NextHop AI is hiring: Hardware Quality Lead in Santa Clara

Hardware Quality Lead

About the job

We are seeking a highly skilled and detail-oriented Product Quality Lead to join our team at Nexthop. As a voice of Quality, you will play a critical role in laying the foundation for ensuring the quality, reliability, and performance of network switches through defining quality matrices of our product line. You will work internally with our Engineering and Operations team and externally with manufacturing partner teams to establish and operate quality system mechanisms to guarantee that our products meet the highest standards.
You will be challenged with solving problems that have never been tackled, from inception thru scale.

The work also includes setting factory yield performance indicators to meet six sigma quality goals, pursuing a quality plan to meet release requirements for new product introduction through gate reviews, serve as a subject-matter authority on Hardware Quality Metrics, perform actionable data analysis to detect subtle trends and identify root causes to drive continuous improvement activities at the various supply chain nodes and increase customer satisfaction.

Key Responsibilities

1. Quality Assurance:
   • Collaborate with engineering teams to define and resolve quality issues during all phases of product development.
   • Conduct root cause analysis for failures and non-conformance and provide actionable feedback to improve the quality of products.
   • Monitor and track product performance metrics, including throughput, latency, reliability, and overall stability.
   • Lead manufacturing process development, ensuring data driven approach to high-quality and efficient manufacturing.
   • Implement DFx principles for SMT, PCB assembly, and mechanical assembly.
   • Optimize PCB manufacturing, including advanced PCB structures and large form-factor BGA components.
   • Establish control matrix for liquid cooling.
   • Oversee process validation, troubleshooting, and failure analysis.
2. Test Planning and Execution:
   • Design quality matrix for testing network switches, including functional, performance, and stress/reliability tests.
   • Provide recommendations for quality improvement and governance
   • Implement test plans and scenarios that cover various use cases, hardware configurations, and software environments.
3. Reporting and Documentation:
   • Create and maintain proper quality documentation, including test cases, test results, and tracking of defects through issue-tracking systems.
   • Provide feedback to engineering teams and ensure product defects are resolved before production.
   • Communicate proposals, strategies and status to the management team
   • Document business requirements and analyze data to provide appropriate metrics and performance KPIs to business users
   • Manage Engineering Change Orders (ECOs) and version/revision control.
   • Support New Product Introduction (NPI) from prototyping to mass production.
   • Utilize PLM system to track product lifecycles.
   • Ensure compliance with industry standards, IPC guidelines, and regulatory requirements.
4. Collaboration:
   • Work closely with external manufacturing partners and hardware teams to ensure smooth integration and compliance with quality standards.
   • Participate in design reviews, ensuring quality and performance benchmarks are met early in the development cycle.
5. Continuous Improvement:
   • Lead continuous improvement initiatives to enhance yield, cost efficiency, and quality.
   • Propose and implement improvements to the hardware integration process and methodologies based on lessons learned and emerging best practices.
   • Stay up to date with the latest network switch technologies, testing methodologies, and industry standards.
   • Coordinate the research, analysis and recommendations for technical approaches to solving customer issues related to quality and reliability.

Minimum Requirements

• Bachelor's degree in Manufacturing Engineering, Network Engineering or similar, specializing in SMT, PCB assembly, and DFM.
• 10+ Experience working on Hardware Quality management, Electrical design and Failure analysis on networking routers/switches.
• Solid understanding in performing root cause investigation, data analysis and presenting findings, closed loop corrective, preventative and risk mitigation actions to executives and business partners.
• Expertise in PLM systems and ECO processes.
• Background in debugging, troubleshooting, and failure analysis.

Soft Skills:.

• Ability to work independently as well as in a team-oriented environment.
• "Outmaneuver the competition" by data driven solutions
• Excellent communication skills, both written and verbal.
• Attention to detail and a strong commitment to delivering high-quality results.

Why Join Us?:

• Work in an innovative and dynamic environment where your contributions directly impact the quality of cutting-edge network products.
• Opportunity for career growth and advancement in a leading technology company.
• Competitive compensation and benefits package.