Principal Quality Engineer

About the job

Principal Quality Engineer
Full-time
Salary: £52,293 (inclusive of MPP) + excellent benefits including outstanding pension
Site Location: Yorkshire (Rotherham) with an occasional visit to Culham i.e. once a month
Confirmed Grade: Level 5
Department: QSHE

Company Description

By 2050, the planet could be using twice as much electricity compared to today. Are you interested in contributing and helping to shape the future of the world’s energy? If so, read on.

Fusion, the process that powers the Sun and Stars, is one of the most promising options for generating the cleaner, carbon-free energy that our world badly needs.

UKAEA leads the way in realising fusion energy, partnering with industry and research for groundbreaking advancements. Our goal is to bring fusion electricity to the grid, supported by tomorrow's power stations. In pursuit of our mission, UKAEA embraces core values: Innovative, Committed, Trusted, and Collaborative.

As an employee of UKAEA, you will benefit from:

- Outstanding defined benefit pension scheme, details of which can be found at the end of this advert.
- Corporate bonus scheme of up to 7% and a Relocation allowance (if eligible).
- Flexible working options including family friendly policies.
- Employee Assistance Programme and trained Mental Health First Aiders.
- Generous annual leave allowance starting with 25 days, plus 3 days Christmas closure and 2.5 privilege days, in addition to UK bank holidays.
- Wide range of career development opportunities.
- A vibrant culture committed to equality and being fully inclusive.

This role requires employees to complete an online Baseline Personnel Security Standard (BPSS), including The Disclosure & Barring Service (DBS) checks for criminal convictions.

Salary: £46,293 (+ £6,000 MPP) 

Job Description

The Role

Are you looking for an exciting opportunity to make a difference? Join our team and contribute to the future of fusion energy.

You will be working within quite a small but highly skilled team at Rotherham.

As the Principal Quality Engineer, you will play a pivotal role in acting as the lead for the quality-related project and operational activity and following UKAEA’s Project Management Processes, whilst producing and maintaining required project documentation in compliance with Quality Assurance requirements.

You will also be developing Project Quality Management Plans covering both tangible manufactured items and information/documentation/skills.

Primarily, on-site presence is required at our Rotherham facility, as the wider Quality team is based in Culham, so you will need to be comfortable as the stand-alone Quality representative in Rotherham, whilst regularly reporting back to the Quality management hierarchy.

You will play a key part in the delivery of the CHIMERA programme. It is a unique world-first facility in which we will be able to simulate the extreme conditions found within a fusion power plant, but without any nuclear reactions taking place.

You will need experience of managing quality assurance/control inspections within a workshop and/or manufacturing environment and be able to clearly outline expectations whilst fostering effective working arrangements with external contractors to ensure services are delivered without delay.

Additional Responsibilities:

- Driving and supporting the development of project-specific QA/QC supplier quality requirement specifications. 
- Ensuring all product requirements, specifications and designs include suitable and effective quality criteria. 
- Establishing product test procedures, control plans and inspection and Test Plans. 
- Planning and managing inspections and surveillance activities on-site and at suppliers to verify product quality. 
- Reviewing of sub-contractor documentation.

Travel to external providers and other UKAEA sites will be required. 

Qualifications

Essential Requirements:

- A degree or equivalent in an engineering/science discipline (or equivalent experience).
- Knowledge and experience of ISO9001 based quality management systems. 
- Experience of the full project lifecycle from manufacturing, through Engineering /procurement contractor/construction to operations is preferable. 
- Good understanding of NDT - MPI, DPI, UT & RAD.
- Proficient in specifying Lifetime Quality Records content and approval of final packs. 
- Internal and external auditing. 
- Witnessing of FAT & SAT. 
- Excellent interpersonal skills to enable effective working relationships to be developed with people in a wide range of roles and levels of responsibility.
- A proactive approach.

Additional Information

For a full list of benefits and to apply, select the apply button to be taken through to the UKAEA careers pages.

We welcome applications from under-represented groups, particularly individuals from black and other ethnic minority backgrounds, people with disabilities, and women. Our Executive team, supported by our 'Equality, Diversity and Inclusion' (EDI) Partner and Inclusion Ambassadors, actively promotes EDI and takes steps to increase diversity within our organisation. We reinforce best practices in recruitment and selection and evaluate approaches to remove barriers to success.

Please note that vacancies are generally advertised for 4 weeks but may close earlier if we receive a large number of applications.