WHAT DOES A LEAD QUALITY ENGINEER DO?

Published: Jan 16, 2026 - The Lead Quality Engineer ensures product readiness by reviewing requirements, creating detailed test cases, executing manual and regression testing, and identifying quality risks through exploratory techniques. This role strengthens product reliability by developing and maintaining automated tests, investigating customer-reported issues, determining root causes, and leading automation efforts while training other testers. The lead also enhances overall quality practices by tracking key metrics, supporting process-improvement initiatives, and contributing to the evaluation of tools, frameworks, and testing approaches.

A Review of Professional Skills and Functions for Lead Quality Engineer

1. Lead Quality Engineer Duties

  • Root Cause: Oversight of product conformance and process compliance, leading complex root cause and corrective action investigations to address and eliminate customer and internal disruptions
  • Supply Quality: Manage the supply base to ensure quality, compliance, mitigate risk with hardware transfers and meet customer and regulatory requirements
  • Process Improvement: Analyze, identify, and implement process improvements that will enhance capability and performance
  • Risk Mitigation: Initiate action as it is required to ensure project/team success (e.g., mitigate risks, problem solve, provide technical guidance, etc.)
  • Technical Counsel: Provide technical counsel to all levels to establish successful paths for key business process indicators
  • Regulatory Compliance: Verify contractual and regulatory requirements are fulfilled and have maximized customer satisfaction and profitability
  • Quality Planning: Establish and execute a project quality plan, witness points, and quality records for compliance with the contract
  • Lessons Learned: Ensure customer quality requirements, Feedback of Experience (FOE)/Lessons Learned, are considered in the tender proposal to avoid deviation and to continually improve execution processes
  • Policy Execution: Utilizes in-depth knowledge of a discipline and analytical thinking to execute policy/strategy

2. Lead Quality Engineer Details

  • Mentoring Support: Acts as a resource for colleagues with less experience
  • Project Leadership: Lead small projects with low risks and resource requirements
  • Team Consensus: Explains information, developing skills to bring team members to a consensus around topics within the field
  • Performance Guidance: Conveys performance expectations and may handle sensitive issues
  • Procedure Adaptation: Allows modification of procedures and practices covering work if the results meet the standards of acceptability
  • Problem Solving: Uses some judgment and can propose different solutions outside of set parameters to address more complicated, day-to-day problems
  • Analytical Thinking: Uses technical experience and analytical thinking
  • Decision Making: Uses multiple internal and limited external sources outside of their own team to arrive at decisions

3. Lead Quality Engineer Responsibilities

  • Product Expertise: Learn the Visual Lease domain and become a VL product expert
  • Work Planning: Assist with the planning and estimating of work items
  • Requirement Review: Review requirements to determine if they are clear and testable
  • Test Creation: Create detailed test cases, and perform manual testing at different phases and times
  • Regression Testing: Perform system-level regression testing each iteration to ensure product readiness
  • Automation Development: Develop and maintain automated tests that are run regularly to provide quality feedback
  • Automation Leadership: Lead automation and provide training to other testers
  • Issue Investigation: Investigate and reproduce customer-reported issues to help determine the root cause
  • Risk Analysis: Determine quality risk areas, and use exploratory testing to uncover elusive defects
  • Quality Metrics: Implement, track, and report on key quality metrics, and be a champion for quality throughout the development process
  • Process Improvement: Support special quality-related initiatives to improve processes, investigate and qualify tools, develop and improve test frameworks or techniques

4. Lead Quality Engineer Accountabilities

  • Customer Support: Interact with customers via phone, email, and portals to resolve quality issues and address requests to ensure their satisfaction
  • Team Guidance: Provide direction and advice to QA engineers and technicians
  • Root Cause: Drive root cause analysis, problem solving and corrective actions for quality issues found externally or internally
  • 8D Management: Maintain accurate 8D records to support corrective and preventative actions and reporting
  • PPAP Submission: Compile and submit PPAP packages per customer request
  • Data Analysis: Effectively collect and evaluate data to make data-driven decisions to improve quality, utilizing SPC techniques
  • MSA Studies: Conduct capability studies, Gage R&R (MSA), to derive improvement actions
  • Quality Documentation: Develop and maintain quality documents such as control plans, PFMEA, flow diagrams and work instructions

5. Lead Quality Engineer Functions

  • Process Controls: Identify and implement required process controls to ensure product quality
  • QMS Support: Support the organization in sustaining the ISO9001 QMS system
  • Technician Training: Work with and support cross-training QA technicians for seamless operations
  • Change Management: Submit ECRs and support ECN implementation
  • Cross Collaboration: Assimilate and work with all cross-functional departments to improve Quality
  • Quality Management: Support Quality management for effective department functionality
  • Operational Reporting: Effectively produce reports or procedures to optimize operations
  • Material Disposition: Determine disposition of rejected materials, components and devices
  • Product Introduction: Assist with new product introduction into production to ensure high quality
Relevant Information
What Does A Quality Engineer Do?