Quality Engineer

About the role

John Shearer is seeking a proactive, hands-on Mechanical / Quality Engineer to take ownership of and strengthen quality across the factory in Woodville. This is a role where you will design, but whose real interest is in making sure what is built is right, and who is not afraid to get their hands dirty finding out. You will have the freedom to reshape the quality system your way — keeping what works, fixing what does not, and making it simple, practical and used by the people doing the work — and the backing to make it stick. You will run it largely on your own: the company will give you the brief and the support, but you are expected to set your own priorities, own your suppliers and get on with it.

Key responsibilities

• Take ownership of the existing quality system and enhance it — review what gets checked, where, by whom and against what, and improve it with a focus on fabrication, welding, painting and assembly
• Refine and add practical inspection points and simple, usable check sheets and standards that boilermakers, welders and fitters will actually follow
• Get hands-on with inspection yourself: measuring parts, checking welds and assemblies, and signing machines off before they leave the yard
• Chase down the real causes of non-conformances, rework, warranty returns and field failures, and fix them at the source rather than adding another check
• Where the root cause is in the design, fix it: update the SolidWorks models and drawings, tighten or relax tolerances where it makes sense, and release the change to the workshop
• Review new and existing drawings for manufacturability and inspectability before they hit the floor — the right tolerances, weld callouts and datums for how the part is actually made
• Write the SOPs and work instructions for how the company fabricates, welds, paints, assembles and inspects — clear, short, drawn from how the good operators already do it, and kept current as the process changes
• Sort out incoming inspection of steel and purchased parts, and own the supplier relationship: talk directly to suppliers on quality issues, drive corrective action, and negotiate pricing, rework and credits when they get it wrong
• Source and price alternative suppliers, components and consumables where quality or cost justifies it, and negotiate the terms
• Work alongside the workshop floor and the design team to reduce rework and make the job easier to get right first time

About you

• Professional SolidWorks experience gained in industry (beyond university coursework), ideally including sheet metal design for manufacture
• A minimum of 2 years' experience in a fabrication or manufacturing environment — design, quality, inspection, trade or workshop experience are all valued
• A practical understanding of welding and sheet metal fabrication, and of how and why things go wrong on the floor
• Confidence reading and producing drawings with correct tolerances and welding symbols, and using measuring and inspection equipment
• The ability to work out root causes properly and turn them into fixes people will use — whether that is a process change or a drawing revision
• A proactive streak — you go and find problems rather than wait for them to arrive on your desk, and you follow them through without being chased
• A genuine willingness to get your hands dirty: picking up the tape, the gauge and the grinder, and getting in amongst the steel, swarf and paint to see for yourself
• The ability to work autonomously — set your own priorities, manage your own workload and bring the answer rather than the question
• Confidence dealing with suppliers commercially: comfortable on the phone, able to hold your ground on quality and negotiate a fair price or a credit when the goods are not right
• Experience writing SOPs and work instructions that people actually use — plain language, pictures where they help, and short enough to be read on the floor

About us

Established in 1877, John Shearer designs and manufactures seeding and tillage equipment for Australian farmers under the John Shearer and Connor Shea brands. The company fabricates, welds, paints and assembles the majority of its machines in house, so quality is decided on its own floor, and the drawings that drive it are made on the same site.