QA/QC Engineer Job Description

Quality control is the buzz word in every industry. More so, in industries like construction, oil and gas, factories and construction engineering. Even a small error of margin in construction of mega projects or during off shore deep water installation can lead to major disasters and financial nemesis. Thus, the domain and range of jobs is distributed widely in any sector where companies are looking for quality control in the process of fulfilling the expectations of its customers/clients and providing effective customer services. Some of the major employers of QA/QC engineers are in the oil and gas industry, civil engineering sites, energy industry and various onshore organizations that work in high risk area. This doesn't put a constraint on employment of QA/QC engineers in any other industry. Quality assurance or quality control engineers are also employed in software jobs or in firms focusing on manufacturing process where they're required to track projects, ensure quality of software and create reports.

Job Duties and Responsibilities
Quality control and quality assurance are an integral part of every industry. Maintaining, designing and controlling quality strategies and quality management systems, that is what forms the basic principles of total quality management and so forms the foundation stone of their jobs. In on shore organization, their work also consists of providing support to the QA/QC coordinator for ensuring that all risk factors have been scientifically assessed. They are at the helm of project management procedures, especially in the oil and gas sector. In the concluding stages of a project and frequently during project execution phase, QA/QC engineers visit working sites to check if all the required standards of quality are followed. There is a fine line dividing work responsibilities of QA and QC engineer jobs.

While quality assurance (QA) engineers predominantly focus on checking quality of products/services and project execution, quality control (QC) engineers brainstorm to chalk out effective quality control plans so that quality is never compromised and risk factors are nullified, to the minimum possible extent. Some of their other duties are as follows:

• QA/QC engineers ensure that quality control plans as per contractors/clients expectation are followed religiously, especially in cases of onshore oil drilling works.
• They identify problems, pose plausible solutions and implement those solutions to achieve objectives of the project.
• They plan and coordinate quality control activities and conduct sessions to explain to workers the importance of following national/international quality norms/rule/regulations.
• They supervise working of quality service providers and inspectors.
• They also review and approve documentation reports, contractor audits and other official reports to keep as final records.

Besides the jobs of QA engineers, there are many more job profiles that are in demand to assure better quality. For instance, the work responsibilities of quality control analysts also includes deep research and analysis of risk factors for success of projects. He/she may also be required to assist QA/QC engineers in works. Overall, be it either of them, the core duty of all these engineers is to ensure maximum quality enhancement of a product or a project.

In the past two decades, industrialization has gained a stupendous pace and so career opportunities in this field has increased by leaps and bounds. The career development path has also been growing as for every task, construction giants and corporate houses don't step back from recruiting skilled and trained employees. In case, you've got the right set of skills and definitely some work experience (it's vital in this sector), you can command decent salaries. In fact, owing to risk factors in this field, generally salaries are very competitive relative to various salary ranges for jobs.

Mechanical engineers, petrochemical engineers and civil engineers who have interest in these works can also carry out tasks of the job of a QA/QC engineer, but only after proper education and training. In software testing fields, quality assurance engineers are also recruited by software companies to check the quality of software. In case of food, clothing and other items, we all must have heard of quality assurance certifications that are awarded to firms and products for following correct rules of manufacturing. QA and QCs are found in every engineering field and you'll always find a market for such professionals.