Project Quality Manager III Helena, MT

A Project Quality Manager III directs quality across a program or a portfolio of capital projects for the owner or EPC: establishing the quality management system the projects run under, directing Project Quality Managers, setting the supplier and contractor qualification standards, representing the client in regulatory and third-party audits, and reporting quality performance to executive leadership. On programs run under NQA-1, API, or DOT quality frameworks, you are the qualified quality authority.

Responsibilities: Establish and maintain the program quality management system, procedures, and audit program; Direct Project Quality Managers across projects; set standards, review performance, and develop staff; Own supplier and contractor qualification, the approved vendor list, and quality requirements in procurement; Represent the client in regulatory, certification, and third-party audits; own corrective-action closure; Report quality performance, risk, and cost of quality to executive leadership.

Qualifications: 10+ years in quality on capital projects, with 5+ years directing quality programs and staff; ASQ CMQ-OE or CQA, and ISO 9001 lead auditor; NQA-1 lead auditor qualification a strong plus; Experience as the quality authority on regulated programs (nuclear, energy, transportation, or federal); Executive-level communication and the judgment to stop work when the record demands it.

What a week in this job looks like: The week is the system and the people: an audit-program review with your Project Quality Managers, a supplier qualification decision that procurement is waiting on, a regulator's audit finding that needs a root cause and an executive-level answer, and the quarterly quality report that tells leadership what the numbers mean. The field visits you make are deliberate - to see whether the system you built is the one being followed. You also carry the program's institutional standard: when a project team wants to accept a nonconformance to hold schedule, the decision and its documentation are yours.

Certifications, training, and where this leads: Project Quality Manager III is a senior leadership seat. The path from here is director of quality for the practice, or a client-embedded program quality director role on the large programs you already serve.

Pay, schedule, and travel: Pay runs $140,000 to $175,000 depending on certifications held, verified experience, and the program you are assigned to. The rhythm follows the project's audit and milestone calendar more than the daily pour schedule: surveillance and audits are planned weeks ahead, and turnover pushes the pace at the end. Texas positions are dispatched from the Sugar Land headquarters; project-site positions elsewhere are staffed on a project basis with travel and per diem as assigned, and the listing for your city says which one it is.

Safety, quality, and the standards we work under: Owner-side quality work is performed under the client's quality management system and our own documented AASHTO R18 quality system, with the independence that surveillance and audit require. Findings are reported as found; the record is not negotiated. You will spend real time on the difficult conversations - with contractors about rejected records, with suppliers about disqualification, and with project leadership about what accepting a nonconformance actually costs.