WHAT DOES A COMPLIANCE ENGINEER DO?
Published: September 23, 2024 - The Compliance Engineer ensures electromagnetic, electrostatic, and laser safety compliance across automotive and various customer-defined applications. This role coordinates with internal and external teams to facilitate both preliminary and final compliance testing, maintaining stringent standards throughout. Additionally, the engineer leads initiatives to drive continuous improvement in verification processes and compliance protocols, ensuring products meet all regulatory requirements.
A Review of Professional Skills and Functions for Compliance Engineer
1. Compliance Engineer Duties
- Product Safety Approval: Responsible for the approval of consumer products in Germany and abroad, especially with regard to food safety.
- Approval Coordination: Coordinate and process approval orders on schedule in close cooperation with the product development and marketing teams as well as the local subsidiaries and distributors.
- Requirement Clarification: Clarify the desired product requirements / claims internally.
- Certification Management: Plan and perform recertifications and issue certificates of conformity.
- Legal Research: Research and analyze standards, guidelines, and legal regulations at national and international levels.
- Risk Forecasting: Forecast possible risks and derive appropriate recommendations for action.
- Portfolio Management: Create and maintain upper views of the admission portfolio.
- Product Testing: Perform product testing based on engineering protocols and other technical documents.
- Debugging: Debug electrical and software issues with new and existing devices and equipment via root cause analysis.
- Interdepartmental Communication: Communicate with various departments regarding actions required for project completion.
- Engineering Support: Assist project engineers to meet deadlines for tests, complete milestones, and day-to-day engineering tasks.
- Component Review: Review Part Request and Changes for electrical components.
2. Compliance Engineer Details
- Platform Certification: Partners with mentor to certify best-in-class GPS navigation, HD traffic, wireless video, radar, and driving recorder platforms and connected services using HD Radio, Bluetooth Low Energy, and Wi-Fi.
- Compliance Application: Consistently applies compliance standards and procedures in the creation and execution of compliance plans for products through final product approval.
- Cross-Functional Partnership: Partners with cross-functional engineering teams to ensure compliant designs and testability for Bluetooth, FCC, and safety aspects.
- Safety Collaboration: Collaborates with experienced Compliance Engineers to perform safety-critical component datasheet review and some schematic design review where safety standards require redundancy to prevent hazardous conditions.
- Discrepancy Investigation: Investigates and determines causes of testing discrepancies between outside labs and Garmin.
- RF Testing: Tests prototypes for RF emissions and properly documents the test results.
- Compliance Communication: Communicates compliance plan elements, expectations, and deliverables to the project team.
- Compliance Declaration: Identifies strong technical rationale for declaring compliance of new designs based on similarity, using established techniques.
- Knowledgebase Updates: Updates compliance department knowledgebase to reflect new requirements and standards, with oversight.
- Process Improvement: Offers process improvement suggestions.
3. Compliance Engineer Responsibilities
- Regulatory Standardization: Drive a standardized and harmonized approach to Regulatory Compliance across Ring's suite of products.
- Test Specification Definition: Define test specifications, methodology, and test coverage to assure product compliance.
- Compliance Planning: Translate product business requirements into compliance qualification plans.
- Regulatory Education: Work with the engineering team, including the product/program managers, to actively educate on regulatory requirements for new and existing products, help guide compliant design development, and verify compliance through testing, debug, and validation activities.
- Risk Management: Identify and validate product risks and work with design teams to mitigate them.
- Reliability Design: Develop and Implement Design for Reliability and Safety.
- EMC Expertise: Provide hands-on expertise in EMC/EMI compliance during development (pre-compliance testing).
- Lab Collaboration: Work with 3rd party labs to test and validate Ring products and support testing from a hardware and software perspective.
- Compliance Testing: Complete test results, debug, root cause failures, and communicate to program teams any areas of concerns on failures and implement corrective design actions.
- Regulatory Filing: File official paperwork and final approval from the proper government or regulatory bodies.
- Compliance Tracking: Track and research applicable requirements related to worldwide regulatory certification labeling and ensure Ring products remain compliant with current regulations.
- Regulatory Updates: Stay up to date on any changes to global agency approvals and testing procedures.
4. Compliance Engineer Job Summary
- Compliance Oversight: Maintains oversight and manages compliance with export/import authorizations.
- Compliance Research: Researches and resolves customer, subcontractor, and supplier trade compliance requirements or concerns.
- Global Interface: Interfaces with internal and external import/export organizations worldwide.
