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The differences between customer quality engineers and quality managers can be seen in a few details. Each job has different responsibilities and duties. While it typically takes 2-4 years to become a customer quality engineer, becoming a quality manager takes usually requires 4-6 years. Additionally, a quality manager has an average salary of $91,357, which is higher than the $82,508 average annual salary of a customer quality engineer.
The top three skills for a customer quality engineer include corrective action, product quality and customer satisfaction. The most important skills for a quality manager are continuous improvement, corrective action, and quality standards.
| Customer Quality Engineer | Quality Manager | |
| Yearly salary | $82,508 | $91,357 |
| Hourly rate | $39.67 | $43.92 |
| Growth rate | 10% | 3% |
| Number of jobs | 86,365 | 63,422 |
| Job satisfaction | - | - |
| Most common degree | Bachelor's Degree, 72% | Bachelor's Degree, 62% |
| Average age | 42 | 48 |
| Years of experience | 4 | 6 |
A customer quality engineer is accountable for all in-process batches with quality issues. You will be responsible for minimizing variations with quality processes and supporting all customer root cause audits, investigations, and visits. Other duties include processing field audits, assisting in new product launches, and participating in the control process and product quality planning. In addition, you are expected to relay customer feedback and expectations on product quality to the quality management team. You are also expected to conduct training the team in identifying and creating methodologies to solve quality issues.
A quality manager is an individual who is responsible for ensuring that the level of quality of the company's product outputs is met for customers. Quality managers monitor and evaluate the internal production process so that they can produce statistical reports on the standard of quality and communicate them to upper management. To ensure health and safety standards, quality managers must create and maintain up-to-date product or process specifications. They also train employees on quality assurance standards and processes.
Customer quality engineers and quality managers have different pay scales, as shown below.
| Customer Quality Engineer | Quality Manager | |
| Average salary | $82,508 | $91,357 |
| Salary range | Between $64,000 And $106,000 | Between $64,000 And $128,000 |
| Highest paying City | Santa Clara, CA | Richmond, CA |
| Highest paying state | California | California |
| Best paying company | Apple | Meta |
| Best paying industry | Technology | Technology |
There are a few differences between a customer quality engineer and a quality manager in terms of educational background:
| Customer Quality Engineer | Quality Manager | |
| Most common degree | Bachelor's Degree, 72% | Bachelor's Degree, 62% |
| Most common major | Electrical Engineering | Business |
| Most common college | Northwestern University | Stanford University |
Here are the differences between customer quality engineers' and quality managers' demographics:
| Customer Quality Engineer | Quality Manager | |
| Average age | 42 | 48 |
| Gender ratio | Male, 75.7% Female, 24.3% | Male, 72.1% Female, 27.9% |
| Race ratio | Black or African American, 4.7% Unknown, 3.9% Hispanic or Latino, 11.6% Asian, 13.0% White, 66.5% American Indian and Alaska Native, 0.2% | Black or African American, 3.9% Unknown, 3.9% Hispanic or Latino, 13.2% Asian, 9.2% White, 69.4% American Indian and Alaska Native, 0.5% |
| LGBT Percentage | 4% | 8% |