MERITUS are recruiting for a Operations Quality Assurance Engineer to join our Defence and Space client at their Stevenage site.OPERATIONS QUALITY ASSURANCE ENGINEER - INSIDE IR35 - £32 PER HOUR - 6 MONTHS - LIKELY EXTENDED - 1 STAGE INTERVIEW PROCESSAn opportunity has arisen for an Operational Quality Assurance Engineer to join a highly specialised defence and space manufacturing environment in the UK.The Quality function plays a critical role in ensuring that customer and regulatory requirements are met across the full spacecraft production lifecycle, including manufacturing, assembly, integration, and test.This position sits directly within the production environment and is responsible for driving quality standards, preventing defects, and ensuring compliance in complex, high-value hardware programmes.Key ResponsibilitiesTake full ownership of quality assurance activities within a designated production areaConduct critical inspections and witness key manufacturing and integration operationsDrive a proactive quality culture, influencing production teams to prevent non-conformancesLead the management and reduction of non-conformance and cost of poor quality (CoPQ)Maintain oversight of build reconciliations, open points, and outstanding work ordersPerform ongoing quality surveillance to ensure adherence to product and programme requirementsTrack and manage actions arising from inspections across all production phasesSupport root cause analysis and internal review boards (e.g.