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QA Engineer Job Description (2026): Duties, Skills and Salary

A QA engineer makes sure software works before customers find out it doesn't. They plan what to test, write and run test cases, automate regression checks, and report defects with enough detail for developers to fix them fast. Many QA openings today are test automation roles, where most of the work is code.

QA engineers sit inside development teams and join planning early, asking how a feature can fail before anyone builds it. The job mixes exploratory testing by hand, automated UI and API tests in CI, and sometimes performance or security testing. When it's mostly code, the title is often SDET: software development engineer in test.

QA Engineer job description template

Copy it, replace everything in [brackets] and cut what doesn't apply. Keep the requirements to what the job really needs.

Template · replace the [brackets]

QA Engineer

[Company] · [City and office days, or remote with the countries or time zones you hire in] · [Full-time]

About [Company]

[Two or three sentences on what your company does, who it serves and why this team matters now.]

About the role

We're looking for a QA engineer to own quality for [product or team]. You'll plan testing with developers from the start of each feature, automate our regression suite with [framework], and help the team release with confidence [daily / weekly].

What you'll do

  • Review requirements and designs to plan test coverage before development starts.
  • Write and maintain automated UI and API tests with [Playwright, Cypress or Selenium, plus Postman or REST Assured].
  • Run the suite in CI on every pull request and keep it fast and free of flaky tests.
  • Explore new features by hand to find the edge cases automation misses.
  • Log clear, reproducible bug reports in [Jira] and verify the fixes.
  • Run load and performance tests with [k6, JMeter or Gatling] before major launches.
  • Track escaped defects and coverage, and share the trends with the team.

What you'll bring

  • [X]+ years in software testing, including [Y] in test automation.
  • Coding skills in [TypeScript, Python or Java] good enough to write maintainable test code.
  • Experience testing web applications and APIs, including sign-in flows and data validation.
  • An understanding of CI/CD and of running tests inside a pipeline.
  • A methodical approach to edge cases, test data and reproducing intermittent bugs.
  • The confidence to explain release risk to developers and product managers plainly.

Nice to have

  • Mobile testing on real devices and device clouds.
  • Accessibility testing with screen readers and automated checkers.
  • ISTQB or a similar testing qualification.
  • Contract testing, or test environments built from containers.

What we offer

  • [Pay range: e.g. $X–$Y base salary, plus bonus or equity if offered]
  • [Learning budget, certification costs covered, flexible hours]
  • [Health cover, retirement or pension plan, paid time off, parental leave]
  • [Work authorization: whether you can sponsor a visa or hire through an employer of record]

[Our process: a recruiter call, a practical exercise where you test a small app and write up what you find, an automation interview reviewing test code, and a conversation with the team you'd join.]

[Your equal opportunity statement, and how candidates can ask for adjustments during the process]

Put the pay range in the ad. Several US states, including California, Colorado, New York and Washington, require it in job postings, and the EU Pay Transparency Directive gives applicants the right to know the starting pay or its range before the interview.

What real QA engineer job ads ask for

The skills named most often in the 506 newest QA engineer job ads we analyzed (out of 2,611 live postings), as the share of ads that mention each. A skill most ads name is a fair must-have; one few ads name belongs under nice-to-have.

  1. 1Unit testing47%
  2. 2Test plans42%
  3. 3Python35%
  4. 4Agile28%
  5. 5CI/CD28%
  6. 6Process improvement23%
  7. 7Playwright16%
  8. 8Jira16%

Degrees mentioned most: Bachelor's degree (45%), Computer Science (21%).

From live job ads · computed November 2, 2026 · refreshed daily

QA Engineer duties by seniority

What the job usually looks like at each level. Pitch the ad at one level and say which in the title.

Junior

  • Executes test plans and writes clear bug reports.
  • Adds automated tests to an existing framework, with review.
  • Learns the product well enough to notice behavior that looks wrong.

Mid-level

  • Plans testing for whole features and decides what's worth automating.
  • Maintains the CI suite and fixes flaky tests at the source.
  • Tests APIs, data and integrations as well as the interface.

Senior

  • Sets the test strategy and the balance between unit, integration and end-to-end tests.
  • Chooses or builds the automation framework and coaches developers to test their own code.
  • Owns release quality metrics and the go/no-go call with engineering leads.

QA Engineer career path

  1. Junior QA Tester
  2. QA Engineer
  3. Senior QA Engineer or SDET
  4. QA Lead or Test Architect

Many QA engineers start in manual testing, customer support or business analysis, then learn to code and move into automation. From there the paths lead to QA lead or quality manager, test architect, software development, DevOps (test automation lives in pipelines), or product and business analysis, where the habit of asking what could go wrong is valued.

Advertised pay for QA engineer jobs

Median advertised base salary in QA Engineer job ads in the United States: $136,100 (middle half: $109,500–$168,300), from 506 job ads with a published salary in the last 90 days.

This is advertised pay, not total compensation: bonuses, commission, equity and benefits aren't included, and many ads publish no pay at all.

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QA Engineer job description FAQ

What does a QA engineer do?

Plans and runs tests to catch defects before release, automates regression tests so they run on every change, and reports bugs clearly enough for developers to fix them. They also review requirements early, so problems are caught before code is written.

What's the difference between a QA engineer, a tester and an SDET?

A tester usually runs manual tests; a QA engineer combines test planning, manual testing and automation; an SDET is mostly a developer who builds test frameworks and tooling. Say in the job description which balance you need.

Which tools should a QA engineer job description mention?

The automation framework you use (Playwright, Cypress, Selenium or Appium), your API testing tools, the CI system and the bug tracker. Also say whether the hire will build the framework or extend an existing one.