Quality Assurance Manager – Defence & Aerospace

About the role

Thales Portugal is looking for a Quality Assurance Manager to lead quality, operational excellence and continuous improvement across complex defence and aerospace projects and products. You will work with multidisciplinary teams to ensure compliance with quality processes, governance and international standards.

Key responsibilities

• Support critical bids, projects and products by ensuring compliance with quality processes, governance and applicable standards.
• Coach and support multidisciplinary teams in applying quality management practices and improving process maturity throughout the project lifecycle.
• Provide independent quality assessments and report operational performance to project and senior management.
• Identify risks, opportunities and improvement actions to strengthen project execution and organisational maturity.
• Collaborate with engineering, project management, product teams, customers and Government Quality Assurance Representatives.
• Perform quality reviews, audits and internal assessments, supporting root‑cause analysis and continuous‑improvement initiatives.
• Promote quality awareness, operational excellence and best practices across the organisation.
• Contribute to the continuous improvement and deployment of the Quality Management System.

Required profile

• Bachelor's or Master's degree in Engineering, Computer Science, Business Management or a related technical field.
• Experience in Quality Assurance within complex engineering, software or high‑tech environments.
• Good knowledge of Quality Management Systems and international standards, particularly ISO 9001:2015.
• Familiarity with defence quality standards such as AQAPs and STANAGs is an advantage.
• Understanding of project management, quality planning, reviews, risk management and continuous‑improvement methodologies.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills in English.
• Proactive, adaptable and collaborative mindset, with the ability to work effectively in multicultural and multidisciplinary environments.

Required skills

• Agile
• Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe)