Customer Quality Engineer

Acuity Inc. (NYSE: AYI) is a market-leading industrial technology company. We use technology to solve problems in spaces, light and more things to come. Through our two business segments, Acuity Brands Lighting (ABL) and Acuity Intelligent Spaces (AIS), we design, manufacture, and bring to market products and services that make a valuable difference in people’s lives.

We achieve growth through the development of innovative new products and services, including lighting, lighting controls, building management solutions, and an audio, video and control platform. We focus on customer outcomes and drive growth and productivity to increase market share and deliver superior returns. We look to aggressively deploy capital to grow the business and to enter attractive new verticals.

Acuity Inc. is based in Atlanta, Georgia, with operations across North America, Europe and Asia. The Company is powered by approximately 13,000 dedicated and talented associates. Visit us at www.acuityinc.com .

Job Summary

The Customer Quality Engineer serves as the primary quality liaison among Technical Support, Product Management, Engineering, and Software and System Quality for customer-reported product issues. This role investigates field-reported behavior across software, embedded devices, controllers, networks, and building automation configurations to determine reproducibility, technical validity, customer impact, and appropriate disposition.

The Customer Quality Engineer recreates representative customer environments, gathers and analyzes technical evidence, and works with Engineering to drive confirmed defects through resolution and release validation. The role distinguishes true product defects from configuration issues, installation problems, interoperability concerns, training gaps, documentation issues, and enhancement requests.

The role also serves as an important feedback loop between customers and product development. Customer issues and field findings are translated into improved product requirements, regression coverage, system test scenarios, troubleshooting guidance, and preventive quality actions.

For building automation products, the Customer Quality Engineer applies working knowledge of Building Management Systems (BMS), HVAC controls, networking, controllers, software, firmware, and relevant communication protocols to understand how products behave in real installations and how customers and system integrators use them.

Key Tasks & Responsibilities (Essential Functions)

Customer Escape Management

• Review customer-reported product issues submitted through Technical Support and other established escalation channels.
• Investigate reported behavior to determine reproducibility, technical validity, customer impact, and potential product risk.
• Determine whether reported issues represent true customer-escaped defects.
• Differentiate between product defects, configuration or installation issues, interoperability problems, training gaps, documentation issues, and enhancement requests.
• Gather and analyze logs, configuration details, network information, software and firmware versions, screenshots, databases, and other technical evidence.
• Provide clear, evidence-based dispositions and recommended next steps to Technical Support and other stakeholders.
• Escalate significant or systemic quality issues based on severity, customer impact, recurrence, or product risk.

Defect Creation and Ownership

• Create and maintain high-quality Azure DevOps defect records.
• Ensure defects contain:
• Reproduction steps
• Business impact
• Customer impact
• Technical evidence
• Logs and attachments
• Product and version information
• Work with engineering teams to clarify defect details.
• Drive defect ownership and accountability through resolution.

Resolution Tracking

• Monitor customer-reported defects throughout the development lifecycle.
• Collaborate with Product Managers and Engineering Leads regarding prioritization and scheduling.
• Track fix implementation status and release targets.
• Verify defects are resolved in designated builds.

Support Communication

• Serve as the primary quality contact for Technical Support.
• Communicate defect status and resolution plans.
• Provide released build information containing fixes.
• Assist Technical Support in understanding workaround options.
• Support customer escalation discussions when necessary.

Quality Analysis and Continuous Improvement

• Analyze escaped defect trends.
• Identify recurring failure modes and product quality risks.
• Produce metrics including:
• Customer-found defects
• Escaped defects by product
• R