Quality Lab Engineer

General Motors•Warren, MI

2d•Hybrid

About The Position

General Motors is seeking a Quality Lab Engineer to lead advanced inspection and failure-analysis within the Battery Cell Development Center (BCDC). The engineer will develop, validate, and implement methods for finished cell inspection. Work will include running and analyzing samples leading to conclusions about potential product or process failure mechanisms. This role will work closely with quality, product, process, manufacturing, materials, reliability, supplier engineering, and operations teams in a battery development and pilot-manufacturing environment developing new battery chemistries for mass production.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree in engineering, materials science, physics, chemistry, metrology, or related technical discipline.
Demonstrated engineering experience in inspection, measurement, metrology, laboratory testing, materials characterization, manufacturing quality, or failure analysis.
Experience developing or applying technical methods by interpreting engineering drawings, product specifications, or other outside standards.
Ability to operate advanced inspection or characterization equipment and to work hands-on in a laboratory environment.
Proven ability to analyze data, troubleshoot complex problems, develop evidence-based hypotheses, and connect inspection results to potential product or process failure mechanisms.
Strong technical writing, presentation, organizational, and cross-functional communication skills, with the ability to communicate effectively with engineering, operations, and leadership audiences.
Ability to manage multiple priorities, work independently while providing technical direction to others.
Flexibility to support changing priorities, launches, urgent containments, and other time-sensitive investigations.
Ability to follow safety, contamination-control, data-integrity, document-control, calibration, and quality-system requirements, including occasional off-shift or weekend support when required for build events.

Nice To Haves

Advanced degree in a related technical discipline.
Experience developing methods and operating CT scanners, SEMs, CMMs, optical systems and other advanced characterization equipment.
Experience with CT reconstruction, segmentation, image analysis, defect quantification, 3D visualization, internal-feature characterization, SEM sample preparation, morphology analysis, contamination characterization, or other elemental analysis.
Experience with CMM or optical inspection programming.
Experience in battery cell manufacturing, battery materials, pilot production, product development, or related battery-cell quality investigations.
Experience with PFMEA, control plans, MSA or Gage R&R, DOE, statistical process control, 8D, fault tree analysis, and other structured problem-solving methods.
Experience integrating inspection results with manufacturing execution systems, laboratory information systems, databases, dashboards, or advanced data-analytics tools.
Experience supporting equipment installation, commissioning, method correlation, capability studies, laboratory launch readiness, and continuous improvement activities.
Familiarity with GM quality systems, standard work, and technical documentation practices.

Responsibilities

Develop, document, validate, and maintain technical methods for offline laboratory inspection equipment, including sample preparation, scanning parameters, acceptance criteria, and reporting requirements.
Translate engineering product requirements, process engineering parameters, suspected failure modes, and in-line detection controls into practical off-line methods capable of detecting and characterizing dimensional, structural, material, surface, alignment, and internal defects.
Develop standard inspection workflows to identify and quantify internal defects in the finished cell.
Develop advanced spectroscopy methods for surface, interface or materials characterization.
Develop programs for automated dimensional measurements and vision system validation.
Plan and execute sample collection, preparation, inspection, measurement, and data analysis for development builds or engineering investigations.
Analyze and correlate visual inspection, process data, material information, build history, and other test results to identify trends leading to potential failure mechanisms.
Lead or support structured problem solving and failure-mechanism investigations using quality tools to determine root cause and corrective actions.
Lead and support cell teardown efforts using inspection techniques to determine cell failure mechanisms or other abnormalities.
Ensure measurement-system capability and maintain quality data recording practices.
Create and maintain standardized work and technical reports for testing done in the quality lab.
Serve as the technical point of contact for advanced inspection and failure-analysis activities.
Provide technical coaching to technicians, analysts, and other personnel.
Support testing equipment readiness for new campaign builds including laboratory capability planning, equipment installation and commissioning activities.