Senior Manager Quality Assurance, Ford Energy

Ford•Dearborn, MI

12h•Hybrid

About The Position

The Senior Manager Quality Assurance will serve as the senior quality leader and executive champion for Ford Energy quality culture. This highly visible leadership role is responsible for leading a team of engineering supervisors and quality engineers while owning the end-to-end quality operating model across the full development lifecycle. Beyond technical execution, you will be responsible for the financial protection of the subsidiary by managing the total "Cost of Quality" and warranty exposure. You will ensure that Ford Energy’s solutions are technically sound, safety and regulatory compliant, and capable of meeting customer expectations in production and in the field, serving as the primary quality interface for both internal and external executives.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Systems Engineering, or a related technical field.
10+ years of experience in Quality Assurance, Systems Engineering, or Product Development within the energy or automotive sectors.
3+ years of leadership experience managing engineering teams.
Demonstrated ability to lead cross-functional issue resolution and communicate complex technical quality risks to executive-level stakeholders.
Expertise in Failure Mode Avoidance tools (DFMEA, PFMEA).
Deep understanding of high-voltage battery systems or power electronics.
Experience managing the "Cost of Quality" and warranty analytics for large-scale industrial or automotive programs.
Direct experience with global supplier quality or managing quality standards for technology licensing agreements.
Direct experience with stationary Battery Energy Storage Systems (BESS).
Black Belt or Master Black Belt certification in Six Sigma or equivalent methodologies.

Nice To Haves

Master’s degree in Engineering or an MBA.
Experience with grid-scale certification standards (UL, IEC, NFPA).

Responsibilities

Own the quality operating model, quality gates, escalation paths, and KPI structure for Ford Energy.
Establish and enforce the high-level quality standards and technical rigor that the engineering, manufacturing, and service organizations must live by.
Manage the "clock speed" of the quality organization, providing data-driven insights that influence product strategy and launch decisions.
Manage the total "Cost of Quality" (CoQ) for the subsidiary, including the mitigation of warranty spend and long-term liability.
Develop and own the quality standards and audit processes for global licensing partners and international cell suppliers to ensure consistency across the supply chain.
Represent Ford Energy Quality in discussions with internal and external executives, providing technical recommendations and risk assessments to support commercial decisions.
Drive rigorous Failure Mode Avoidance (FMA) processes, ensuring quality is designed into requirements, architecture, and system integration.
Oversee validation strategy, factory acceptance readiness, and analysis of field usage/diagnostics data.
Lead Root Cause Analysis for complex system failures, supporting fast-response containment and recurrence prevention.
Lead the strategy and execution for regulatory compliance and certification testing (e.g., UL, IEC).
Manage customer certification and accreditation processes to ensure project "bankability" and customer confidence.
Provide technical leadership for End of Line and Factory Acceptance Testing processes to ensure production units meet all requirements before shipment.