Quality Manager

About Zepher

Zepher Inc. is an AS9100D-certified, ITAR-registered precision machining and assembly contract manufacturer in Bingen, Washington. We build flight-critical parts for aerospace and defense customers.

We are a small company in an active growth phase, and our customers are asking us to take on more of their work. At our size, everyone is hands-on — including the Quality Manager.

The Role

This is a working Quality Manager role. You will own our AS9100D quality management system, and you will be at the inspection bench doing the critical inspections and first articles yourself.

Day to day, that means planning quality into new jobs, building AS9102 first articles using DISCUS, measuring the features that matter most, and supporting our QA team. Around that work, you keep the quality system current, effective, and audit-ready.

This is not a desk-only management job, and it is not an inspection-only job. It is both, and the balance shifts with the work on the floor and as the business grows.

What You'll Do

• Own the quality system. Serve as Management Representative for our AS9100D QMS: procedures and quality manual, document control, quality objectives and metrics, and management review.
• Manage our QA team. Set inspection priorities with production, train and mentor inspectors, and be the go-to resource for difficult callouts and judgment calls.
• Quality planning. Review purchase orders, drawings, and specifications, and customer requirements — quality clauses, key characteristics, special processes, and certifications — into a quality plan before work reaches the floor.
• Create first article inspection reports. Plan, perform, and document AS9102 first articles for new parts and revisions, including customer-specific FAI requirements and submissions.
• Do the critical inspections. Inspect tight-tolerance features and difficult GD&T callouts using our Mitutoyo CMM and Keyence scanning CMM and conventional metrology. Review completed inspection records for accuracy and completeness.
• Close the loop on nonconformances. Run the nonconforming product and MRB process as Quality's disposition authority, coordinating customer approval when a disposition requires it. Lead root cause analysis and corrective action through to verified effectiveness.
• Lead audits and represent Quality. Run the internal audit program and train internal auditors across the team. Host registrar, customer, and DCMA audits, and serve as the main contact for customer and supplier quality teams.
• Manage supplier quality and calibration. Oversee approved suppliers, special-process sources, receiving inspection, and supplier corrective action, and run the calibration program.
• Drive continuous improvement. Use quality data to find the problems that cost us the most, and lead the projects that fix them.

What You Bring

Required:

• Three or more years of aerospace quality experience under AS9100, including ownership of QMS elements such as document control, corrective action, or external audits.
• Hands-on inspection skill: strong blueprint reading, GD&T to ASME Y14.5, and confident use of a CMM and conventional measuring equipment.
• AS9102 first article inspection experience.
• Working knowledge of nonconformance, MRB, and corrective action, using structured root cause tools such as 8D, 5-Why, or fishbone.
• Internal audit experience.
• Clear writing. Your procedures, quality plans, and corrective action responses will be read by customers and auditors.
• U.S. Person status as defined by ITAR (22 CFR §120.62), required for access to export-controlled technical data.

Helpful, not required:

• CMM programming.
• ASQ certification (CQE, CQA, or CMQ/OE) or AS9100 lead auditor training.
• Outside processes and their specifications — anodize, chem film, passivation, heat treat, NDT, paint.
• Inspection of riveted and fastened assemblies.
• Supplier quality management, including special-process suppliers.
• Epicor or a comparable ERP.

A note on background: we care about what you can do, not how you got there. If you came up through the inspection bench or the machine shop and grew into owning a quality system, we especially want to hear from you.

Why Zepher

• Real ownership. The quality system is yours to run and improve, with a direct line to company leadership and no layers between you and the decisions.
• World-class customers who want more from us. You will work directly with their quality teams, in relationships that are already strong and growing.
• Established company, startup freedom. Real customers, real certifications, real revenue. Decisions get made in days.
• A four-day week. We run 4×10, Tuesday through Friday. Every weekend is a three-day weekend.
• The Columbia River Gorge. Bingen sits on the Columbia River, right across the bridge from Hood River — world-class wind sports, mountain biking, climbing, and Mt. Hood about an hour away.

Compensation & Benefits

Salary range: $83,000 – $95,000 annually, depending on experience and demonstrated capability.

Benefits include:

• Medical coverage through Aetna, with a choice of HSA and PPO plans. Zepher contributes toward employee and family premiums.
• A $1,000 annual Zepher contribution to your Health Savings Account when you enroll in the HSA plan.
• Dental coverage, with a Zepher contribution toward premiums.
• Vision coverage and life insurance, with premiums paid 100% by Zepher.
• 401(k) retirement plan.
• Paid time off starting at three weeks per year and increasing with tenure, plus six paid holidays.
• Education assistance for job-related training and certifications.

Insurance coverage begins after 60 days of employment.

To Apply

Submit your resume and a short cover letter. In the cover letter, tell us about the quality system you have worked in and the first article and inspection work you have done hands-on.

Pay: $83,000.00 - $95,000.00 per year

Benefits:

• 401(k)
• Dental insurance
• Health insurance
• Health savings account
• Life insurance
• Paid time off
• Retirement plan
• Vision insurance

Work Location: In person