Sr. Process/Quality Engineer

Location: Reston
Posted on: May 2, 2025

Job Description:

MODIS seeks a principal quality engineer/process engineer for a contract job in Reston, VA.
 
POSITION SUMMARY
The Senior/Principal Quality Engineer is a key contributor of the Quality Assurance team within the Operations Quality organization. This position is responsible for performing hands-on quality engineering work and leading collaborative team efforts designed to develop, strengthen, and improve the quality of vendor processes and infrastructure. The Senior/Principal Quality Engineer supports multiple outsourced vendors that are engaged in the Operations functions of Publications, Logistics, Test Registration, Test Administration, Scoring, and Score Reporting across multiple programs.
 
The Senior/Principal Quality Engineer works to develop the ongoing maturity of the Vendor Quality Program, provides guidance internally and within the vendor base to promote Vendor Quality initiatives, and works to ensure appropriate quality controls, risk mitigation mechanisms, and continuous improvement programs are in place. The Senior/Principal Quality Engineer leads the technical process assessment and auditing of vendor processes, identifies areas of opportunity for quality improvement and manages and leads quality investigations and analyses. The Senior/Principal Quality Engineer shares knowledge of vendor processes and quality tools and methodologies in order to foster a quality mindset within the Operations organization and the vendor base.
 
The Senior/Principal Quality Engineer partners with business process owners and works with vendors to establish quality structure, requirements and deliverables for new projects. In addition, this role seeks to optimize vendor relationships by installing progressive quality initiatives to ensure that client and vendors are working collaboratively to maximize collective quality impact.
 
ESSENTIAL FUNCTIONS/RESPONSIBILITIES
• Lead continued development and implementation of vendor QMS requirements. Identify and develop necessary updates to requirements with stakeholders and communicate, plan, and implement with vendors. Measure and display vendor QMS maturity, and contribute to Operations QMS maturity measurements.
• Lead overall vendor assessment program. Develop and maintain assessment schedule, perform assessments as business needs dictate, write and issue assessment reports and findings, and manage vendor activities surrounding remediation of assessment observations and findings. Engage Business Process Owners, quality team members, and vendors in assessment program, both for planned assessments and during ad hoc investigations. Develop meaningful success metrics and robust scorecards for display and communication of status. Apply results of assessments toward quality improvement efforts at vendors and within company.
• Lead efforts to ensure that new and modified vendor processes are engineered with quality in mind. Define, approve, and enable the implementation of quality requirements, quality plans, and quality check points to ensure adequacy of controls and resulting outputs. Work with vendors to develop and implement plans for designing and implementing processes for new and modified programs and projects, and communicate vendors’ progress and success to stakeholders.
• Develop and maintain a working knowledge of vendor processes. Determine requirements and apply knowledge of processes across vendors and programs to ensure universal best practices. Update company regarding vendor improvements and quality achievements.
• Utilize performance information (product and service failures, process audit results, customer complaints, etc.) to ensure that quality checks performed by vendors in support of Operations functions are robust. Work with vendors to implement advanced quality tools such as control plans, statistical process control, statistical sampling and analysis, risk analysis, etc. to ensure processes are designed, deployed, and operated to maximize quality. Document and recommend improvements, gain internal support among Business Processes Owners, and work with vendors to implement as appropriate. Prioritize vendor process areas for improvement based on actual experience and potential risk.
• Perform benchmarking activities as appropriate to ensure that vendor quality outputs meet or exceed and/or industry standards.
• Develop, implement, and manage joint quality review forums with vendors, ensuring analysis of appropriate indicators and resulting in meaningful improvement actions.
• Serve as Quality Engineering Subject Matter Expert. Train and mentor Operations personnel regarding quality management best practices and statistical techniques.
• For new product development and new projects take lead for vendor quality activities and develop Vendor Quality Plan to detail quality requirements, deliverables, processes and controls.
• Travel to vendors’ locations to ensure appropriate quality deployment and implementation.
 
Required Skills:*
• B.S. Degree in an appropriate engineering or operations field
• Appropriate quality certifications (Lead Auditor, ASQ CQA, ASQ CQE, Six Sigma Green/Black Belt, etc.)
• 10+ years process and quality engineering experience
• Experience using multiple quality improvement methodologies, tools, and techniques to drive significant change and improvement
• Proven ability to lead diverse cross-functional teams in quality improvement projects
• Experience developing and analyzing quality performance metrics
• Quality Management System implementation knowledge and experience, such as ISO
• Experience in corrective action program, root cause analysis and basic statistics
• Experience in vendor quality management techniques
 
Preferred Skills:*
RELATED SKILLS & OTHER REQUIREMENTS
• Ability to mentor diverse cross-functional teams in quality improvement tools and methodologies
• Highly collaborative individual with ability to influence others and build strong professional relationships
• Excellent communication (writing, speaking, presentation)
• Strong process perspective and continuous improvement mindset
• Strong analytical thinking and structured, creative problem solving ability
• Ability to manage relationships with multiple levels of management
• Excellent group/ cross-functional team facilitation skills
• Strong knowledge of multiple Quality improvement methodologies and tools
• Flexibility and desire to quickly adapt to new methods, situations, and various requirements
• Strong interpersonal skills
• Computer literacy, including Microsoft Office applications and statistical software
• Solid organizational, time & task management skills
• Ability to effectively handle multiple situations simultaneously
• Ability to work independently and as part of a team
• Ability to travel
• Experience in a high-volume data and transaction intensive processing operation
• Strong project management experience
 
Education/Certifications:*
B.S. Degree in an appropriate engineering or operations field
 
**This position will have to travel primarily to ETS, Trenton, NJ and any other vendor locations as needed

Keywords: , Reston , Sr. Process/Quality Engineer, IT / Software / Systems , Reston, Virginia