This paper investigates whether and how the individual fulfilling the engagement auditor role impacts audit quality. Audit reports of Chinese listed companies are required to be signed by two certified auditors: the engagement partner (EP), who conducts the final review of an audit, and the engagement auditor (EA), who leads the audit team through the fieldwork. Using a sample of Chinese listed companies for which EAs and EPs can be credibly identified from their audit reports, we find that the inclusion of EA fixed-effects significantly increases the explanatory power of the model that estimates several audit quality proxies. We also find that the probability of restatement of EAs’ current clients’ financial statements is positively associated with the restatement rate of their prior clients, and that this association is significantly weaker when EAs are paired with EPs of superior quality. Overall, findings in this paper provide exploratory evidence on the critical role of individual auditors below the partner level in determining audit quality.