"Product Quality," "Quality Standards," and "ISO" aren't the only skills we found Quality Control Engineers list on their resumes. In fact, there's a whole list of Quality Control Engineer responsibilities that we found, including:
Creativity can be considered to be the most important personality trait for a Quality Control Engineer to have. According to a Quality Control Engineer resume, "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." Quality Control Engineers are able to use Creativity in the following example we gathered from a resume: "Maintain in process, final inspection and finished products inventory record. " While it may not be the most important skill, we found that many Quality Control Engineer duties rely on Listening skills. This example from a Quality Control Engineer explains why: "These engineers often operate in teams, but they also must solicit feedback from customers, vendors, and production staff." This resume example is just one of many ways Quality Control Engineers are able to utilize Listening skills: "Maintained ISO 9000:2000 quality system requirements and ensured standards were communicated to improve methods for quality and cost reduction. " Problem-solving skills is also an important skill for Quality Control Engineers to have. This example of how Quality Control Engineers use this skill comes from a Quality Control Engineer resume, "In designing facilities for manufacturing and processes for providing services, these engineers deal with several issues at once, from workers’ safety to quality assurance." Read this excerpt from a resume to understand how vital it is to their everyday roles and responsibilities, "Managed suppliers including part changes, issue resolution, continuous improvement, and on site audits. " In order for certain Quality Control Engineer responsibilities to be completed, the job requires the skill "Speaking skills." According to a Quality Control Engineer resume, "Industrial engineers sometimes have to explain their instructions to production staff or technicians before they can make written instructions available" As an example, this snippet was taken directly from a resume about how this skill applies: "Generated Excel reports for monthly order status updates and presented it to the management for internal auditing. " Another common skill for a Quality Control Engineer to be able to utilize is "Writing skills." Industrial engineers must prepare documentation for other engineers or scientists, or for future reference a Quality Control Engineer demonstrated the need for this skill by putting this on their resume: "Involved in writing SQL queries to generate tables from the database to test reports and did verification and validation of reports. " While "Math skills" is listed last on this skills list, don't underestimate its importance to Quality Control Engineer responsibilities. The skill is described by this resume snippet, "Industrial engineers use the principles of calculus, trigonometry, and other advanced topics in mathematics for analysis, design, and troubleshooting in their work." Here is an example of how this skill is used, "Experience in statistics and process control tools. " See the full list of Quality Control Engineer skills.
Before becoming a Quality Control Engineer, 72.2% earned their bachelor's degree. When it comes down to graduating with a master's degree, 11.3% Quality Control Engineers went for the extra education. If you're wanting to pursue this career, it may be possible to be successful with a high school degree. In fact, most Quality Control Engineers have a college degree. But about one out of every eight Quality Control Engineers didn't attend college at all.
The Quality Control Engineers who went onto college to earn a more in-depth education generally studied Mechanical Engineering and Electrical Engineering, while a small population of Quality Control Engineers studied Civil Engineering and Business.
Once you're ready to become a Quality Control Engineer, you should explore the companies that typically hire Quality Control Engineers. According to Quality Control Engineer resumes that we searched through, Quality Control Engineers are hired the most by BWX Technologies, Harris, and Nuclear Fuel Services. Currently, BWX Technologies has 10 Quality Control Engineer job openings, while there are 5 at Harris and 5 at Nuclear Fuel Services.
But if you're interested in companies where you might earn a high salary, Quality Control Engineers tend to earn the biggest salaries at Argo AI, Computer Task Group, and Fortinet. Take Argo AI for example. The median Quality Control Engineer salary is $124,704. At Computer Task Group, Quality Control Engineers earn an average of $110,816, while the average at Fortinet is $101,456. You should take into consideration how difficult it might be to secure a job with one of these companies.
View more details on Quality Control Engineer salaries across the United States.
We also looked into companies who hire Quality Control Engineers from the top 100 educational institutions in the U.S. The top three companies that hire the most from these institutions include General Electric, Lockheed Martin, and Boston Scientific.
The industries that Quality Control Engineers fulfill the most roles in are the Technology and Manufacturing industries. But the highest Quality Control Engineer annual salary is in the Technology industry, averaging $76,854. In the Manufacturing industry they make $71,864 and average about $71,647 in the Automotive industry. In conclusion, Quality Control Engineers who work in the Technology industry earn a 11.4% higher salary than Quality Control Engineers in the Retail industry.
