Explore jobs
Find specific jobs
Explore careers
Explore professions
Best companies
Explore companies
The differences between customer quality engineers and senior staff engineers 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 senior staff engineer takes usually requires 4-6 years. Additionally, a senior staff engineer has an average salary of $136,031, 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 senior staff engineer are python, java, and architecture.
| Customer Quality Engineer | Senior Staff Engineer | |
| Yearly salary | $82,508 | $136,031 |
| Hourly rate | $39.67 | $65.40 |
| Growth rate | 10% | 2% |
| Number of jobs | 86,365 | 239,752 |
| Job satisfaction | - | - |
| Most common degree | Bachelor's Degree, 72% | Bachelor's Degree, 65% |
| Average age | 42 | 41 |
| 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 senior staff engineer is responsible for supervising a team of engineers, chemists, software developers, or molecular biologists. His/Her or her responsibilities include generating Structured Query Language (SQL) performance audit checklist template, creating SQL data query routines and functions for data extraction, and working directly with stakeholders. The job requires strong mechanical, listening, and mathematical skills and proficiency in Python programming language and computer architecture and hardware. The education requirements for the job include a bachelor's or master's degree in electrical engineering, business, mechanical engineering, or a related field.
Customer quality engineers and senior staff engineers have different pay scales, as shown below.
| Customer Quality Engineer | Senior Staff Engineer | |
| Average salary | $82,508 | $136,031 |
| Salary range | Between $64,000 And $106,000 | Between $95,000 And $194,000 |
| Highest paying City | Santa Clara, CA | San Mateo, CA |
| Highest paying state | California | California |
| Best paying company | Apple | Airbnb |
| Best paying industry | Technology | Telecommunication |
There are a few differences between a customer quality engineer and a senior staff engineer in terms of educational background:
| Customer Quality Engineer | Senior Staff Engineer | |
| Most common degree | Bachelor's Degree, 72% | Bachelor's Degree, 65% |
| Most common major | Electrical Engineering | Electrical Engineering |
| Most common college | Northwestern University | California State Polytechnic University, Pomona |
Here are the differences between customer quality engineers' and senior staff engineers' demographics:
| Customer Quality Engineer | Senior Staff Engineer | |
| Average age | 42 | 41 |
| Gender ratio | Male, 75.7% Female, 24.3% | Male, 78.4% Female, 21.6% |
| 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, 3.1% Unknown, 4.5% Hispanic or Latino, 7.8% Asian, 16.8% White, 67.6% American Indian and Alaska Native, 0.1% |
| LGBT Percentage | 4% | 5% |