What does a product assurance engineer do?
Product assurance engineer responsibilities
Here are examples of responsibilities from real product assurance engineer resumes:
- Manage CAPA systems integration of recent acquisitions.
- Provide assistance in support of FMEA, MSG-3 analysis.
- Participate in cooperate, third party and FDA audits.
- Supervise safety clearance of 410K (FDA) regulation procedures.
- Maintain an internal program audit system to ensure program compliance to ISO standards.
- Develop ISO departmental documentation & perform ISO9000 audits.
- Involve into problem analysis, debugging and defect resolution.
- Coordinate development and implementation of division and supplier QA documentation.
- Investigate general production defects, coordinate between assembly, engineering and QA.
- Review and redesign current product offerings utilizing SolidWorks; identifying product flaws or anomalies to improve upon overall design features.
- Replace an inefficient restful service implementation in native C/C++ with an efficient web-service in Java and JMS messaging implementation.
Product assurance engineer skills and personality traits
We calculated that 8% of Product Assurance Engineers are proficient in Lean Manufacturing, Product Assurance, and ISO. They’re also known for soft skills such as Speaking skills, Writing skills, and Creativity.
We break down the percentage of Product Assurance Engineers that have these skills listed on their resume here:
- Lean Manufacturing, 8%
Plant wide responsibility for leading quality projects, product line extensions and driving corporate quality objectives in a Lean Manufacturing environment.
- Product Assurance, 7%
Selected by Management to act as Product Assurance Representative for Patriot Missile configuration investigation board and Patriot production engineering review committee.
- ISO, 6%
Developed ISO departmental documentation & performed ISO9000 audits.
- Dvp R, 6%
Led testing and validation of sub-systems and cockpit for material properties, design integrity, and passing all DVP requirements.
- Test Data, 5%
Monitor test data acquisition, perform reliability analysis of test data to determine performance capabilities and design limitations.
- Test Procedures, 5%
Created and implemented hardware and software design test procedures and provided results and recommendations to engineering.
"lean manufacturing," "product assurance," and "iso" are among the most common skills that product assurance engineers use at work. You can find even more product assurance engineer responsibilities below, including:
Speaking skills. To carry out their duties, the most important skill for a product assurance engineer to have is speaking skills. Their role and responsibilities require that "industrial engineers sometimes have to explain their instructions to production staff or technicians before they can make written instructions available." Product assurance engineers often use speaking skills in their day-to-day job, as shown by this real resume: "represented product assurance organization in multiple cross-functional core teams. "
Writing skills. Another soft skill that's essential for fulfilling product assurance engineer duties is writing skills. The role rewards competence in this skill because "industrial engineers must prepare documentation for other engineers or scientists, or for future reference." According to a product assurance engineer resume, here's how product assurance engineers can utilize writing skills in their job responsibilities: "worked on qms special project for developing and writing sop's. "
Creativity. Another skill that relates to the job responsibilities of product assurance engineers is creativity. This skill is critical to many everyday product assurance engineer duties, as "industrial engineers use creativity and ingenuity to design new production processes in many kinds of settings in order to reduce the use of material resources, time, or labor while accomplishing the same goal." This example from a resume shows how this skill is used: "provide metric reports on physical inventory of material in mrb and ncmr status for aerospace and defense products. "
Listening skills. For certain product assurance engineer responsibilities to be completed, the job requires competence in "listening skills." The day-to-day duties of a product assurance engineer rely on this skill, as "these engineers often operate in teams, but they also must solicit feedback from customers, vendors, and production staff." For example, this snippet was taken directly from a resume about how this skill applies to what product assurance engineers do: "communicated reliability test results to core teams and executive management utilizing xp, excel, word, power point. "
Math skills. A commonly-found skill in product assurance engineer job descriptions, "math skills" is essential to what product assurance engineers do. Product assurance engineer responsibilities rely on this skill because "industrial engineers use the principles of calculus, trigonometry, and other advanced topics in mathematics for analysis, design, and troubleshooting in their work." You can also see how product assurance engineer duties rely on math skills in this resume example: "analyzed data and compiled performance reports and process control statistics, to continuously improve process capability. "
Problem-solving skills. Another skill commonly found on product assurance engineer job descriptions is "problem-solving skills." It can come up quite often in product assurance engineer duties, since "in designing facilities for manufacturing and processes for providing services, these engineers deal with several issues at once, from workers’ safety to quality assurance." Here's an example from a resume of how this skill fits into day-to-day product assurance engineer responsibilities: "provide follow-up qa reporting associated with identified discrepancies, conduct lessons learned reviews, and track issues to closure/resolution. "
The three companies that hire the most product assurance engineers are:
- Ferguson Enterprises6 product assurance engineers jobs
- Veoneer4 product assurance engineers jobs
- Huntington Ingalls Industries2 product assurance engineers jobs
Compare different product assurance engineers
Product assurance engineer vs. Quality control engineer
A quality control engineer is responsible for conducting quality assessments for the company's products and services to ensure adherence to federal regulations and quality standards. Quality control engineers recommend strategic methods by analyzing processes and writing test results. They also identify opportunities for more services that meet public demands and market trends, helping the business generate more resources for revenues. A quality control engineer utilizes various software tools and applications to document findings, requiring them to have excellent communication and technical skills.
