Lead Quality Control Engineer

Team: Portfolio Company: Halo Materials

Location: Albuquerque, New Mexico

Commitment: Full-Time

Workplace Type: onsite

About the Role

Halo Materials is seeking a Lead Quality Control Engineer to work closely with the CTO to build and scale our materials quality function from the ground up. This is not a maintenance role — it’s a build-it role. You’ll design the processes, tools, and infrastructure that ensure our materials perform consistently from lab experimentation through full production scale.

As a key technical leader within our startup environment, you’ll bridge R&D and manufacturing, creating scalable quality systems that move as fast as we do. If you’re excited by ambiguity, ownership, and building something foundational, this role is for you. 

This is a hands-on technical leadership position for someone who thrives in deep tech environments and can move seamlessly between lab bench execution, internal process development, and understanding external customer requirements.

Key Responsibilities

• Design and implement scalable processes to collect, manage, and analyze experimental and production data.

• Build and lead the development of our materials quality assurance function, establishing standards, workflows, and documentation systems. Drive the scale-up of these QA systems from lab-stage validation to production-line integration.

• Evaluate and deploy hardware and software tools to accelerate materials characterization. Explore and implement AI-enabled solutions where appropriate to improve speed, consistency, and insight generation.

• Lead cross-functional initiatives bridging R&D, engineering, and production teams.

• Translate complex technical findings into clear insights for both technical and non-technical stakeholders.

Qualifications

• B.S. in Chemical Engineering, Materials Engineering, or closely related field

• 5+ years of research laboratory or industry experience in materials characterization and/or quality assurance.

• Proven experience leading complex, cross-functional projects — ideally spanning lab environments and industrial scale-up.

• Strong analytical and strategic thinking skills with the ability to execute tactically.

• Exceptional organizational skills and attention to detail.

• Excellent written and verbal communication skills across technical and non-technical audiences.

• Technical literacy in engineering, materials science, or chemical processes.

Nice to Have:

• Experience in adjacent industries where similar high-temperature, catalytic, carbon, or materials growth processes are used — such as petrochemicals, advanced ceramics, specialty chemicals, battery materials, semiconductors, metallurgy, or industrial gas processing.

• Experience with government grants, compliance reporting, or lab buildouts.

What We Look For (Beyond the Resume)

• A track record of execution — how you design experiments, make decisions with imperfect data, and drive results matters as much as where you’ve worked.

• Comfort operating in both research and production environments; experience in one or both is valuable, but your ability to move science toward application is what counts.

• Ownership mentality with high accountability and curiosity.

• Grit, resilience, and an ability to turn ambiguity into actionable next steps.

• Entrepreneurial speed balanced with technical discipline.