Director of Engineering Operations

Job Description

Job Description:\n\nInfleqtion is seeking a Director of Engineering Operations within the Quantum Sensing Solutions (QSS) group. This leader will own and continuously improve the engineering operating system that enables multidisciplinary teams to develop, control, review, release, and transition complex quantum technologies and products from concept through manufacturing. The role will initially serve QSS, while establishing practices, systems, and capabilities designed for broader enterprise adoption as the organization grows.\nThe Director will translate expectations for technical rigor into scalable processes, stage-appropriate governance, quality and configuration controls, engineering tools, laboratory operations, equipment strategies, and technical infrastructure. The Director will lead Quality, Configuration Management and Document Control, and Laboratory Operations, and will work across business areas, programs, engineering disciplines, sites, and corporate functions to create a consistent and usable environment for engineering execution.\nThe Director will have authority to establish mandatory engineering processes, approve process tailoring within delegated authority, govern major lifecycle gates, and pause reviews or releases when required evidence, configuration integrity, quality readiness, or compliance conditions have not been met. The QSS Chief Engineer remains the ultimate technical authority and may delegate technical authority to Program Chief Engineers or other qualified leaders. Engineering Operations will enable sound technical decisions and verify the integrity of the decision process without routinely substituting for program or discipline-level technical judgment.\nThe successful candidate will combine broad engineering leadership with practical experience building operating systems for complex hardware and firmware development. This leader must be comfortable applying lightweight controls to exploratory work, increasing rigor as designs mature, and directly engaging at major baseline, release, qualification, and manufacturing-transition points. The role requires a service mindset, independent judgment, and the ability to make compliance and rigor practical in a fast-moving advanced-development environment.Key ResponsibilitiesEngineering Operating System and Lifecycle Governance\n• Own the QSS engineering lifecycle from concept development through transition to manufacturing, including defined phases, maturity expectations, decision points, required evidence, and accountable roles.\n• Establish, implement, and continuously improve mandatory engineering processes that are scalable across programs, products, business areas, technical disciplines, and maturity levels.\n• Define and administer a stage-appropriate tailoring model that preserves speed during exploratory development while increasing control, traceability, and assurance as solutions mature.\n• Translate practices demonstrated on high-value and high-risk programs into repeatable standards, templates, training, and reusable infrastructure for the broader QSS portfolio.\n• Ensure QSS engineering processes remain compatible with enterprise operating models, contractual requirements, customer expectations, and future company-wide adoption.Technical Gate Reviews and Release Governance\n• Own and enforce the technical gate-review process, including review purpose, entrance and exit criteria, required participants, evidence packages, decisions, actions, and closure expectations.\n• Provide direct governance at major lifecycle transitions, technical baseline events, product releases, qualification milestones, and manufacturing-transition decisions; delegate routine review and release activities based on product maturity and demonstrated organizational capability.\n• Partner with the responsible Chief Engineer, Program Chief Engineer, Program Manager, and technical leads so technical adequacy and operational readiness are evaluated as complementary but distinct decisions.Quality Management and AS9100 Readiness\n• Lead the quality organization and establish an effective, service-oriented quality system supporting the delivery of advanced prototypes, qualification units, low-rate builds, and run-rate products.\n• Lead QSS preparation for and maintenance of AS9100 certification, including process definition, deployment, training, internal audits, management review, corrective action, records, and continuous improvement.\n• Ensure quality personnel provide practical support to engineering and manufacturing teams while retaining independent authority to identify, document, escalate, and stop work or release when quality or mission-assurance requirements are at risk.\n• Maintain an independent quality escalation path to the QSS Chief Engineer and appropriate executive leadership.Configuration Management, Document Control, and Technical Data\n• Lead Configuration Management and Document Control as responsive service functions that enable teams to establish, maintain, and retrieve accurate technical baselines and records.\n• Own configuration-management policy and implementation for hardware and firmware, with a roadmap to expand coverage as software and integrated product needs mature.\n• Establish controlled processes for requirements, specifications, drawings, bills of material, firmware and software items, test evidence, calibration records, technical reports, customer deliverables, and other product-definition data.\n• Ensure configuration and document-control practices integrate effectively with Quality, Finance, Manufacturing, Supply Chain, program controls, and customer data requirements.Engineering Tools, Digital Workflows, and Knowledge Management\n• Serve as the engineering business-process owner for PLM, requirements management, design software, development issue tracking, and knowledge-management environments.\n• Define common workflows, data models, integrations, access patterns, governance, and adoption expectations across QSS business areas and sites.\n• Partner with IT as the technical system owner to implement reliable, secure, supportable, and usable engineering tools and integrations.\n• Lead tool rationalization and roadmap development, balancing enterprise standardization with legitimate discipline, program, customer, and regulatory needs.\n• Enable effective capture, reuse, and transfer of engineering knowledge, including standards, templates, libraries, design practices, review findings, and lessons learned.Laboratories, Technical Facilities, and Equipment\n• Lead laboratory operations across QSS and define the technical use, allocation, access, readiness, and evolution of shared engineering spaces, while Facilities retains responsibility for the physical space and building systems.