Quality Control Manager

Koniag Professional Services, LLC, a Koniag Government Services company, is seeking a Quality Control Manager to support KPS and our government customer in Washington, DC. The position is hybrid, requires 1 day onsite. This position requires the candidate to be able to obtain a Public Trust.

We offer competitive compensation and an extraordinary benefits package including health, dental and vision insurance, 401K with company matching, flexible spending accounts, paid holidays, three weeks paid time off, and more.

Koniag Professional Services, a Koniag Government Services company, is seeking a Quality Control Manager to support the CRM, Integration, and Platform Services workforce. This role will support CRM case management, customer engagement, workflow automation, data integration, reporting, and governed platform delivery while helping the customer deliver secure, reliable, accessible, and maintainable digital services. The successful candidate will define target architecture, technical standards, platform roadmaps, integration patterns, and governance decisions and will work closely with government stakeholders, architects, engineers, product owners, cybersecurity, operations, and business users to convert requirements into mission-aligned platform capabilities.

The Quality Control Manager will be responsible for establishing, implementing, and enforcing an independent Quality Control (QC) function across IT programs and delivery activities. The IT Quality Control Manager operates independently of delivery teams and reports directly to the Program Manager, providing objective oversight of deliverable quality, compliance, release readiness, and adherence to contractual, regulatory, organizational, and program-specific requirements.

The Quality Control Manager owns and maintains the Quality Control Plan (QCP) and establishes inspection, testing, sampling, acceptance, defect management, and corrective action processes. This role ensures that products, services, technical artifacts, documentation, software releases, and other program deliverables meet defined quality standards before submission to the Government or other external stakeholders.

The position serves as an independent quality advocate, ensuring that schedule or delivery pressures do not compromise quality, compliance, or Government acceptance.

Key Responsibilities:

Quality Control Governance

• Develop, own, maintain, and continuously improve the program Quality Control Plan (QCP).
• Establish quality standards, inspection criteria, acceptance criteria, sampling methodologies, quality gates, and control procedures.
• Ensure QC activities are independent from the teams responsible for producing or delivering the work product.
• Establish a consistent quality framework across projects, workstreams, technical teams, vendors, and subcontractors.
• Define quality metrics, thresholds, reporting requirements, and escalation procedures.
• Ensure quality requirements are incorporated into project and release planning from initiation through production and Government submission.
• Maintain documented evidence demonstrating compliance with quality and contractual requirements.
• Periodically assess the effectiveness of the QC program and recommend improvements.

Inspection, Testing & Sampling:

• Develop and maintain inspection and sampling methodologies appropriate to the type, complexity, and risk of each deliverable.
• Establish inspection checklists, review criteria, test requirements, acceptance criteria, and quality gates.
• Conduct or oversee independent inspections and quality reviews of IT deliverables.
• Verify that deliverables meet approved requirements, specifications, standards, and acceptance criteria.
• Review technical documentation, software releases, configurations, test results, data products, reports, system documentation, and other program artifacts.
• Ensure appropriate sampling techniques are applied when full inspection is not practical.
• Validate that required testing and quality evidence has been completed before release approval.
• Identify trends and recurring quality issues across projects and delivery teams.

Defect & Escape Management:

• Own the program-level defect management and tracking process.
• Establish standards for defect identification, classification, severity, prioritization, disposition, and closure.
• Maintain accurate records of defects, nonconformances, rework, rejected deliverables, and quality escapes.
• Track defects through resolution and verify corrective actions before closure.
• Monitor quality escapes, including defects that reach downstream customers, production environments, or Government stakeholders.
• Analyze defect trends to identify systemic problems and opportunities for process improvement.
• Provide regular defect and quality reporting to the Program Manager and appropriate stakeholders.

Root Cause Analysis & Corrective Action:

• Lead or oversee root cause analysis for significant defects, quality escapes, nonconformances, and recurring issues.
• Apply structured problem-solving techniques such as 5 Whys, Fishbone/Ishikawa, Pareto analysis, fault tree analysis, and corrective/preventive action methodologies.
• Ensure corrective actions address the underlying cause rather than only the immediate symptom.
• Establish corrective action plans with accountable owners, due dates, and measurable closure criteria.
• Verify the effectiveness of corrective actions before formally closing issues.
• Escalate overdue, ineffective, or repeated corrective actions to the Program Manager.
• Identify preventive actions to reduce the likelihood of recurring quality issues.

