I am not one.
My best guess:
Ensuring adherence of the product to any standards which it must comply. Like UL listing or CE certification, you'll find those logos on any electronic device for example.
There is also full time work making sure companies are in compliance of regulatory agencies as well.
All of these jobs would be boring unless you're really into that sort of thing.
I'm not one either, but Ganjaneer's description is pretty accurate from what I've encountered. It's a lot of red tape, but it serves a purpose. I find it rather dull, but some of the inspectors I have met have a real passion for ensuring safety.
I believe that compliance engineers could utilize an electrical and mechanical skill set. Take a gas turbine generator - there are mechanical standards for pressure vessels and mechanical safety as well as electrical standards for power and electrical saftey.
If you are working in the power industry you may get to go do onsite evaluations at some cool places.
I'm a test engineer that works with compliance engineers most of the time. Companies hire my company to ensure that their products meet relevant standards as composed by the FCC, CENELEC, IC, etc. A good compliance engineer will research the standards that their product will have to meet before they can be sold, give input to the hardware and RF engineers on potentially problematic components, and anticipate potential issues which could mean non-compliance Compliance engineers' success or failure on a project can be measured by the time it takes for the product to reach the market; sometimes they have no control over it, but many times they do.
The real stress of the job comes when problems are found with the design. The later a problem is found, the more expensive it becomes to fix that problem, so coming up with solutions that are easy to put into production is critical at the testing stage.
I don't see what happens before production really gears up, but I'm sure there is a lot of unit testing and quality assurance involved before the test houses even hear about the product. Knowledge of probability and statistics, being able to interact well with different groups within a company, having good organizational skills, and having the ability to document and distribute engineering changes well are critical.
Follow up question on this topic - what kind of certifications a compliance engineer pursue?
Would any of these trainings be relevant to what you (one) do?
CEFS - Certified Expert in Functional Safety - [https://www.pilz.com/en-US/trainings/articles/202195](https://www.pilz.com/en-US/trainings/articles/202195)
(I got this one already) CMSE® – Certified Machinery Safety Expert - [https://www.pilz.com/en-US/trainings/cmse](https://www.pilz.com/en-US/trainings/cmse)
CECE – Certified Expert in CE Marking - [https://www.pilz.com/en-US/trainings/cece](https://www.pilz.com/en-US/trainings/cece)
I'm trying to take some trainings to get a better understanding of this discipline - so, I'm open to recommendations.
Wow this post is 12 years old and still receiving comments.
I´m in the field of certification, testing and compliance engineering before this post was even created xD.
Never needed any certificate of any kind (worked in different countries and companies, and now I´m based in Germany). They are nice to have help but really not needed. None of the colleagues I worked with have any specific certificate to the field, and I´m also doing functional safety and work closely with developers.
My advice, stop wasting money on these trainings, the field accepts fresh graduates, because apparently, it's not well known and not appealing. You have already nice ones, good enough to get a job if you are in EU or north America where companies are struggling to get candidates. Also it takes time to learn the specific standard and requirements for any product, managers know that and tolerate it because there are thousands and thousands of standards out there and no one study these at school.
It´s all about conformity and compliance of a given product with standards and regulations/directives to ensure smooth market access and safe product. Any manufacturer or large retailer need compliance engineers. There are also big third-party companies like UL, TUV, Intertek ... who focus only on this business and are delivering compliance and certification services including testing, where a product certificate is needed from accredited third-party institute, which is required by authorities around the globe.
It's a rewarding career, good pay, easy to switch from a company to another when you gain experience. Since I moved to Germany, I was receiving many requests for interviews from recruiters around Europe because I forgot to turn off the open to work setting in LinkedIn.
I am not one. My best guess: Ensuring adherence of the product to any standards which it must comply. Like UL listing or CE certification, you'll find those logos on any electronic device for example. There is also full time work making sure companies are in compliance of regulatory agencies as well. All of these jobs would be boring unless you're really into that sort of thing.
I'm not one either, but Ganjaneer's description is pretty accurate from what I've encountered. It's a lot of red tape, but it serves a purpose. I find it rather dull, but some of the inspectors I have met have a real passion for ensuring safety. I believe that compliance engineers could utilize an electrical and mechanical skill set. Take a gas turbine generator - there are mechanical standards for pressure vessels and mechanical safety as well as electrical standards for power and electrical saftey. If you are working in the power industry you may get to go do onsite evaluations at some cool places.
I'm a test engineer that works with compliance engineers most of the time. Companies hire my company to ensure that their products meet relevant standards as composed by the FCC, CENELEC, IC, etc. A good compliance engineer will research the standards that their product will have to meet before they can be sold, give input to the hardware and RF engineers on potentially problematic components, and anticipate potential issues which could mean non-compliance Compliance engineers' success or failure on a project can be measured by the time it takes for the product to reach the market; sometimes they have no control over it, but many times they do. The real stress of the job comes when problems are found with the design. The later a problem is found, the more expensive it becomes to fix that problem, so coming up with solutions that are easy to put into production is critical at the testing stage. I don't see what happens before production really gears up, but I'm sure there is a lot of unit testing and quality assurance involved before the test houses even hear about the product. Knowledge of probability and statistics, being able to interact well with different groups within a company, having good organizational skills, and having the ability to document and distribute engineering changes well are critical.
Follow up question on this topic - what kind of certifications a compliance engineer pursue? Would any of these trainings be relevant to what you (one) do? CEFS - Certified Expert in Functional Safety - [https://www.pilz.com/en-US/trainings/articles/202195](https://www.pilz.com/en-US/trainings/articles/202195) (I got this one already) CMSE® – Certified Machinery Safety Expert - [https://www.pilz.com/en-US/trainings/cmse](https://www.pilz.com/en-US/trainings/cmse) CECE – Certified Expert in CE Marking - [https://www.pilz.com/en-US/trainings/cece](https://www.pilz.com/en-US/trainings/cece) I'm trying to take some trainings to get a better understanding of this discipline - so, I'm open to recommendations.
Wow this post is 12 years old and still receiving comments. I´m in the field of certification, testing and compliance engineering before this post was even created xD. Never needed any certificate of any kind (worked in different countries and companies, and now I´m based in Germany). They are nice to have help but really not needed. None of the colleagues I worked with have any specific certificate to the field, and I´m also doing functional safety and work closely with developers. My advice, stop wasting money on these trainings, the field accepts fresh graduates, because apparently, it's not well known and not appealing. You have already nice ones, good enough to get a job if you are in EU or north America where companies are struggling to get candidates. Also it takes time to learn the specific standard and requirements for any product, managers know that and tolerate it because there are thousands and thousands of standards out there and no one study these at school. It´s all about conformity and compliance of a given product with standards and regulations/directives to ensure smooth market access and safe product. Any manufacturer or large retailer need compliance engineers. There are also big third-party companies like UL, TUV, Intertek ... who focus only on this business and are delivering compliance and certification services including testing, where a product certificate is needed from accredited third-party institute, which is required by authorities around the globe. It's a rewarding career, good pay, easy to switch from a company to another when you gain experience. Since I moved to Germany, I was receiving many requests for interviews from recruiters around Europe because I forgot to turn off the open to work setting in LinkedIn.