About the role
Join ZeroPhase as our first Operations, Supplier & Quality Manager. You'll lead all operational activities related to manufacturing, supplier management, and product certification. You'll be responsible for building and managing our supply chain, ensuring production readiness, quality excellence, and compliance with industry standards.
You will own the path from prototype to series production: standing up suppliers, building the quality system, qualifying parts, and shipping hardware that performs in the field on day one.
What you'll do
- Build the supply chain. Identify, qualify, and onboard suppliers across PCB, RF, mechanical and EMS. Negotiate terms, manage lead times, and own the BOM.
- Stand up production. Design the production flow with our EMS partner. Build first-article inspection, AOI/ICT plans, and FAI / PPAP documentation.
- Own quality. Set up the QMS (ISO 9001 baseline, AS9100 path). Drive root-cause analysis on field returns. Close the loop with engineering.
- Drive certification. Plan and execute CE, FCC, MIL-STD-810 testing campaigns. Manage the documentation and external partners.
- Hire and grow the team. Build the operations function from one to many. Define roles for procurement, quality engineering, and production support.
What we're looking for
- 5+ years shipping electronics hardware at scale, ideally in defence, aerospace, automotive, or another regulated high-reliability sector.
- Hands-on supplier management. You have walked production lines, run FAIs, and held a vendor accountable through a yield issue.
- Quality systems fluency. ISO 9001 you can recite from memory; bonus for AS9100, IPC-A-610 Class 3, or military spec experience.
- Operator's mindset. You'd rather fix the problem in person than write a memo about it. Comfortable in Munich, comfortable on a plant floor in Eastern Europe or Asia.
- Mission alignment. You believe sovereign European hardware is necessary and you want to build it.
Bonus: not required
- Experience with RF / SDR / antenna hardware production.
- Direct experience with German / EU export control (BAFA, ITAR-equivalent).
- German language, written and spoken.
How the hiring process works
- Intro call. 30 minutes with our recruiting team. We'll learn about your background, and you'll learn about the mission.
- Deep dive. A working session with one of our technical experts on a real operations problem: supply chain, quality, or certification.
- Case study, in Munich. A visit to the office to work through a live sourcing or quality scenario with the team, in person if you can make it or over Teams if you can't.
- The offer. By now you've likely already met our CEO. This round is where we make it official: fast, transparent, and built around the mission.