Release & Government Submission Authority:

• Establish and enforce quality gates for releases and Government submissions.
• Conduct independent release readiness assessments.
• Confirm that required inspections, testing, documentation, approvals, defect resolution, and quality evidence are complete before release.
• Maintain documented release readiness and quality acceptance records.
• Exercise documented authority to reject a deliverable or halt a release when quality, compliance, contractual, security, or acceptance requirements are not met.
• Communicate release rejection decisions clearly, objectively, and with documented evidence.
• Escalate disputes regarding quality acceptance to the Program Manager and appropriate governance authorities.
• Ensure no deliverable is submitted to the Government without satisfying established quality and acceptance requirements.

Compliance & Audit Readiness:

• Ensure QC processes align with applicable Government requirements, contracts, policies, standards, regulations, and program procedures.
• Support internal, external, Government, regulatory, and customer audits.
• Maintain audit-ready documentation, inspection records, defect logs, corrective action records, and quality evidence.
• Monitor compliance with approved processes and identify deviations or control weaknesses.
• Coordinate with security, compliance, risk, engineering, testing, and program management functions as appropriate.
• Ensure quality records are accurate, traceable, complete, and appropriately retained.

Program Reporting & Continuous Improvement:

• Provide independent quality reporting to the Program Manager.
• Develop dashboards and reports covering quality metrics, defect trends, escapes, corrective actions, inspection results, release readiness, and compliance.
• Provide early warning of quality risks that could affect schedule, cost, performance, security, or Government acceptance.
• Participate in program reviews, risk reviews, release boards, change control boards, and other governance forums.
• Recommend process improvements based on quality trends and lessons learned.
• Establish and track quality improvement initiatives and measurable outcomes.

Desired Experience:

• Experience, exposure and understanding of cloud technologies, PaaS and SaaS, etc.
• 8+ years of progressive experience in IT quality assurance, quality control, software quality, systems engineering, testing, compliance, or related disciplines.
• 5+ years of experience leading quality programs or quality functions within complex IT or technology environments.
• Demonstrated experience operating an independent quality function separate from delivery teams.
• Experience developing and managing Quality Control Plans, Quality Assurance Plans, inspection procedures, quality gates, and acceptance criteria.
• Experience with inspection and sampling methodologies for technology deliverables.
• Demonstrated experience managing defects, nonconformances, quality escapes, corrective actions, and preventive actions.
• Experience conducting root cause analysis and validating corrective action effectiveness.
• Experience establishing release readiness criteria and independent release assessments.
• Experience supporting Government contracts, Federal agencies, regulated environments, or other highly controlled environments is strongly preferred.
• Experience interpreting contractual requirements, statements of work, technical requirements, acceptance criteria, and compliance obligations.
• Experience with software development, systems integration, infrastructure, cybersecurity, cloud, data, or enterprise application environments.
• Experience working with Agile, Waterfall, DevSecOps, or hybrid delivery methodologies.
• Experience managing quality across multiple projects, vendors, subcontractors, and geographically distributed teams is preferred.

Education:

• Bachelor's degree in Information Technology, Computer Science, Engineering, Quality Management, Business Administration, or a related field required.
• Master's degree in relevant technical, business, or quality discipline is preferred.
• Professional certification in quality, testing, project management, or process improvement is preferred.

Security Requirement:

• This position requires the candidate to be able to obtain a Public Trust.

Preferred certifications may include:

• Certified Quality Auditor (CQA)
• Certified Quality Engineer (CQE)
• Certified Software Quality Engineer (CSQE)
• Certified Manager of Quality/Organizational Excellence (CMQ/OE)
• Certified ScrumMaster or comparable Agile certification
• ITIL certification
• Six Sigma Green Belt or Black Belt

Required Skills and Competencies:

Independent Quality Leadership:

• Demonstrated ability to maintain independence and objectivity from delivery and development teams.
• Strong understanding of quality governance, quality control principles, and quality management systems.
• Ability to make objective quality decisions based on documented requirements and evidence.
• Demonstrated willingness and ability to challenge delivery teams and leadership when quality requirements are not met.
• Strong judgment and integrity when balancing quality, schedule, cost, and mission requirements.
• Ability to exercise documented authority to reject deliverables or stop releases when established criteria are not satisfied.

Quality Control & Inspection:

• Strong knowledge of Quality Control Plans and quality management processes.
• Expertise in developing inspection plans, checklists, sampling approaches, acceptance criteria, and quality gates.
• Ability to assess the completeness, accuracy, consistency, and compliance of complex IT deliverables.
• Strong understanding of verification, validation, testing, inspection, and acceptance processes.
• Ability to establish measurable quality standards and performance indicators.

Defect & Corrective Action Management:

• Strong experience with defect lifecycle management.
• Ability to establish defect severity and priority models.
• Experience tracking quality escapes and analyzing defect trends.
• Strong root cause analysis and structured problem-solving skills.
• Experience developing, tracking, and validating corrective and preventive actions.
• Ability to distinguish symptoms from systemic process or technical causes.

