What Does a Quality Engineer Do?

All engineering systems need rigorous quality checks to ensure the processes and products that result from them are of consistent and high quality. This is the quality engineer’s role. These professionals monitor the quality of processes in a variety of industries and play a key role in fixing any defects.

Job Description

A quality engineer is responsible for making sure that engineering and manufacturing processes are performed correctly using the right tools, materials and processes. An important part of the job involves designing the company’s quality standards and testing processes against those criteria. In most organizations, the QE also checks that employees are trained to the right quality standard and that all safety requirements are met throughout the production process. If anything goes wrong, it’s the quality engineer’s job to meticulously document the problem and work with other engineers to find a solution. These checks are essential not only to meet client requirements but also to satisfy legal demands in most industries.

Education Requirements

Entry-level quality engineers typically have at least an associate degree in quality engineering. Some employers prefer candidates with a four-year bachelor’s degree in quality, industrial or mechanical engineering. A master’s degree in quality assurance is desirable for advancement to management positions. Certifications can also help your career prospects. The American Society for Quality offers the gold-standard Certified Quality Engineer certification along with nine other industry certifications that deal with various aspects of quality control practices.

What you get for all this hard work is a median annual salary of $85,880 in 2017. This is the center in a range of salaries for industrial engineers, including those who specialize in quality assurance. The best-paid 10 percent currently earn more than $130,930 per year.

Industry

Quality engineers work in manufacturing environments and laboratories, where they test processes and monitor quality standards for all types of manufactured products including electronic components, food, textiles, motor vehicles and computers. Work environments vary by industry and establishment. Some QEs work shifts and are on their feet all day while others are desk-based and spend their day reading printouts of data. Quality engineers typically are part of a larger team tasked with making quality improvements across all aspects of production. Senior QEs may manage teams of junior engineers and have responsibility across multiple stages of a process.

Years of Experience

Experience has a major influence on the amount of money you make as a quality engineer, whatever industry you work in. The typical starting salary for an entry-level QE is about $63,000, rising to $70,000 per year for an intermediate quality engineer with five to 10 years of experience. The industry you work in also has an impact on pay. QEs in the computer and electronic product manufacturing sector tend to earn the highest wages with a median salary of $94,120 in 2017. The median salary is the point at which half of QEs earn more, and half earn less.

Job Growth Trend

Employment for industrial and quality control engineers is projected to increase by 10 percent by 2026, which represents the addition of 25,100 jobs. This faster-than-average growth rate is due in part to the versatility of quality assurance professionals who can work in a wide range of industries and help businesses save money. Automation may have a small negative impact on job growth going forward, as more manufacturers are investing in automated quality assurance systems that increase precision on the production line. To date, this has not affected the demand for manual quality assurance checks in any significant way.