Quality Engineer CV Examples & Writing Guide

This sample is for a quality engineer with eight years in manufacturing: an HVAC plant, a medical device maker and now a Tier 1 automotive supplier. The name, employers and university are made up. Keep the structure and swap in your standards, tools, PPM figures and launches. Software QA engineers (testing code) have a separate page; this one is for manufacturing and product quality.

Quality engineer roles are usually filled by the site quality manager or head of quality, often with an in-house recruiter or an engineering agency screening first. They read for four things, and the order depends on the industry.

• Which quality system you have lived in. IATF 16949 (automotive), ISO 13485 with the UK and EU medical device regulations (medical), AS9100 (aerospace), ISO 9001 (general), GMP (pharma) and BRCGS (food). Each has its own vocabulary and audits; a manager wants someone who already speaks theirs.
• Which core tools you have actually owned, not just attended training on. PPAP, PFMEA, control plans, MSA, SPC and 8D for automotive; CAPA, validation, complaint handling and risk management for medical; FAIR and nonconformance boards for aerospace.
• Numbers you moved. Customer PPM, internal scrap, cost of poor quality, CAPA closure rate, first-pass PPAP approval, audit findings, warranty rate. A manager can tell in one line whether you were the engineer responsible or a bystander.
• Launches, customers and suppliers. How many product launches you carried through APQP, which OEMs or notified bodies you have faced, how many suppliers you have audited. This is where salary bands get set.

“Every quality engineer CV says PPAP, FMEA and root cause. The ones that get called back put a number next to them: PPM from 85 to 22, 94% first-time PPAP approval, 38 8Ds closed inside the customer's clock. Without numbers there is no way to tell who owned the work.”

Use a personal statement once you have held a quality engineer title: standards, tools, years, one or two numbers, qualifications. A career objective is for new graduates and engineers changing into quality from production or design; it should still name the standard and the tools you know.

The job advert lists tools; your CV should list what happened when you used them. Each strong bullet point below has a standard or tool, the scale, and a result. Change the figures to yours.

List 12 to 16 skills in three groups: standards, tools and methods, and software. Recruiters search for exact terms from the advert, and a quality manager will question you on anything listed, so include only what you have actually used.

Quality systems and standards (name your industry's):

• ISO 9001; IATF 16949 (automotive); AS9100 and AS9102 (aerospace); ISO 13485, ISO 14971 and the UK and EU medical device regulations (medical devices), plus FDA 21 CFR Part 820 if you supply the US; GMP (pharma), HACCP and BRCGS (food); ISO/IEC 17025 (labs)
• GD&T to ISO GPS / BS 8888 or ASME Y14.5, drawing and specification review
• Sampling plans (ISO 2859-1), AQL, inspection planning

Tools and methods:

• Core tools: APQP, PPAP, FMEA (DFMEA and PFMEA, including the AIAG-VDA handbook), control plans, MSA (gauge R&R), SPC
• Problem solving: 8D, 5 Whys, fishbone, A3, is/is-not analysis
• CAPA, nonconformance and MRB, complaint handling, SCARs
• Process validation (IQ/OQ/PQ), test method validation, design verification
• Capability studies (Cp, Cpk, Ppk), hypothesis testing, DOE basics
• Lean and Six Sigma: DMAIC, value stream mapping, poka-yoke, layered process audits
• Internal and supplier auditing; management review inputs

Software and measurement:

• Minitab, JMP or Excel for statistics; Power BI or Tableau for quality dashboards
• QMS platforms: MasterControl, ETQ Reliance, Veeva, IQMS, Intelex, uniPoint
• ERP quality modules: SAP QM, Oracle, Epicor, Plex
• Measurement: CMM reports (Calypso, PC-DMIS), calibration systems (GAGEpack), vision systems

No licence is required to work as a quality engineer in the UK. Chartered Engineer (CEng) or Incorporated Engineer (IEng) status through an engineering institution is valued in senior roles but not expected. The quality profession's own body is the Chartered Quality Institute (CQI). List each qualification with the issuing body and year, and put your strongest one in your personal statement, because many adverts and agencies filter on it.

