed manufacturing processes.
Review and approve special-process certifications, including welding, plating, heat treatment, and adhesive bonding.
Select gages and measurement equipment appropriate to product tolerances, and validate selections using Precision-to-Tolerance (P/T) ratio analysis.
Plan and execute Measurement System Analysis (MSA), including Gage R&R studies, to quantify measurement uncertainty.
Conduct process capability studies (Cp, Cpk, Pp, Ppk) and recommend process or tolerance adjustments based on results.
Design and implement Statistical Process Control (SPC) charts with appropriate control limits and reaction plans.
Develop acceptance sampling plans, including ANSI/ASQ Z1.4 and C=0 approaches, based on risk and lot size; support Design of Experiments (DOE) for process optimization.
Review and approve manufacturing build documents, including work orders and nonconformance records.
Provide quality assurance expertise to inspection, manufacturing, and test teams.
Serve as disposition authority for nonconforming material.
Lead root-cause investigations using structured methods such as 8D, 5-Why, fishbone/Ishikawa, and fault-tree analysis.
Develop corrective and preventive actions and verify their effectiveness to prevent recurrence.
Analyze cost-of-poor-quality (COPQ) data to identify high-impact improvement opportunities.
Lead scrap- and rework-reduction projects and drive measurable yield improvements.
Support Lean and Six Sigma initiatives with data analysis and statistical expertise.
Recommend and improve initiatives or changes that improve product and system quality.
Conduct periodic audits of quality-system implementation in accordance with AS9100/ISO 9001.
Collaborate with internal and external customers on quality concerns.
Develop and present training materials to build quality awareness.

Benefits

Medical insurance
Dental insurance
Vision insurance
Basic and supplemental life insurance
Paid parental leave
Short- and long-term disability
401(k) with company match of up to 5%
Education Support Program
Stock options for regular employees working at least 20 hours per week
Up to four weeks of paid time off per year, based on weekly scheduled hours
Up to 14 company-paid holidays
Employees may be eligible for bonuses depending on role type and job level; amounts and eligibility are not guaranteed.