Sr Manager - Technical Quality

About the role

The Sr Manager of Technical Quality is a hybrid between Operations and Quality — a technical fixer who partners with R&D, co-manufacturers, and internal ops to establish rigorous process controls before production starts. You are not running lines. You are engineering the conditions under which lines cannot fail. You will own the transition of Ryze’s quality culture from reactive and documentation-heavy to proactive and preventative — working directly with co-manufacturers to close capability gaps, supporting the buildout of our internal lab and sensory program, and leading the technical due diligence for new manufacturing partnerships.

Responsibilities

• Build Ryze’s Preventative Quality System — Establish upstream guardrails — process controls, ingredient acceptance criteria, and pre-production validation protocols — so deviations are caught before they compound.
• Design and implement FMEA, HACCP-aligned risk frameworks, and pre-production readiness checklists for new products and BOM changes.
• Partner with R&D to translate formulation requirements into manufacturing-ready specifications with realistic, equipment-grounded tolerances.
• Build a quality culture at co-man partners that defaults to prevention, not detection.
• Serve as Ryze’s primary technical liaison to all co-manufacturing partners — owning the quality and process relationship, not just the audit checklist.
• Lead technical due diligence and onboarding for new co-man partners (at least one new high-caliber manufacturer in the next 6 months, with a second to follow within 12 months).
• Evaluate partner equipment capabilities, production infrastructure, and quality systems against Ryze’s requirements — and define what it will take to close the gap.
• Drive CAPAs and engineering changes that are real and sustained, not paper compliance.
• Benchmark co-man network performance and identify leaders, laggards, and systemic risks.
• Analyze and optimize co-man processes for blending, conveying, filling, and packaging of powders — with specific focus on blend uniformity and sensory consistency.
• Diagnose root causes of deviations using structured methods (5-Why, Fishbone, DOE, Barrier Analysis) — and implement fixes that eliminate recurrence.
• Implement SPC, control charts, and capability studies (Cp, Cpk) where absent; establish clear, enforceable process windows.
• Oversee line trials, first production runs, and process validations at co-man sites.
• Evaluate powder characteristics (PSD, density, flowability, solubility) and translate findings into improvements in mixing strategy and equipment selection.
• Support the development of Ryze’s internal lab in Santa Ana — defining equipment needs, testing protocols, and lab SOPs alongside incoming sensory and food science hires.
• Collaborate on formalized stability testing programs and sensory calibration panels.
• Help establish internal reference standards and specification