Job Description:

Founding QMS Architect
Reading | Permanent | Up to £100,000+

KO2's client are building the next generation of critical hardware infrastructure for the physical AI economy, designing and manufacturing advanced electronic systems for regulated industries at the speed of consumer electronics.

This is not another slow moving aerospace or medical company buried in process and bureaucracy.

This is a venture led by repeat unicorn founders and serial entrepreneurs who have already built category defining businesses and are now assembling one of Europe's most ambitious advanced manufacturing companies. KO2's clients mission is to build world class, AI driven facilities capable of delivering highly regulated electronic products with unprecedented speed, agility, and precision.

Power electronics. Robotics. Aerospace. Defence. Wearables. Automotive. Medical devices.

A world class founding team is already in place.

Now the business needs the person who can build the quality and compliance architecture that enables scale without slowing the machine down.

The Opportunity for the Founding QMS Architect

KO2 are searching for a Founding QMS Architect, a rare individual who understands regulated product environments deeply, but who also understands how to move fast.

This role is not for someone who hides behind process, paperwork, or unnecessary complexity.

KO2 are looking for a razor sharp operator who knows how to get from A → B with absolute clarity and minimum friction. Someone who understands what genuinely matters in compliance, what can be streamlined, and how to create lean systems that unlock rapid execution rather than constrain it.

You will architect the Quality Management System from the ground up across highly regulated electronic products whilst maintaining the agility, urgency, and execution speed of a startup.

You will know when to bring in specialist expertise, EMC, certification, standards, regulatory assessment, and how to orchestrate those functions without allowing them to derail momentum.

This is an extraordinarily unusual role.

Most traditional QMS or compliance engineers from regulated industries simply won't operate effectively in this environment. The pace is too aggressive. The expectations too high. The ambiguity too great.

KO2's client need someone who can think commercially, strategically, and technically all at once.

Someone who understands both:

• how world class regulated systems are buil and how elite consumer electronics teams ship products at speed

The role of Founding QMS Architect

• Architect and implement a lean, scalable QMS built for speed and precision
• Create compliance frameworks that accelerate delivery rather than slow it down
• Build systems capable of supporting certifications across industries including aerospace, defence, automotive, medical devices, robotics, and advanced electronics
• Drive qualification and validation strategy without introducing bureaucracy
• Coordinate external regulatory specialists, EMC houses, certification bodies, and testing partners
• Build intelligent, AI enabled quality infrastructure and data driven manufacturing processes
• Partner directly with founders and engineering leadership to embed quality into the product lifecycle from day one
• Establish a world class operational standard for one of Europe's most advanced electronics manufacturing environments

What KO2's client are looking for from the Founding QMS Architect

• You are likely someone who has operated across both:regulated product environments
• high speed consumer electronics or advanced technology businesses
• You understand standards, compliance, validation, traceability, and certification, but you also know how to apply them pragmatically.
• You are commercially intelligent.
• You simplify complexity.
• You know how to focus effort where it matters.
• You are decisive, highly autonomous, and capable of operating in an elite startup environment where speed is a competitive weapon.

Experience across some combination of the following is highly desirable:

• Consumer electronics
• Wearables
• Aerospace & defence
• Automotive
• Medical devices
• Robotics
• Power electronics
• High reliability electronics manufacturing

Why The Role of Founding QMS Architect is Unique

This is not a maintenance role.

This is not a corporate quality function.

This is a foundational architecture role inside a company attempting to redefine how regulated electronic products are developed and manufactured in Europe, best in class manufacturing facility pending.

You will help build:

• AI native manufacturing systems
• Next generation electronics production capability
• Vertically integrated advanced manufacturing and a quality culture built around speed, intelligence, and execution

There are no other opportunities like this on the market.

Package

• Up to £100,000+ salary
• Permanent role
• Based in Reading
• Opportunity to build from first principles alongside repeat unicorn founders
• Early stage influence with enormous technical and operational ownership
• Work alongside exceptional engineers, operators, and builders shaping the future of European industrial capability