• CQI membership: grades run from Associate (ACQI) through Practitioner (PCQI) to Chartered Quality Professional (CQP MCQI), assessed on your qualifications and experience. CQP is the senior UK benchmark and needs ongoing CPD.
• Six Sigma Green Belt or Black Belt: for engineers who lead improvement projects. Several providers train and certify; name yours and say whether the belt included a completed project (Black Belt usually requires them).
• Auditor courses: CQI and IRCA-certified ISO 9001 internal or lead auditor, IATF 16949 internal auditor, VDA 6.3 process auditor, ISO 13485 lead auditor, AS9100 internal auditor. Name the provider.
• ASQ Certified Quality Engineer (CQE): a US certification that some US-owned and automotive employers in the UK recognise. It requires 8 years of qualifying experience (a degree waives part of it) and an exam. Useful, but not expected for UK roles.
• Medical devices: courses in ISO 13485, ISO 14971 risk management, process validation and the UK and EU medical device regulations; add FDA 21 CFR Part 820 (now aligned with ISO 13485 under the FDA's Quality Management System Regulation) if you supply the US.
• Education: a degree in manufacturing, mechanical, industrial, chemical or materials engineering, an HNC or HND in engineering, or an engineering degree apprenticeship. Add the subject, university and year; give your degree classification if it is a 2:1 or First, or if you graduated recently.

Graduate quality engineer adverts ask for an engineering degree, familiarity with a quality standard and core tools, and some statistics. Industrial placements, summer internships and final-year projects count as experience if you write them like a quality engineer would.

1. 1Put "Quality Engineer" under your name and aim your career objective at one industry (automotive, medical, aerospace) so the standard and tools you name line up.
2. 2Move Education up: degree, university, year, classification (2:1 or above, or predicted), and the relevant modules (statistics, quality control, manufacturing processes, metrology).
3. 3Write your placement or internship with the same formula as a job: standard, tool, scale, result. Twenty gauge R&R studies, two PFMEAs, one 8D you supported all count.
4. 4Add a Projects section for a final-year or Six Sigma project: the problem, the data you collected, the tool you used and the measured result.
5. 5Take core tools training or a Six Sigma Green Belt, and learn Minitab well enough to run a capability study live in an interview.
6. 6Mention GD&T and drawing reading; it is the most common gap quality managers find in new graduates.
7. 7One page or two at most, PDF, no photo and no date of birth.

• Two pages is normal for experienced and supplier quality engineers with many customers, suppliers and launches to show; one page can work for a graduate. Never three.
• Order: header, personal statement, qualifications (if you hold CQI membership, a Six Sigma belt or an auditor course), technical skills in three groups, experience, education. New graduates: education before experience.
• Plain single-column layout like the cvplex mechanical-engineer or ats-classic template. Applicant tracking systems read plain text; no photo, no date of birth, no skill bars, no text in tables.
• Dates by month and year. Contract quality roles are common around automotive launches; label them "(contract)".
• Save as PDF named Firstname-Lastname-Quality-Engineer-CV.pdf unless the advert asks for Word.
• UK adverts use quality engineer, quality assurance engineer, supplier quality engineer (SQE), customer quality engineer and quality improvement engineer for overlapping roles. Use the title the advert uses if it fits your experience.

Words to mirror from the advert when they apply to you: quality management system, IATF 16949, ISO 9001, ISO 13485, AS9100, PPAP, APQP, FMEA, control plan, MSA, SPC, Cpk, gauge R&R, 8D, root cause, corrective action, CAPA, nonconformance, MRB, supplier quality, SCAR, internal audit, customer complaints, PPM, scrap, cost of poor quality, validation, IQ/OQ/PQ, Minitab, Six Sigma, lean, continuous improvement, launch.