Director of Quality Operations & Strategic Initiatives

Anduril Industries is a defense technology company with a mission to transform U.S. and allied military capabilities with advanced technology. By bringing the expertise, technology, and business model of the 21st century’s most innovative companies to the defense industry, Anduril is changing how military systems are designed, built and sold. Anduril’s family of systems is powered by Lattice OS, an AI-powered operating system that turns thousands of data streams into a realtime, 3D command and control center. As the world enters an era of strategic competition, Anduril is committed to bringing cutting-edge autonomy, AI, computer vision, sensor fusion, and networking technology to the military in months, not years.

ABOUT THE ROLE

The Director of Quality Operations & Strategic Initiatives is a senior leader within the Quality organization responsible for driving critical cross-functional execution, organizational maturity, compliance readiness, and recovery of high-risk operational or program-quality issues.  

This role serves as a trusted extension of the VP of Quality and is deployed where the organization needs immediate clarity, structure, accountability, and sustained execution.  

The position is intentionally broad and is designed for a high-capability utility leader who can step into ambiguity, stabilize underperforming areas, improve leader and team effectiveness, resolve cross-functional breakdowns, and build the systems and operating rhythms required for scale.  

WHAT YOU’LL DO 

• Strengthen the execution model of the Quality organization.  

• Improve organizational capability and leadership effectiveness.  

• Lead high-priority strategic initiatives on behalf of the Quality executive.  

• Intervene in at-risk teams, programs, suppliers, or leadership situations where quality performance is off track.  

• Ensure strong compliance execution across operational and program environments.  

• Create repeatable systems, governance, and accountability mechanisms that allow the organization to scale effectively.  

• Lead development and deployment of the Quality organization’s operating model.  

• Establish management systems, execution disciplines, standard work, escalation pathways, and decision frameworks.  

• Improve how Quality functions operate across business lines, sites, and central teams.  

• Standardize mechanisms for prioritization, resource deployment, issue management, metric review, and cross-functional action closure.  

• Own special projects and strategic initiatives assigned by the VP of Quality.  

• Translate executive intent into actionable workstreams, milestones, owners, metrics, and governance.  

• Stand up new systems, tools, frameworks, or operating mechanisms to solve persistent organizational issues.  

• Assess organization structure, talent alignment, role clarity, capability gaps, and leadership effectiveness across the Quality organization.  

• Develop role charters, organizational interfaces, RACI models, escalation models, and management system expectations.  

• Coach leaders on execution discipline, communication, accountability, and performance management.  

• Lead or coordinate high-priority compliance readiness and recovery efforts across the organization.  

• Support preparation for customer, regulatory, third-party, and internal audits or assessments.  

• Identify gaps between documented processes and actual execution, then drive corrective action and closure.  

• Provide senior-level intervention on critical programs experiencing quality, supplier, launch, or readiness risk.  

• Support program teams in structuring quality plans, risk controls, escalation paths, and action closure mechanisms.  

• Drive resolution of high-severity quality issues affecting cost, schedule, production readiness, field performance, or customer trust.