My experience as a Quality Engineer Intern at Dormakaba both showed and tested my ethical and professional responsibility as an engineer. I was tasked with improving processes for exit device system products that must perform reliably in emergencies where lives are at stake. I was placed on an escalation team for a push exit door that malfunctioned resulting in a failed egress by the operator meaning it did not let the person out. This is one of the highest risks failure modes so I was tasked with going out to the site of the malfunction and working with a multidisciplinary team to make the call on whether it was a single issue defect or whether to issue a product wide recall that could cost millions. To test we ran validation testing on dozens of the products validating the material, assembly, and overall application to attempt to replicate the failure that raised the escalation. Since Finance and Purchasing were on the escalation team, they provided reasons that focused on saving the largest amount of money and keeping the company's public image in mind. As one of the quality engineers, I had to focus on the ethics of protecting public safety regardless of the financial factors, making our decisions based on the empirical testing data and engineering analysis we ran. For Dormakaba this especially had major global and environmental implications. Dormakaba products are installed almost everywhere you can think of when it comes to getting in or out of a place. They are in schools, hospitals, and airports worldwide, so ensuring their quality standards affects people far beyond just the Indianapolis plant.