Compliance & Risk:

• Strong understanding of IT governance, regulatory compliance, contractual requirements, and quality controls.
• Ability to interpret requirements and translate them into measurable inspection and acceptance criteria.
• Strong risk identification, assessment, mitigation, and escalation skills.
• Experience maintaining audit-ready documentation and objective quality evidence.

Communication & Stakeholder Management:

• Excellent written and verbal communication skills.
• Ability to communicate quality findings to technical teams, business stakeholders, executives, Government representatives, and external auditors.
• Strong facilitation, negotiation, conflict-resolution, and influencing skills.
• Ability to clearly document quality decisions, findings, risks, and recommendations.
• Strong executive presence and ability to communicate difficult quality decisions professionally.

Desired Skills and Competencies:

• Experience supporting Federal Government IT programs and Government acceptance processes.
• Knowledge of Federal acquisition, contracting, and IT governance environments.
• Familiarity with Government quality and compliance frameworks and applicable industry standards.
• Experience with CMMI, ISO 9001, ISO/IEC 20000, ISO/IEC 27001, NIST, or similar frameworks.
• Experience with DevSecOps quality controls and automated testing.
• Knowledge of software development lifecycle and systems development lifecycle processes.
• Experience integrating quality controls into Agile and continuous delivery environments.
• Experience with automated testing, test management, requirements traceability, and continuous integration/continuous delivery practices.
• Familiarity with tools such as Jira, Azure DevOps, ServiceNow, Rally, Quality Center/ALM, or equivalent platforms.
• Experience developing quality dashboards and executive-level reporting.
• Six Sigma, Lean, or other process improvement experience.
• Experience developing organizational quality maturity models and improvement roadmaps.
• Strong data analysis skills and ability to use quality metrics to identify trends and predict risk.

Key Performance Indicators:

Quality Control Manager will be accountable for establishing and monitoring measurable quality outcomes, which may include:

• Deliverable acceptance rate.
• First-pass quality rate.
• Defect density and severity trends.
• Defect aging and closure rates.
• Quality escape rate.
• Repeat defect rate.
• Corrective action closure rate and effectiveness.
• Inspection and sampling compliance.
• Release readiness compliance.
• Requirements traceability and verification coverage.
• Government/customer rejection rate.
• Audit findings and repeat findings.
• Quality-related schedule impacts.
• Overall program quality maturity and continuous improvement.

Leadership Profile:

The successful candidate is an independent, objective, and technically credible quality leader who can operate effectively in a complex IT program environment. This individual must be comfortable challenging assumptions, identifying unacceptable risk, and making difficult quality decisions while maintaining constructive relationships with delivery teams.

The Quality Control Manager is expected to be a trusted advisor to the Program Manager and a strong advocate for delivering reliable, compliant, and Government-accepted products and services. The successful candidate balances a collaborative leadership style with the independence and authority necessary to protect the integrity of the program's deliverables.

Most importantly, this role is not a delivery function. The Quality Control Manager independently evaluates delivery outcomes and has documented authority to prevent an unacceptable deliverable or release from proceeding to Government submission.

Our Equal Employment Opportunity Policy

The company is an equal opportunity employer. The company shall not discriminate against any employee or applicant because of race, color, religion, creed, ethnicity, sex, sexual orientation, gender or gender identity (except where gender is a bona fide occupational qualification), national origin or ancestry, age, disability, citizenship, military/veteran status, marital status, genetic information or any other characteristic protected by applicable federal, state, or local law. We are committed to equal employment opportunity in all decisions related to employment, promotion, wages, benefits, and all other privileges, terms, and conditions of employment.

The company is dedicated to seeking all qualified applicants. If you require an accommodation to navigate or apply for a position on our website, please get in touch with Heaven Wood via e-mail at accommodations@koniag-gs.com or by calling 703-488-9377 to request accommodations.

Koniag Government Services (KGS) is an Alaska Native Owned corporation supporting the values and traditions of our native communities through an agile employee and corporate culture that delivers Enterprise Solutions, Professional Services and Operational Management to Federal Government Agencies. As a wholly owned subsidiary of Koniag, we apply our proven commercial solutions to a deep knowledge of Defense and Civilian missions to provide forward leaning technical, professional, and operational solutions. KGS enables successful mission outcomes for our customers through solution-oriented business partnerships and a commitment to exceptional service delivery. We ensure long-term success with a continuous improvement approach while balancing the collective interests of our customers, employees, and native communities. For more information, please visit www.koniag-gs.com.

Equal Opportunity Employer/Veterans/Disabled. Shareholder Preference in accordance with Public Law 88-352