\n• Own the lifecycle management of engineering equipment, including requirements, acquisition, configuration, calibration, preventive maintenance, scheduling, utilization, readiness, and retirement.\n• Develop coordinated laboratory, test, prototyping, and equipment roadmaps across business areas and geographic locations to reduce duplication, improve utilization, and enable future program and product needs.\n• Own consolidated capital-equipment planning and budget governance across engineering and manufacturing, while Engineering Operations and Manufacturing retain operational ownership of their respective equipment.\n• Partner with Facilities and EH&S to ensure laboratories, equipment, and technical work practices satisfy applicable safety, environmental, security, and operational requirements.Engineering Technical Security and Export-Controlled Data\n• Define engineering workflow, tool, access, collaboration, storage, transfer, and retention requirements for sensitive and export-controlled technical information.\n• Partner with IT, Legal, Trade Compliance, Security, and program leadership to ensure engineering systems and working practices are compliant, auditable, and practical for day-to-day use.\n• Ensure engineers understand and consistently apply requirements for handling controlled technical data across sites, programs, suppliers, partners, and customer interfaces.\n• Identify and resolve conflicts between engineering usability, collaboration needs, contractual restrictions, cybersecurity controls, and export-control requirements.Cross-Functional Leadership and Manufacturing Transition\n• Partner with Manufacturing, Quality, Supply Chain, Program Management, and technical leadership to define and continuously improve engineering-release and manufacturing-transition criteria.\n• Ensure major transition decisions consider product-definition maturity, configuration baselines, verification evidence, unresolved technical and quality risks, tooling and test readiness, material constraints, training, and post-transfer ownership.\n• Work closely with Execution and Staffing Operations to identify emerging capability needs, critical operational gaps, and priorities for hiring, development, partnering, or outsourcing.\n• Coordinate engineering operating practices across the United States, United Kingdom, and Australia, accounting for local regulatory, contractual, security, and operational needs while preserving common QSS expectations.\n• Provide leadership with clear visibility into systemic engineering risks, process health, quality performance, configuration integrity, laboratory readiness, equipment constraints, release quality, rework, and improvement priorities.Organizational Leadership\n• Build, lead, develop, and retain a high-performing Engineering Operations organization, initially including Quality, Configuration Management and Document Control, and Laboratory Operations.\n• Identify existing process and capability owners, clarify their authority and accountabilities, and integrate their work into a coherent QSS operating model.\n• Establish a culture of service, technical rigor, independent judgment, accountability, pragmatic compliance, continuous improvement, and constructive cross-functional partnership.\n• Develop leaders and subject-matter experts capable of scaling Engineering Operations practices across business areas, sites, and future enterprise applications.\nRequirements\n\n• Bachelor's degree in engineering, physics, computer science, or a related technical discipline.\n\n• Typically 12+ years of relevant experience in engineering leadership, systems engineering, engineering operations, quality, configuration management, or complex product development, including significant organizational leadership responsibility.\n\n• Demonstrated experience developing or operating engineering lifecycle processes from concept and prototype development through qualification, release, and manufacturing transition.\n\n• Experience establishing and governing major technical reviews, lifecycle gates, product baselines, engineering changes, and release-readiness decisions.\n\n• Strong working knowledge of quality-management systems used for complex hardware development and delivery, including AS9100, ISO 9001, or comparable regulated frameworks.\n\n• Experience with hardware and firmware configuration management, engineering document control, technical-data traceability, and change control.\n\n• Experience defining or improving engineering workflows across PLM, requirements management, design tools, issue tracking, and knowledge-management systems.\n\n• Demonstrated ability to apply process rigor proportionately across exploratory research, prototype development, qualification, and production environments.\n\n• Experience leading multidisciplinary enabling functions and influencing senior technical, program, manufacturing, quality, IT, legal, and business stakeholders without relying solely on direct authority.\n\n• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, sound judgment, and the ability to communicate risks, tradeoffs, requirements, and corrective actions to technical teams and executive leadership.\nPreferred Qualifications\n• Master's degree in engineering, systems engineering, operations, quality, or a related discipline.\n• Experience leading an organization through AS9100 certification or significant quality-system maturation.\n• Experience with precision electromechanical, optical, photonic, vacuum, RF, atomic, semiconductor, aerospace, defense, or other highly complex technical systems.\n• Experience in low-volume, high-complexity development and manufacturing environments with demanding performance, traceability, reliability, and customer-acceptance requirements.\n• Experience establishing laboratory operations, shared test capabilities, calibration programs, equipment roadmaps, and capital-planning processes across multiple business areas or sites.\n• Familiarity with export controls, controlled technical information, government contracting, customer cybersecurity requirements, and engineering tool environments supporting distributed international teams.\n• Experience integrating hardware, firmware, and software configuration practices and digital engineering workflows.\n• Demonstrated success transferring effective practices from high-priority programs into scalable organizational standards, tools, and training.\nBenefits\n\n Salary Range: per year 196k - 250k\n 100% company-paid medical, dental, vision, short/long-term disability \n Employer-funded Health Savings Account \n Unlimited PTO \n 401(k) match \n Company-paid Life and AD&D Insurance \n Flexible Savings Account \n Paid FMLA, Maternity/Paternity Leave \n Employee Assistance Program \n Student Loan Repayment \n Equity Program\n\nNotice to Recruitment Agencies:\nInfleqtion does not accept unsolicited resumes from agencies. Infleqtion is not responsible for any fees related to unsolicited resumes.