There are some key differences in the responsibilities of each position. For example, product assurance engineer responsibilities require skills like "lean manufacturing," "product assurance," "dvp r," and "supplier quality." Meanwhile a typical quality control engineer has skills in areas such as "corrective action," "continuous improvement," "data analysis," and "quality system." This difference in skills reveals the differences in what each career does.
Quality control engineers really shine in the technology industry with an average salary of $83,131. Comparatively, product assurance engineers tend to make the most money in the automotive industry with an average salary of $87,101.quality control engineers tend to reach similar levels of education than product assurance engineers. In fact, quality control engineers are 3.4% less likely to graduate with a Master's Degree and 0.9% more likely to have a Doctoral Degree.Product assurance engineer vs. Engineer
Engineers are highly trained professionals who determine the feasibility of various projects, usually related to the construction industry. They are considered experts in mathematics and science, two disciplines that they need to use in designing and coming up with plans for projects. They should also be well-versed in different construction or industrial materials, and they ensure that appropriate materials are used for the project. They also ensure that the projects meet the requirements of the groups that hired them. They create spaces that would both address the needs of the end-users and the industry standards. They also ensure that the projects they make would stand the test of time.
In addition to the difference in salary, there are some other key differences worth noting. For example, product assurance engineer responsibilities are more likely to require skills like "lean manufacturing," "product assurance," "test data," and "fmea." Meanwhile, an engineer has duties that require skills in areas such as "python," "cloud," "aws," and "java." These differences highlight just how different the day-to-day in each role looks.
Engineers earn a higher average salary than product assurance engineers. But engineers earn the highest pay in the automotive industry, with an average salary of $97,672. Additionally, product assurance engineers earn the highest salaries in the automotive with average pay of $87,101 annually.Average education levels between the two professions vary. Engineers tend to reach similar levels of education than product assurance engineers. In fact, they're 2.0% less likely to graduate with a Master's Degree and 0.9% more likely to earn a Doctoral Degree.Product assurance engineer vs. Supplier quality engineer
A Supplier Quality Engineer ensures that the supplier's quality standards are in accordance with the requirement of the organization. They also report supplier performance and quality to management.
There are many key differences between these two careers, including some of the skills required to perform responsibilities within each role. For example, a product assurance engineer is likely to be skilled in "product assurance," "test data," "test procedures," and "supplier quality," while a typical supplier quality engineer is skilled in "ppap," "apqp," "gd," and "quality system."
Supplier quality engineers make a very good living in the professional industry with an average annual salary of $87,103. On the other hand, product assurance engineers are paid the highest salary in the automotive industry, with average annual pay of $87,101.When it comes to education, supplier quality engineers tend to earn similar degree levels compared to product assurance engineers. In fact, they're 0.5% more likely to earn a Master's Degree, and 0.5% more likely to graduate with a Doctoral Degree.Product assurance engineer vs. Industrial engineering internship
An industrial engineer intern is a student working in a company to do industrial engineering tasks. Industrial engineering interns assist industrial engineers. They perform process improvement tasks such as the increase in production efficiency and lean manufacturing analysis. They design and implement improved facility layout to optimize product flow and provide improvement times. More so, they conduct self-study for the calculation of efficient performance time, create assembly line drawing, and determine ergonomic issues.
Even though a few skill sets overlap between product assurance engineers and industrial engineering interns, there are some differences that are important to note. For one, a product assurance engineer might have more use for skills like "product assurance," "dvp r," "test data," and "test procedures." Meanwhile, some responsibilities of industrial engineering interns require skills like "continuous improvement," "process improvement," "data collection," and "strong analytical. "
In general, industrial engineering interns hold similar degree levels compared to product assurance engineers. Industrial engineering interns are 1.8% less likely to earn their Master's Degree and 1.6% more likely to graduate with a Doctoral Degree.Types of product assurance engineer
Updated January 8, 2025