- Government Relations: Establish and maintain relationships with government licensing authorities and technology release decision-makers to ensure that the company's position is conveyed and understood.
- Compliance Training: Develops and conducts training and manages licensing and compliance actions.
- Sample Ordering: Orders Compliance test samples for third-party laboratory testing.
- Relationship Management: Owns the relationship with local and/or product specialty.
- Database Management: Manages the Compliance Database, uploads new compliance certifications while tracking KPI metrics.
- Certification Communication: Communicates with multiple certification laboratories to procure and initiate test services, tracking project milestones to assure on-time product certification for product release.
- Cross-Functional Collaboration: Closely interacts with R&D, Marketing, Project Managers, and test engineers internally and with external test laboratories, ensuring all issues are driven to on-time resolution.
5. Compliance Engineer Accountabilities
- Regulatory Setting: Set relevant regulatory chemical compliance requirements in projects and validate the technical information and test reports.
- Regulatory Implementation: Implement new regulatory requirements for products currently on the market.
- Requirement Interpretation: Interpret and evaluate new regulatory requirements.
- Stakeholder Support: Support and inform relevant stakeholders about the business impact of new regulatory requirements.
- Risk Identification: Work proactively to identify risks and improve processes to avoid recurring problems.
- Privacy Assessments: Conduct Privacy Impact Assessments (PIAs) for projects and products.
- Risk Mitigation: Recommend controls required to mitigate privacy risks found in assessments during engineering design, implementation, and production support.
- Monitoring Establishment: Establish continuous monitoring for effectively tracking and managing security and privacy controls.
- Training Support: Support and enable security and privacy awareness training programs.
- Opportunity Implementation: Identify and implement opportunities to improve ability to measure and report on risk management.
- Compliance Integration: Effectively integrates compliance risk/context and technical knowledge to address complex problems.
6. Compliance Engineer Functions
- Data Analytics Communication: Refine, report, and communicate compliance opportunities through data insights and analytics across MD.
- Audit Collaboration: Collaborate and execute across the site to maintain the Internal Audit Program.
- Metric Reporting: Collect and report metrics in support of internal compliance across MD.
- Data Analysis: Conduct Compliance & Quality data analysis and share the output and recommendations to MD Senior Management.
- Audit Support: Support External Audits and execution of Internal Audits.
- Reporting Standardization: Develop and maintain a standardized approach to reporting and presenting metrics.
- Regulatory Assessment: Assess proposed regulations, communicate, and incorporate the new requirements into the site internal audit program.
- Regulatory Guidance: Provide Regulatory Compliance guidance and support to NPD projects as needed.
- Technical Review Support: Support Technical File & Technical Document reviews.
- Regulation Integration: Ensure inclusion of new regulations into the Internal Audit Program.
- Risk Alerting: Alert the organization to existing and potential problems and risks.
- Corrective Collaboration: Collaborate with functional departments within the Franchise to establish effective corrective and preventive actions.
- Policy Formulation: Assist in formulating regulatory policies and procedures to be followed by company personnel in compliance with local, state, and federal regulations through the development of internal audit Franchise documents and Standard Operating Procedures.
7. Compliance Engineer Job Description
- Audit Execution: Execute internal audits according to the established internal audit procedures.
- Audit Reporting: Ensure internal audit results are reported to management having responsibility for the matters audited.
- Audit Readiness: Support/lead external audit/inspection readiness activities to ensure site readiness at all times including audit logistics, from room/back-room arrangements, identifying/preparing SMEs, etc.
- Audit Management: Support management of external audits/inspections of the site.
- Guidance Provision: Provide guidance to ensure timely and adequate responses to internal and external audit observations.
- Metric Assurance: Assure that internal and external audit metrics are accurately captured and published.
- Performance Reporting: Create reports and communicate performance against metrics to key stakeholders.
- Trend Highlighting: Highlight/communicate adverse trends in metrics and take risk-based action to remediate.
- Regulation Implementation: Support/lead implementation of new/revised regulations and standards for the site.
- Quality Systems Application: Apply comprehensive and diverse knowledge of quality systems in work assignments, projects, and initiatives.
- Compliance Projects: Support/lead projects to ensure compliance with quality system and regulatory requirements.
- Regulatory Authority: Act as an emerging authority in the regulatory compliance field.
- Compliance Collaboration: Connect and collaborate with the regulatory compliance teams of other sites, regions, and business groups to attain common objectives.
8. Compliance Engineer Overview
- Requirement Clarification: Communicate with R&D project teams and clarify the new product approval requirements.
