Director of Supply Chain Quality

ABOUT HALTER At Halter, we’re on a mission to enable farmers and graziers to run the most productive and sustainable operations. Our customers are using Halter to break free from the time-intensive constraints of conventional practices. Imagine watching 500 cattle stand up and walk calmly towards their next break? No quad bikes, no dogs, no fences. Just a group of cattle walking at their own pace. People say it looks like magic. Our customers are revolutionizing grazing with Halter. It's changing lives and transforming an industry. People join Halter to do meaningful work. By joining us you’ll be solving challenging problems within a talented team and a culture built for high performance. Our team out-think, out-work and out-care. We’re committed to delivering real change in the world - this isn’t easy, and in truth, we love that it’s hard. We’re backed to deliver on a mission that matters by Tier 1 investors including Founders Fund https://foundersfund.com, Bessemer Venture Partners https://www.bvp.com/, BOND, https://www.bondcap.com/ DCVC https://www.dcvc.com/, Blackbird https://www.blackbird.vc/, Promus Ventures https://www.promusventures.com/, Rocket Lab’s Peter Beck and Icehouse ventures https://www.icehouseventures.co.nz/?utm_term=icehouse%20ventures&utm_campaign=Brand+Keywords&utm_source=adwords&utm_medium=ppc&hsa_acc=4064636360&hsa_cam=16902737884&hsa_grp=134004309485&hsa_ad=592971340272&hsa_src=g&hsa_tgt=kwd-1082530126230&hsa_kw=icehouse%20ventures&hsa_mt=b&hsa_net=adwords&hsa_ver=3&gclid=Cj0KCQjw2v-gBhC1ARIsAOQdKY0J0DepRVFDmjQlAkJPbZuQnLSA5UVzUzOXYiPxkjX-SeVa513_BhkaAr-MEALw_wcB. To find out more, visit our LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/company/halter-limited & Instagram https://www.instagram.com/lifeathalter/. The Role Halter builds hardware that works in some of the most demanding environments on earth. The quality of what we ship matters enormously, to the farmers who depend on it every day and to the mission we're on. As we scale into multiple products and higher volumes, we need someone to own quality across the full supply chain and build it into a genuine competitive advantage. The Director of Supply Chain Quality owns Halter's end-to-end quality function, based at our Auckland HQ. You'll lead two teams: a Supplier Quality team that owns quality at our component suppliers from pre-selection auditing through to ongoing part approval, and a Contract Manufacturing Quality team that owns incoming, in-process, and outgoing quality at our contract manufacturers. Together they form a quality system with clear accountability and no gaps. A critical part of this role is owning Halter's quality assurance specifications, developed and maintained in collaboration with the Supplier Quality team, the Contract Manufacturing Quality team, and the hardware design team. These specs are the backbone of the quality system. Getting them right and keeping them current is what makes everything else work. You'll set the quality strategy, develop your team leaders and their teams, own the quality framework across the supply chain, and be the escalation point when quality issues arise at the boundary between supplier and CM. You'll work closely with hardware engineering, operations, and sourcing to ensure quality is designed in and not just inspected for. This is not a documentation role. The best quality leaders get into the detail. They visit suppliers, they walk the production line, they dig into the data behind a failure mode, and they develop a sharp instinct for what actually drives quality outcomes versus what just adds paperwork. We want someone who is technically curious, comfortable getting their hands dirty, and able to distinguish between a process that genuinely improves quality and one that exists to say it exists. You'll be measured on product quality, supplier and CM quality performance, and your ability to build a quality function that scales with Halter's growth. What You'll Do Leadership and Team Development - Lead and develop the Supplier Quality and Contract Manufacturing Quality teams, setting clear direction, holding a high bar, and developing strong people in both functions. - Build the culture of the quality function: rigorous, fast-moving, low bureaucracy, and deeply connected to the engineering and operations teams. - Set clear accountability between the two teams and own the interface between them, ensuring the handoff between supplier OQC and CM IQC is well-governed and issues at the boundary are resolved quickly. Quality Assurance Specifications - Own the development and ongoing maintenance of Halter's quality assurance specifications, working across the Supplier Quality team, the Contract Manufacturing Quality team, and the hardware design team to ensure specs reflect current design intent and are correctly implemented across the supply chain. - Ensure QA specs are the single source of truth for what quality standards are required at suppliers and at our CMs, and that they are kept current as products evolve. - Define the governance model for how QA specs are reviewed, approved, and updated, and ensure all three teams are aligned on the process. Quality Strategy and Systems - Own Halter's quality management system across the supply chain, ensuring it is fit for purpose, consistently applied, and evolves as the business scales. - Build the quality metrics and reporting that give leadership a clear and honest picture of quality performance across suppliers and contract manufacturers. - Lead root cause analysis and corrective action on significant quality escapes, ensuring lessons are captured and systemic issues are fixed rather than managed. - Collaborate with the Operations Delivery Lead and Head of Supply Chain Strategy to ensure quality risks are visible early in NPI programmes and sustaining activities. What You Bring - Significant experience leading quality functions in a hardware or electronics manufacturing environment, ideally sp