Role: Senior SQA Engineer NPI

Location: Shoreham-by-Sea, West Sussex (Onsite)

Job ID: 2025 - 2863

Ricardo’s Performance Products division are seeking a senior Supplier Quality Assurance Engineer (SQA) to support the quality of New Product Introduction (NPI) and Series Production across projects, specializing in delivering niche powertrain products to many premium brand customers.

Key Responsibilities

• You will be responsible for the quality of purchase parts, from concept to series production.
• Working alone or as part of a team, traveling in the UK and overseas, your key objectives will include:
• Forming healthy relationships to promote responsiveness and influence in the supply chain and internally at Ricardo.
• Auditing suppliers and contributing to the nomination process.
• APQP, PPAP, supplier assessment audits, product and process audits and surveillance visits.
• Problem resolution of parts quality issues working with suppliers using 8D and other automotive industry tools.
• Creating and managing customer quality requirements that can be cascaded to the supply chain.
• Generating goods receiving inspection documents for pre-production and production phases.
• Series process and part approval at product launch.
• Working closely with procurement, design and system engineers to achieve parts that are cost effective, fit for purpose and to the required quality standard.
• Management of supplier quality performance, including verification and implementation of corrective actions.
• Analyse supplier performance data and develop improvement plans.
• Managing the parts quality implications of product and process changes.
• Reporting status against project targets internally and customer facing.
• Actively participating in continuous improvement by developing and introducing new quality focused processes and procedures to Ricardo.
• Complying with internal processes and procedures aligned to IATF 16949 requirements.
• Supporting and attending production and NPI meetings.

Relevant Experience and Personal Attributes

Experience of NPI and/or Supplier Quality Assurance or a similar role where skills can be transferred into the objectives described above. Preferably gained within the automotive sector but other industries would be considered.

Essential

• Achieving PPAP
• Experience with various manufacturing processes and components (e.g., casting, machining, moulding, assembly, fabrications) and measurement techniques.
• Experience and understanding of geometric design & tolerancing.
• Experience of quality systems, quality tools & techniques.
• Experience in using Word, Excel, and PowerPoint.
• Engineering degree or equivalent experience.
• Ability to work as a team or on your own and be self-motivated.
• A good communicator with intercultural and interpersonal skills together with the ability to communicate and present effectively to suppliers and clients at all levels.
• Excellent problem-solving skills, using 8D process and other automotive industry tools.
• Tenacity, resilience, and focus.
• Attention to detail and strong analytical decision-making skills.
• Ownership mindset, taking responsibility for outcomes and being empowered to make the decisions that will lead to those outcomes.

Preferred

• Knowledge of automotive technology and product development.
• Lead Auditor trained to ISO 9001 and or IATF 16949.
• Knowledge of IATF 16949 and APQP.
• Hands-on experience of lean manufacturing & six sigma.

Working with Ricardo

You will be warmly welcomed into our workplace where every voice matters. We are diverse thinkers and doers, coming together to create a culture of inclusion. We will support you to find your place.

We will encourage you to use your passion and expertise to make a positive impact through the projects you work on. Your knowledge and desire to bring about change will be invaluable in helping deliver innovative solutions that support communities across the globe in becoming safer and more sustainable.

Wellbeing and work life balance

Wellbeing is at the core to our culture, allowing employees to flourish and to achieve their full potential. Our People are important to us, and we take pride in our wellbeing programs and policies that support individuals including flexible working, careers policy, mental health first aiders and readily available support through our extensive Employee Assistance program.

Diversity, Equality, and Inclusion

We are an Equal Opportunity Employer, we believe in each person's potential, and we'll help you reach yours. We have an ambitious diversity, equality, and inclusion approach as explained here. We value diversity; recognising that a more diverse workforce creates a richer and more varied working environment.

Diversity also drives innovation, by allowing us to offer our clients the best consultancy service that we can. As part of our commitment to engage positively and pro-actively with all our employees and to ensure an inclusive culture, we are a recognised as a 'disability confident' employer.

Next steps

Once you have submitted your application a member of our Recruitment Team will be in touch. Please be aware that the timing can vary dependent on the volume of applications that we receive for each role and in some cases, we may start to review applications prior to the closing date.

Ricardo is a Disability confident employer please advise the recruitment team via recruit@ricardo.com if you require any adjustments to support you throughout the recruitment process.

#LI-CM1