- Document Review: Collect and review product approval related documents.
- Approval Tracking: Track and support the product approval process.
- Test Participation: Participate in the internal/external approval tests.
- Agency Communication: Communicate with local and global agencies.
- Global Collaboration: Collaborate closely with the global ABB organization.
- Management Communication: Responsible for communicating business-related issues or opportunities to the next management level.
- Safety Compliance: Responsible for ensuring that subordinates follow all Company guidelines related to Health, Safety, and Environmental practices and that all resources needed to do so are available and in good condition
- Regulatory Compliance: Responsible for ensuring personal and Company compliance with all Federal, State, local, and Company regulations, policies, and procedures.
- External Contact: Maintain contact with external functions such as Regulatory Agencies (e.g., FDA), and Notified Bodies (e.g., TUV, BSI).
9. Compliance Engineer Details and Accountabilities
- Regulatory Review: Review and update AWE's internal arrangements with respect to the regulatory conditions.
- Implementation Assurance: Ensure license condition owners' implementation plans meet internal/external regulator expectations.
- Competency Identification: Identify the competencies necessary to effectively implement the arrangements.
- KPI Development: Develop KPI specifications for condition requirements as well as identifying and establishing KPI data sources.
- KPI Management: Obtain, collate, and organize KPI information for Technical Owner analysis.
- Reporting: Prepare bi-monthly reports and presentations for the condition technical owners.
- Facilitation: Facilitate Reviews, Workshops, and Audits to investigate and improve the Arrangements.
- Issue Resolution: Facilitate the resolution of issues by managing the creation of actions, allocation of action leads, verification of action completion, and closure of issues.
- Documentation Alignment: Align the approach, documentation, and practices associated with arrangements and implementation thereof across the technical owners.
- Compliance Awareness: Maintain awareness of ONR guidance and other pertinent information on license conditions compliance.
10. Compliance Engineer Tasks
- Safety Compliance: Responsible for electromagnetic, electrostatic, and laser safety compliance for automotive applications as well as other customer-defined applications.
- Mechanical Compliance: Ensure the ability of the product to pass mechanical compliance (e.g., IP67, shock/vibe) for automotive as well as customer-defined applications.
- Internal Coordination: Interface with internal groups to ensure all aspects of compliance testing are planned and achieved.
- External Liaison: Interface with external test labs for both preliminary and final compliance testing.
- Laser Safety Leadership: Lead laser eye-safety standards and regulatory compliance efforts during development and product launch phases.
- Process Improvement: Drive continuous improvement of the verification and compliance process.
- Certification Coordination: Coordinate laser product compliance certification with external 3rd party labs.
- Testing Oversight: Oversee operation and calibration of laser emission testing and validation equipment.
- Equipment Development: Develop end-of-line (EOL) testing equipment and stations.
- Software Management: Manage the development of new software capabilities on testing equipment to improve accuracy and throughput.
- Data Monitoring: Monitor testing data and analyze statistical results.
11. Compliance Engineer Roles
- Manufacturing Compliance: Ensure compliance of manufacturing activities with cGxP and approved procedures on equipment level.
- cGxP Management: Handle global and local cGxP implementation, maintenance, and support of relevant cGxP documents.
- Quality Support: Support preparing, implementing, and tracking of quality incidents (e.g., Key Performance Indicators).
- Methodology Sharing: Implement sharing and leveraging of methodologies and expertise in Commissioning and Qualification.
- Department Representation: Represent the department Site Development Rhine Valley during inspections/audits/self-inspections.
- Quality Projects: Initiate, lead, and implement quality improvement projects.
- Training Development: Support training setup with SD RV organization, develop a new and simplified state of the training concepts for the InfraPark.
- Risk Management: Work with business line management to help ensure the implementation of key risk management practices and procedures in the normal course of business operations.
- Risk Controls: Ensures that controls used to mitigate business risks are properly designed, executed, and documented.
- Consultancy Role: Serves as a consult to ensure facilitation/oversight and response to inquiry/examination.
- Cloud Risk Compliance: Work with Cloud Engineers to assess and implement risk compliance procedures and processes.
12. Compliance Engineer Additional Details
- Product Compliance: Ensure GoPro’s entire product lineup of cameras, mounts, and accessories remain compliant with current regulations.
- Cross-Functional Guidance: Provide cross-functional, cross-program guidance to ensure commonality and consistency between all programs’ markings, documentation, and packaging.
