Quality Control Inspector

MOST SHOPS NEED AN INSPECTOR. WE NEED SOMEONE WHO REFUSES TO LET A BAD PART LEAVE THE BUILDING.

LAD Engineering is a precision CNC machine shop. Prototyping to production. Custom parts and assemblies are shipping to customers across the United States. ISO 9001:2015 certified.

What we actually do: we solve complexity. Engineers come to us with parts that are hard to manufacture — tight tolerances, unusual geometries, materials that don't want to cooperate — and we figure out how to produce them efficiently, on time, and profitably.

We're not posting this job to fill a seat. We're recruiting the person who will eventually own LAD's entire quality function.

THE PATH

Inspector (Training): Months 1-3: $22-24/hr

• You learn LAD's QMS, customer requirements, calibration program, and documentation standards. Supervised inspection while you get up to speed.

• Running inspections independently. First Article Inspections are clean. The performance incentive is tied to shop profitability and customer return rates — your accuracy directly affects your pay.

• You own the inspection function. Training others. Driving root cause. Calibration runs on your watch.

• Full ownership of QMS, audits, customer quality relationships, and team development. This is the role our leadership team identified as the #1 hire the company needs. It's real, it's open, and it's yours to grow into.

You're standing at an inspection bench in a machine shop — not a climate-controlled lab. The floor vibrates when the big machines run. Coolant and chip smell is the background. You're working with micrometers, calipers, height gauges, and CMMs — measuring features down to tenths.

When production is waiting on your sign-off to ship a $40,000 order, and you find a dimension out of spec, you call it anyway. That's the job.

You'll read blueprints with complex GD&T callouts, write AS9102 First Article Inspection reports that survive customer audits, and disposition nonconforming material with machinists who don't always agree with your findings. Some days are methodical and focused. Some days, the shop is on fire with rush orders, and every machine is running. Both are on Tuesday.

If that sounds exhausting, this isn't for you. If that sounds like the kind of work where your standards actually matter, keep reading.

Who Belongs Here

• We Pursue Excellence. Rework costs money and time. If you're the person who checks a dimension twice because you'd rather be slow than wrong, you belong here.
• We Are Driven by Customer Satisfaction. We send updates proactively. When a part is late or an issue comes up, we communicate it before the customer has to ask. If you treat the customer's specs like they're sacred, you belong here.
• We Are Proactive Communicators. Issues are brought up as soon as they're found — not at the end of the shift, not next Monday. If you walk over and say, "This dimension is off," the second you see it, you belong here.
• We Are One Team. We hold each other humbly accountable and grow from mistakes. If you can take feedback without getting defensive and give it without being a jerk, you belong here.

• Monday–Friday, flexible hours between 7 am and 5 pm. Overtime available, not mandatory.
• Health insurance premium paid by employer (after 90 days).
• 401(k). PTO accrues immediately. 6 holidays + 1 floating holiday.
• Performance incentive tied to shop profitability and customer returns — your work directly affects your pay.
• Small team, real impact. Your ideas get heard. Your work gets noticed.
• A real career path: Inspector to Lead to Quality Manager, with comp at every step.

Here's the process: application + screening questions - 15-minute phone screen - 7 written character questions by email - 45-minute in-person interview - shop ride-along (half shift). We designed this to be thorough, not to waste your time.

If you've read this far and you're still here, you're already different from most applicants. That's the point.

Compensation: $22 - $32 hourly