Director of Operations & Compliance, Quality

This role exists to ensure that quality is not just measured—but embedded, operationalized, and elevated across the enterprise. As a strategic and confidential thought partner to the VP of Quality, your mission is to multiply your leader’s impact on the organization through clarity, execution, and alignment. You’ll guide the implementation of contractual standards, build governance where none exists, and bridge cross-functional gaps with both precision and empathy. This is a role for someone who earns trust, reduces noise, and turns ambiguity into executable clarity.

You serve as the executive amplifier and strategic integrator for the VP of Quality—ensuring that intent becomes action, and action scales across teams.
Internal to the Quality Team

• Support the VP of Quality in the extent, capacity, and focus desired—adapting to evolving priorities and organizational needs
• Support the Quality team leaders and division members in execution of their responsibilities to maximize efficiency and quality output of the Division’s responsibilities.
• Build and reinforce internal delivery rhythms to drive team alignment, issue resolution, and program success
• Develop and track internal KPIs and OKRs that reflect execution fidelity, stakeholder satisfaction, and risk posture
• Lead cross-team initiatives that require executive sponsorship, frontline coordination, and zero drop-off in accountability
• Support organizational design and structure within the Quality function, ensuring roles, workflows, and reporting lines are optimized for scale
• Participate in QBRs and leadership planning cadences, owning content creation and presentation materials for or on behalf of the VP of Quality for attendees of QBR
• Drive relationship-building across managers and their teams, fostering mutual ownership of KPI/OKR adoption, performance culture, and program momentum
• Champion cross-functional training opportunities and enablement, embedding quality and compliance fluency throughout partner functions
• Provide Governance and Strategic oversight of DCMA lead and DCMA compliance program to ensure alignment of contractual obligations of evolving federal mandates.
• Coordinate, communicate, and facilitate—serving as the heartbeat of the Quality team and the connective tissue across the organization
• Take on special projects that fall outside traditional swim lanes, acting as the go-to problem solver for ambiguous or high-impact challenges

• Translate contractual quality requirements into tactical implementation plans across Engineering, Production, and Legal (LCBA)
• Coordinate scheduling of deliverables aligned to program timelines and enforce quality accountability checkpoints
• Support DCMA lead’s cross function outreach and buy-in efforts in the establishment and on-going execution of the DCMA compliance program.
• Validate effectiveness of DCMA lead’s implementation, execution, and monitoring of all cross functional inputs required for DCMA response, compliance and success.
• Design and maintain governance cadences to measure, report, and iterate on contract compliance progress
• Drive KPI and OKR development across divisions, tying operational performance directly to contractual obligations
• Act as a connective leader between Quality and Production, fostering alignment, shared ownership, and a culture of proactive problem-solving

• Enable early engagement on customer programs to support initial customer assurance requirements for quality and competitiveness.
• Design and implement remedial frameworks with consolidated schedules graduated by cost of non-compliance, bringing current-state execution into alignment with contractual intent
• Track readiness and compliance maturity over time, surfacing early signals and aligning functions around scalable interventions

• Roadmaps and annual goals are defined, tracked, and achieved across Engineering, Production, Legal, and Quality, with this role serving as the connective tissue
• Quarterly governance reviews are transformed into strategic stress-testing forums, with content owned and delivered by this role to attendees of QBR
• Increase execution velocity by 20% or more by establishing cross-functional alignment, implementing a structured operating cadence, and systematically identifying and removing operational roadblocks.
• Contractual quality standards are implemented and tracked across 50+ active agreements, with compliance maturity visibly improving quarter over quarter
• KPI and OKR adoption and performance reporting are embedded into partner functions, supported by relationship-driven enablement and cross-training initiatives
• DCMA compliance is achieved through DCMA Head and Team’s creation of program, implementation, training, routine execution, and reporting of performance.
• Stakeholders describe this role as the “force multiplier” for the VP of Quality, known for coordinating, communicating, and facilitating outcomes that stick

• Proven track record of operational transformation and strategic execution in complex, regulated industries. Demonstrated ability to build systems from scratch, operationalize contract requirements, and align diverse stakeholders across legal, engineering, and production landscapes
• Bachelor’s degree in Engineering or similar technical field with 5-10 years of Operational experience leading or supporting teams with direct operational development oversight.
• Experience in Engineering, Manufacturing, or Quality in aircraft product making and complex production process management
• Strong communication and stakeholder management skills, with a bias toward action and measurable outcomes
• 10+ years of working experience with a consulting, operations, finance, product management, or general business analysis role.
• Strong emotional intelligence and ability to solve operational problems not only from a data driven lens, but also in a people-centric way by building strong cross functional relationships across the company and within the hardware engineering organization.
• Combination ability to execute on a tactical level as well as put together a strategy to solve complex, ambiguous, cross-functional problems. You are comfortable rolling up your sleeves and diving deep into executing operational tasks that require high attention to detail and high organization skills, but you can also zoom out at a 30,000 foot level to create a strategy that solves high level problems for the org and the company.
• High ownership with the horsepower to juggle multiple (3-5+) large projects and priorities in parallel, at a rapid pace, and report out on progress regularly without dropping any balls.
• Discerning and an incredibly fast learner
• Ability to obtain and hold a US Top Secret clearance is preferred