Senior Corporate Quality Engineer

Your role: 

The Presto Products Senior Corporate Quality Engineer provides enterprise level quality leadership to ensure that manufacturing sites and strategic suppliers consistently meet or exceed customer and food safety expectations. This role is accountable for designing, improving, and sustaining robust quality systems across multiple facilities and supplier partners, serving as a subject matter expert for quality engineering, statistical methods, and GFSI standards.

The Senior Corporate Quality Engineer leads complex problem solving and continuous improvement initiatives, mentors plant and corporate quality resources, and drives systemic corrective and preventive actions with measurable impact on complaint reduction, scrap, and process capability. This includes full lifecycle quality management of suppliers of components and finished goods, from qualification through ongoing performance management and escalation.

You will have the opportunity to Make Great Things Happen!

• Owns the supplier quality management program for assigned categories, ensuring specifications are clear, robust, and aligned with customer and food safety requirements.
• Leads qualification of new products and suppliers, including risk assessments, capability evaluations, and approval recommendations for senior leadership.
• Establishes and maintains supplier performance dashboards, defines key metrics (complaints, PPM, OTIF, audit scores, CPK), and conducts monthly reviews with internal stakeholders and suppliers.
• Partners with key suppliers to design and implement process control plans, capability improvements, and structured complaint reduction roadmaps, including formal improvement charters.
• Reviews vendor products and components at an expert level, providing insight into their quality, performance, and fitness for use, and recommending design or specification changes where appropriate.
• Applies advanced statistical methods to analyze test data and process performance, draws fact based conclusions, and uses that knowledge to drive systemic quality improvement at manufacturing locations and suppliers.
• Leads and facilitates cross functional root cause investigations for significant customer complaints and internal quality events, using tools such as 8D, 5-Why, and FMEA, and ensures timely, verified closure of corrective and preventive actions.
• Oversees AQL product inspection strategies, defines sampling plans, coordinates inspections, and publishes clear audit results and trend reports to stakeholders.
• Strengthens corporate and plant quality systems by planning and executing timely internal audits, management system health checks, and formal gap assessments; leads implementation of improvements.
• Owns or co-owns key corporate quality procedures and documentation, ensuring they remain compliant with customer, regulatory, and business requirements and are consistently deployed across locations.
• Collaborates with Quality Departments at multiple facilities to harmonize practices, standardize methods, and ensure effective transfer of best practices and lessons learned.
• Provides coaching, mentoring, and technical guidance to plant quality engineers, technicians, and other cross functional partners; supports development of quality talent and succession.
• In locations where applicable, responsible to comply with GFSI standards, prerequisite programs, and GMP practices to ensure food safety requirements are met, and to report potential food safety concerns to those with authority to take action.
• Supports customer facing quality activities, including key customer visits, audits, and technical reviews, and presents quality performance and improvement plans confidently to external stakeholders.

Location:

Appleton, WI location is strongly preferred.  Other Presto locations (Lake Forest, IL; Carrollton, TX; Lewiston, UT; South Boston, VA) will be considered. 

You will love it here if… 

• You put safety first, always.
• You listen, learn, and evolve.
• You are passionate about collaboration, teamwork, and achieving shared goals.
• You treat all people with respect, operating ethically, and embrace inclusivity.
• You are committed to improving our impact on local communities.

We need you to have: 

• BS in Engineering or related technical field required.
• Lean Six Sigma Black Belt or Green Belt certification strongly preferred.
• ASQ certifications (CQE, CQA, CSSBB, or similar) preferred.
• Minimum 10 years of progressive experience in Quality Engineering, Quality Management, or closely related roles in manufacturing environments.
• Demonstrated track record leading complex quality investigations, driving measurable complaint reduction, and improving process capability across multiple lines, products, or sites.
• Experience managing or heavily influencing supplier quality programs, including qualification, audits, and performance management, strongly preferred.
• Some experience with BRCGS or other GFSI food safety standards, including audit preparation, corrective actions, and maintaining certification.
• Expert level proficiency with quality tools such as Corrective Action, Root Cause Analysis, FMEA, Control Plans, SPC, and risk based thinking.
• Strong statistical knowledge with hands on experience using Minitab or equivalent tools to analyze process capability, CPK, DOE, and other advanced methods.
• Proven ability to influence cross functional teams and stakeholders at all levels, including suppliers and customers, without direct authority.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, including the ability to build executive level presentations and translate complex technical data into clear business implications.
• Demonstrated ability to operate in a fast paced, ambiguous environment and to balance strategic initiatives with tactical problem solving.
• Strong organizational skills with high attention to detail and disciplined follow through on commitments.
• Proficient in MS Office and familiar with ERP, QMS, and data visualization tools.
• Ability to travel up to 30 percent, sometimes on short notice, to manufacturing facilities and supplier locations.

Icing on the cake: 

• Advanced degree in Engineering, Quality, or related field preferred.

If you answer yes to the following…we want to meet you!

• Intellectual Curiosity: Do you have an inquisitive nature?
• Problem Solving: Do you have a knack for tackling issues head-on? 
• Entrepreneurship: Do you enjoy taking ownership of your work?
• Customer Centricity: Do you always act in the best interests of the customer, putting their needs first? 
• Growth Mindset: Do you focus on progress rather than perfection?
• Continuous Improvement: Are you never satisfied with the status quo?