Quality Engineer

Job Title: Quality Engineer / Quality Associate

Company: Texas Precision Plating
Location: Garland, TX, with occasional support in Arlington, TX
Job Type: Full-Time
Work Environment: Primarily on-site, with limited flexibility for documentation and administrative work

Position Overview

Established in 1966, Texas Precision Plating is a long-standing metal finishing and plating company serving aerospace, defense, industrial, and commercial customers. We provide a wide range of plating, anodizing, chemical conversion, passivation, and finishing services with a strong focus on quality, compliance, and customer reliability.

We are seeking a highly accountable and detail-oriented Quality Engineer / Quality Associate to take ownership of quality systems, customer requirements, process compliance, testing, and corrective action activity.

This role will begin as an individual contributor, but the company is growing quickly. The right candidate will have a clear path toward a future Quality Manager role, including oversight of inspectors, quality technicians, documentation control, audits, and customer quality communication.

The ideal candidate is who can operate in a real manufacturing environment, read specifications, review customer requirements, support production, identify risks before they become escapes, and drive corrective actions that actually prevent repeat issues.

Key Responsibilities

Quality Management System

• Lead the daily execution of the company's Quality Management System and support the company's path toward AS9100 certification.
• Maintain quality procedures, work instructions, inspection records, test records, calibration records, nonconformance documentation, and corrective action files.
• Help establish the quality structure required to support future NADCAP readiness.
• Ensure quality requirements are understood, documented, flowed down, and followed across production.

Contract Review and Specification Compliance

• Review customer purchase orders, drawings, specifications, certifications, and flow-down requirements before work begins.
• Identify unclear, conflicting, or missing quality requirements before production starts.
• Interpret and apply aerospace, defense, military, ASTM, AMS, and customer-specific specifications.
• Work with production, sales, and management to ensure jobs are planned correctly before release.
• Prevent quality failures by catching requirement gaps early.

Customer and Vendor Quality Support

• Serve as a primary point of contact for customer quality questions, issues, nonconformances, and corrective action requests.
• Communicate professionally and directly with customers when quality issues arise.
• Work with vendors and processors to ensure supplier quality requirements are understood and met.
• Support customer audits, quality surveys, source inspections, and customer-driven improvement actions.

Root Cause and Corrective Action

• Lead Root Cause Corrective Action activity for internal nonconformances, customer complaints, rejects, and process failures.
• Use structured problem-solving methods such as 5 Why, fishbone diagrams, containment plans, corrective actions, and effectiveness checks.
• Ensure corrective actions are practical, implemented, verified, and sustained.
• Track recurring issues and push permanent fixes instead of temporary patches.

Testing, Inspection, and Validation

• Oversee and support required plating and finishing quality tests, including:
  • Salt spray / corrosion resistance testing
  • Adhesion tape testing
  • Coating thickness measurement
  • Visual inspection
  • Process verification
  • Chemical and physical testing required by customer or specification
• Review inspection results and test data for completeness and compliance.
• Ensure inspection and testing requirements are properly documented before shipment.
• Support calibration control for inspection and test equipment.

Audit Readiness

• Lead internal audit preparation and support external audits.
• Maintain the facility in an audit-ready condition.
• Help close audit findings quickly and correctly.
• Prepare documentation packages for customer audits, AS9100 audits, and future NADCAP-related reviews.
• Train employees on quality procedures, documentation expectations, and inspection discipline.

Production Quality Support

• Work closely with production, operations, engineering, and management to solve quality issues without creating unnecessary production bottlenecks.
• Help build practical floor-level quality controls that operators can actually follow.
• Support first-piece checks, in-process inspection, final inspection, and shipment review.
• Identify quality risks related to process control, documentation, handling, masking, racking, inspection, and customer requirements.
• Reinforce a culture where quality is built into the process, not inspected in at the end.

Future Leadership Path

• Help build the foundation for a scalable quality department.
• Support hiring, training, and development of future inspectors or quality technicians.
• Establish repeatable systems, metrics, and accountability.
• Grow into a leadership role as the company expands and the quality department matures.

Required Qualifications

• At least of 3 years of experience in manufacturing quality, metal finishing, plating, aerospace, defense, machining, fabrication, or a related industrial environment.
• Hands-on experience with quality systems, inspection records, nonconformance management, corrective actions, and audit preparation.
• Ability to read and interpret engineering drawings, purchase orders, specifications, and customer flow-down requirements.
• Familiarity with specifications such as MIL-SPEC, ASTM, AMS, or customer-specific aerospace/defense requirements.
• Experience supporting or managing RCCA activity.
• Strong attention to detail and ability to catch requirement gaps before they become production or customer issues.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills.
• Ability to work directly with customers, vendors, operators, inspectors, and management.
• High personal accountability, urgency, and ownership.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience implementing or maintaining an AS9100 Quality Management System.
• Familiarity with NADCAP requirements, especially for chemical processing or metal finishing.
• Experience in plating, anodizing, chemical conversion coating, passivation, or metal finishing.
• Experience with salt spray testing, adhesion testing, coating thickness measurement, and plating inspection methods.
• Experience with customer audits, supplier audits, or third-party certification audits.
• Experience in aerospace, defense, or other highly regulated manufacturing environments.
• Experience leading inspectors, technicians, or quality support personnel.

Ideal Candidate Profile

The right person for this role is:

• Detail-oriented without being slow.
• Technical without being impractical.
• Comfortable on the production floor, not stuck behind a desk.
• Strong enough to push back when requirements are not being followed.
• Practical enough to work with production instead of becoming a bottleneck.
• Accountable enough to own issues until they are closed.
• Ambitious enough to grow into a Quality Manager role.
• Disciplined enough to build systems that survive audits and customer scrutiny.

Compensation and Benefits

Texas Precision Plating offers a competitive compensation package, including:

• Health, dental, and vision insurance
• 401(k) retirement plan
• Employer-paid life insurance
• Paid time off
• Career advancement opportunities
• Path toward future Quality Manager responsibility

Why Join Texas Precision Plating

This is a high-impact role in a company that is actively investing in growth, systems, quality, and customer expansion. The person hired for this position will have a direct role in shaping the quality department, strengthening customer confidence, supporting AS9100 certification, and preparing the company for future aerospace and defense growth.