Quality Assurance Technician

Quality assurance technicians make sure that an organization’s products meet quality standards before going out to consumers. Quality assurance technicians can specialize in any product. They handle the technical aspect of quality assurance testing by inspecting products and ensuring that they conform to private and governmental regulations.

They also handle the administrative aspect of quality assurance testing by logging results and documenting compliance. Quality assurance technicians need strong attention to detail to spot any errors. They also need strong interpersonal skills to work with other technicians and quality assurance engineers to design and implement tests.

What does a Quality Assurance Technician do?

Quality assurance is an essential part of a company that offers products and services. It is critical that the company’s output remains consistent and up to par with community standards. It is the quality assurance technician’s role to inspect, monitor, and evaluate the quality of every product. The goal is to establish customer satisfaction and trust. The assistant quality assurance manager works with the head manager and helps generate reports of daily activities for executive evaluations.

These technicians are responsible for testing and analyzing electronics, in order to insure their quality and safety for either professional or every day use. Job duties may include setting up test cases, developing scenarios, reporting issues, and diagnosing technical problems. Test cases may be conducted in multiple environments to assure that the product can stand up to everyday uses.

Quality assurance technicians must also communicate their findings with other professionals such as product managers, developers, and system engineers. They can specialize in a number of industries such as communications, healthcare, transportation, and signal processing.

Increase Quality

Quality assurance technicians develop inspection methods to analyze product quality and improve product quality by making recommendations for change.
Ensure Compliance

They review of material and specification documents to ensure compliance with contractual requirements, including shop drawings, material Certificates of Compliance.

Team Player

These technicians work together with relevant teams and departments to improve products. They also brainstorm ideas with others to create solutions for identified problems.
Quality Assurance

Quality assurance technicians are responsible for products to adhere to company and industry quality standards. They must also document results and findings after inspections are carried out.

Quality Engineer

A quality engineer is responsible for the generation of a strategic plan to improve the business processes and increase production output. Duties include creating the company’s quality standards and testing systems to reflect efficiency, reliability and performance.

Process Engineer

Process engineers are responsible for providing the chemical or biochemical processes and equipment that ultimately extract materials from their raw states and transform them into a beneficial or saleable end product. They are also responsible for the design, implementation, control, and optimization of the product’s industrial processing phase, and they usher the product along from start to finish.

Industrial Engineer

Industrial engineers look for various avenues in which to eliminate wastefulness in production processes. They discover ways to use workers, machines, materials, information, and energy to make a product or provide a service in the most efficient way possible.

Salary

The estimated total pay for a quality assurance technician is $44,810 per year.

Starting-level

Starting-level quality assurance technician earnings begin at:

$13.86 per hour

$28,820 per year

Senior-level

Senior-level quality assurance technician earnings begin at:

$23.78 per hour

$49,450 per year

Mid-level

Mid-level quality assurance technician earnings begin at:

$18.55 per hour

$38,580 per year

Top-level

Top-level quality assurance technician earnings begin at:

$30.27 per hour

$62,970 per year

Junior-level

Junior-level quality assurance technician earnings begin at:

$15.16 per hour

$31,540 per year

These are 2021 national salary averages and may fluctuate based on location.

Quality assurance technicians work across a huge variety of manufacturing environments including electronic components, medical device manufacturing, car manufacturing, machine tools, aviation, semiconductors, computers, etc.

Quality assurance technicians can work on the factory floor and are on their feet all day working with the production team, monitoring and improving the production process as well as solving problems or working with suppliers. Others are desk-based in an office – depending on the specific tasks they are carrying out at the time.

Quality assurance technicians are generally part of a larger team responsible for making quality improvements across all aspects of production.

How to Become a Quality Assurance Technician?

A high school diploma is the minimum qualification for many positions, although more complex products, such as computer software, or the use of computerized testing equipment, may require a higher post-secondary education. A quality assurance technician will typically learn their skills under supervisors or more experienced workers.

Employers may prefer those who show dexterity and mechanical skills, have the technical skills to understand blueprints and specifications, and in some cases, the stamina to stand for most of the day and the strength to lift heavy objects.

Many quality assurance technicians have only a high school diploma or an associate’s degree. However, earning a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering or engineering might make it easier to find a job.

Similar Careers

Product Safety Engineer

A product safety engineer is someone who determines whether products are safe for use by consumers.

Quality Control Inspector

Quality control inspectors are responsible for ensuring that the products and services produced by their company meet certain standards of quality.

Quality Engineer

If you do quality work, you might just get hired. As a quality engineer, you test plans for products to discover any problems that may arise and what is causing them.

Sources:

Bestaccreditedcolleges.org, 2022 | BLS.gov, 2022 | Canva.com, 2022 | GetSkilled.com, 2022 | Work.Chron.com, 2022 | Zippia.com, 2022

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Quality Assurance Technician

What does a Quality Assurance Technician do?

Increase Quality

Ensure Compliance

Team Player