- Compliance Collaboration: Collaborate with engineering development teams to support RF compliance testing (Bluetooth, Wi-Fi), safety testing, EMC (EMI, ESD testing), and SAR testing.
- Regulatory Liaison: Act as a liaison between expert regulatory engineers, in-house legal counsel, documentation specialists, and sales to provide necessary compliance documents for regulatory shipping and distributor compliance purposes.
- Environmental Compliance: Consult and coordinate with development teams and manufacturing partners/suppliers to ensure compliance with all applicable environmental regulations including ROHS, REACH, Prop 65, China GB, WEEE, TSCA.
- Distributor Coordination: Address distributor registration requests for cameras/batteries and requests for compliance documentation from foreign governments’ customs agents.
- Sustaining Engineering: Drive sustaining engineering activities related to environmental compliance issues.
- Regulatory Documentation: Ensure regulatory documents and registration related to battery transportation, shipping, and retail partners are current and compliant.
- Engineering Teamwork: Work as part of a dedicated engineering team to work on regulatory and compliance approvals of new or existing products.
- Design Requirements Definition: Define the design requirements based on compliance and regulatory standards.
- Safety Testing: Perform standard-based test procedures to verify the safety and compliance of designs.
13. Compliance Engineer Essential Functions
- Document Preparation: Prepare and update FMEA, Hazard Analysis, Detail Design, and other design control documents.
- Certification Participation: Participate in certifying body certification projects (UL, TUV, etc.).
- Protocol Development: Develop, maintain, and improve engineering test protocols and reports, test methods, test method validation, manufacturing instructions, assembly instructions, quality instructions, calibration and preventive maintenance instructions, risk management, design controls, and other technical documents.
- Product Testing: Perform product testing based on engineering protocols and other technical documents.
- Issue Debugging: Debug electrical and software issues with new and existing devices and equipment via root cause analysis.
- Department Communication: Communicate with various departments regarding actions required for project completion.
- Engineering Assistance: Assist project engineers to meet deadlines for tests, complete milestones, and day-to-day engineering tasks.
- Component Review: Review Part Request and Changes for electrical components.
- Improvement Initiation: Identify problems and initiate improvements.
14. Compliance Engineer Role Purpose
- Sample Configuration: Work with the engineering team to configure samples for testing, gather documentation (schematics, BOM, block diagram, etc.), and send RFQs and POs to test labs.
- Schedule Management: Manage certification schedules with 3rd party labs and internal development teams.
- Certification Coordination: Coordinate EMC/RF/Product Safety certification testing of company products targeted for domestic and international markets.
- Schedule Oversight: Ensure the project schedule is on track and within projected deadlines and relay this information to the Principal Compliance Engineer.
- Process Establishment: Establish, document, implement, and maintain Snap One’s regulatory compliance processes to ensure alignment with regulatory standards and internal requirements.
- Inventory Management: Manage inventory of reports, certificates, and technical documents for information traceability and identification purposes.
- Technical Guidance: Provide expert technical guidance concerning interpretation, understanding, and complying with regulations/requirements, participate in investigations and root cause analysis of compliance-related events, implement/document changes as needed, and provide corrective action feedback to project managers and design engineers.
- Regulatory Monitoring: Monitor, interpret, and report status on existing and emerging global regulations, standards, and certification requirements that may impact Snap One products.
- Strategy Development: Assist in the development and implementation of new and/or modified strategies and Engineering/business processes to address new requirements.
- Training Provision: Provide training to product certification team members on the latest global regulatory requirements.
- Cross-Functional Collaboration: Ability to work cross-functionally in a dynamic environment with global teams.
15. Compliance Engineer General Responsibilities
- Feasibility Assessments: Undertake electrical feasibility assessments, including thermal and voltage calculations, to connect a new generation to the network.
- Grid Applications: Prepare, compile, and submit distribution and transmission grid applications.
- Network Liaison: Liaise with network operators to ensure grid connection is progressed in accordance with the project’s program.
- Problem Solving: Actively solve problems with network operators to mitigate and minimize grid connection constraints.
- Grid Compliance Management: Manage Grid Code and G99 compliance processes for distribution and transmission connections.
- Electrical Input Provision: Provide electrical input into Balance of Plant and Turbine Supply Agreement Employers’ Requirements.
- Tender Preparation: Prepare and review electrical scopes of work and specifications for tendering.
- Design Review: Review electrical designs by contractors and EPCs.
- Project Assistance: Provide electrical assistance to Project Managers in relation to onsite works and construction programs.
- Technical Assistance: Provide electrical technical assistance across GCR’s departments.