Supplier Development Engineer

Job Title Supplier Development Engineer

Job Location Brighton

Our Brighton business is moving to a new location in 2027. The new site is expected to be located in either Shoreham Burgess Hill or Horsham and will be within a 15-minute drive of our current site.

Job ID 39445

About this opportunity and L3Harris UK

Operating at 11 sites in the United Kingdom L3Harris supports Britains mission to secure and strengthen the country by delivering sovereign innovation across the space air land sea and cyber domains.

L3Harris in Brighton are part of our Release Systems & Antennas division operating in the Aerospace domain. For over 70 years L3Harris has designed and developed industry-leading carriage and release systems for fighter rotary-wing and unmanned platforms and we design manufacture and test a large portion of our release systems portfolio in our Brighton facility which offers 48500 square feet of manufacturing space. Our mission-critical release systems equipment is on most major airborne fighter platforms worldwide including the F-35 along with other aircraft like the Gripen and Typhoon.

Please note our Brighton business is moving to a new location in 2027. The new site is expected to be located in either Shoreham Burgess Hill or Horsham and will be within a 15-minute drive of our current site.

A few of our employee benefits are:

• Half day finish on a Friday
• 25 days holiday per year (plus bank holidays) increasing with long service and with the opportunity to buy/sell up to 5 days
• Private medical insurance with optional family cover
• Pension scheme of up to 8% employer contribution
• Life Assurance 4x salary (flexible up to 10x)
• Group income protection
• Flexible opt-in extras such as a health care cash plan dental insurance gym membership critical illness cover cycle to work scheme travel insurance and electric car scheme
• Employee Family Assistance Program providing mental health and wellbeing support
• Professional membership reimbursement (discretionary)

What the role will involve

The responsibilities of your role will include the following:

• Interface with Procurement Project Engineering & Quality teams to prioritise supplier development needs by component to improve cost competitiveness or supply constraints.
• Research external market information and entrepreneurial companies to identify potential sources and suppliers.
• Drive supplier selection through robust qualification processes.
• Assess new and existing supplier capabilities to meet product cost quality capacity and fulfilment ensuring suppliers can meet requirements for performance quality cost and delivery of components including AS 9100 ISO 9001 ISO 14001 and other applicable customer and internal quality system requirements.
• Drive improvements utilising Lean methodologies supplier scorecards and supplier audit ensuring supplier compliance whilst driving systematic problem solving and process improvement plans to deliver value.
• Develop positive relationships and work closely with sourcing leaders to manage implement and track supplier/engineering design changes capacity studies and New Product Introduction and transfers.
• Provide technical expertise and leadership to sourcing and development of suppliers with respect to technology performance quality cost logistics and delivery.
• Responsible for leading the solution for supplier component concerns driving Advanced Product Quality Planning (APQP) Production Part Approval Process (PPAP) customer interaction supplier interaction Value Analysis/Value Engineering (VA/VE) support supplier component development and approval and supplier cost improvements.
• Perform due diligence checks supplier validation audits with supplier support and supplier Advanced Product Quality Planning (APQP).

What youll bring

The role requires the following experience and skills:

• Significant previous experience of procurement within an engineering / manufacturing biased industry. (ISO9001 and / or Defence Certified).
• Unrestricted travel on an occasional basis will be required.
• Strong knowledge of Advanced Product Quality Planning (APQP) Production Part Approval Process (PPAP) Failure Mode and Effect Analysis (FMEA)
• Understanding and interpretation of engineering drawings.

Important to know

Applicants who accept a conditional offer of employment must meet the requirement of right to work in the UK and must meet eligibility requirements for access to classified information and will be subject to government security checks.

Required Experience:

IC

Employment Type : Full Time
Experience: years
Vacancy: 1