Director of Quality and Reliability

About Erthos (www.erthos.com)

Erthos is an energy technology company dedicated to providing the world’s lowest-cost green energy. Creator of Earth Mount Solar™ PV, a revolutionary approach to utility-scale solar that dramatically reduces land and material requirements, Erthos has also developed highly innovative breakthrough technologies, as yet unannounced, that promise to change the way entire industries make and use clean fuel.

Erthos has adopted a highly focused, yet flexible strategy to introduce our products and services to markets around the world, beginning with the US. Our success relies on hiring the best and brightest people for every role in the company, and then collectively focusing them on our mission to deliver the world’s lowest-cost clean energy to everyone on the planet.

For more information on Erthos — including leadership profiles, white papers, news articles, and details about how our technology works — visit the company website at www.erthos.com.

Position Summary

The Director of Quality & Reliability will build a best-in-class Quality Management System (QMS) and spearhead reliability and compliance validation activities for Erthos’s new products and systems.

By employing systematic engineering methods, you will strive for comprehensive functional deployment of our technologies. Your role will involve ensuring our products meet industry-leading standards through the development, documentation, and execution of quality and reliability procedures and best practices. You will be responsible for developing the tools, methods, and processes that Erthos uses to deliver world-class reliability with our Earth Mount Solar™ technology.

You will be tasked with building a Design for Reliability (DfR) function that is highly integrated with the product design teams which include third party partners and supply chain best practices for ensuring reliability, traceability, and product feature deployment. In your role as a cross-cultural leader, your responsibility will be to establish a culture of continuous improvement, ensuring that quality is ingrained in our products and systems to facilitate an optimal customer experience. You will oversee all aspects of the reliability function from design collaboration with physics of failure consideration, to manufacturing quality assurance with ownership of end-to-end life-cycle costs, including field failure investigation and Root Cause Analysis (RCAs).

Key Responsibilities

• Develop and implement a QMS that addresses supplier quality, field quality, and focuses on Design for Quality (DfQ) initiatives for internally developed products.
• Develop and implement a robust Stage Gate development process for product design, qualification and release that includes full life cycle considerations and is managed through robust requirements planning.
• Develop and execute reliability test plans, informed by comprehensive mission profile and Design Failure Mode Effects and Analysis (DFMEA), covering all systems and components with nimble processes requiring limited resources from stakeholders.

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• Enable an appropriate Failure Reporting, Analysis, and Corrective Action System (FRACAS) program for scale and growth.
• Exercise independent judgment and management skills to establish budget, resource plan, Stage Gate planning, and promote an inclusionary environment where all risk concerns are documented and addressed.   
• Lead DFMEA, test planning, design of experiments (DOE), test prioritization and execution.
• Support the development of high-quality technical documentation for internal and external consumption to enable and support product and project bankability.
• Act as an agent of the company with suppliers, finance partners and customers, embodying the Erthos brand as synonymous with unwavering quality and reliability.
• Lead all reliability and compliance validation activities, ensuring product performance and regulatory adherence.
• Oversee budgeted spend and deliverables for all internal and third party product qualification and testing.
• Develop and lead an approved vendor quality qualification process with an emphasis on functional deployment.
• Utilize traditional reliability engineering tools and software to quantify, measure, and track both system and component reliability.
• Constantly liaise with teams across the company to ensure a cohesive approach to product quality and reliability.
• Accelerate Erthos’s road to scale by rigorously testing, documenting, and educating internal and external stakeholders on QMS, DfR and DfQ processes.

Skills & Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in engineering or related field; advanced degree preferred.
• 15+ years in QMS and reliability functions.
• 10+ years of experience (5+ in a leadership role).
• 10+ years of experience in renewable energy, solar, and/or battery technology.
• Proficient in FMEA, MTTF calculation, reliability modeling, testing, and certification requirements.

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• Knowledge of quality processes and programs.
• Demonstrated experience in vendor onboarding, auditing, and quality compliance.
• Demonstrable knowledge in design for reliability and design for maintenance.
• Solid engineering background with hands-on experience in product development.
• Strong leadership skills with the ability to guide, mentor, and grow a team.
• Experience with complex systems involving chemical, material, mechanical and electrical failure modes.
• Experience spanning design to manufacturing, building science, solar technology, design, development, and project/program management.
• Relentless leader who actively advocates for and champions world-class product quality and reliability practices.

Location and Travel Requirements

This role can be performed effectively via a fully remote or hybrid work set up. However, all candidates must be able to travel when requested for vendor visits, industry events, corporate R&D activities, and occasionally, to solar sites. Travel is not expected to exceed 25%, but all candidates must be willing and able to hop on a flight if and when the need arises. 

Compensation and Benefits

• Base salary will be commensurate with the level of relevant experience that you bring to this role. We are targeting a base salary of up to approximately $175,000.
• Stock options granted to all employees.
• Annual bonus potential.
• Erthos pays 90% of all medical, dental and vision insurance premiums for its employees and their spouse and children.
• Flexible Paid Time Off (PTO). 
• 401(k)