QA Engineer salary in the United States
Median advertised base salary: $136,100 (middle half: $109,500–$168,300), from 506 job ads with a published salary in the last 90 days.
Data as of 2 November 2026Ads posted or seen 4 August 2026 – 2 November 2026Updated daily
$136,100
Median advertised base salary
$109,500–$168,300
Middle half of ads (25th to 75th percentile)
$86,500–$197,200
10th to 90th percentile
506
Job ads with a published salary, from 256 employers
These are the salaries employers advertise in QA Engineer job ads in the United States, not what everyone in the role is paid.
How the advertised salaries are spread
Share of 506 job ads by annual base salary (the midpoint of each ad's range).
| Percentile | Annual base salary |
|---|---|
| 10th | $86,500 |
| 25th | $109,500 |
| 50th (median) | $136,100 |
| 75th | $168,300 |
| 90th | $197,200 |
The chart as a table
| Annual base salary | Job ads |
|---|---|
| Under $60k | 20 |
| $60k–$80k | 20 |
| $80k–$100k | 34 |
| $100k–$120k | 96 |
| $120k–$140k | 94 |
| $140k–$160k | 91 |
| $160k–$180k | 56 |
| $180k–$200k | 45 |
| $200k–$220k | 30 |
| $220k and above | 20 |
By seniority
From the job title. Levels with fewer than 10 ads are not shown.
| Level | Job ads | Middle half | Median |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mid-level or not stated | 296 | $100,800–$142,900 | $120,000 |
| Senior | 142 | $138,000–$178,500 | $157,500 |
| Staff, principal, lead or director | 63 | $156,000–$212,500 | $189,000 |
Remote vs on-site
Remote = the ad or the job board marks the job remote; on-site includes hybrid and ads that don't say.
$115,000
Median in remote ads (68 ads)
$140,000
Median in on-site or hybrid ads (438 ads)
Top-paying companies
Employers with at least 3 ads on this page, by their median advertised salary.
| # | Company | Job ads | Median |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Astera Labs | 4 | $212,500 |
| 2 | ATOMS Careers page | 5 | $206,000 |
| 3 | Lightmatter | 3 | $203,500 |
| 4 | Altruist | 4 | $200,000 |
| 5 | Clera | 3 | $190,000 |
| 6 | Divergent | 4 | $186,400 |
| 7 | Tatari | 3 | $185,000 |
| 8 | Zoox | 6 | $179,500 |
| 9 | Skydio | 7 | $175,000 |
| 10 | Agility Robotics | 4 | $165,500 |
By metro area
US metro areas with at least 10 ads on this page, highest median first.
| Metro area | Job ads | Median |
|---|---|---|
| San Francisco Bay Area | 87 | $182,500 |
| Los Angeles | 106 | $146,100 |
| Seattle | 16 | $142,700 |
| Boston | 17 | $142,000 |
Jobs paying above the median
Open ads paying more than the median of $136,100, one per employer, highest first. Ranges are annual.
- QA Engineer
Clera · San Francisco · $180,000–$200,000
- Senior Flight Test Engineer - Software Automation
Skydio · San Mateo, California, United States · $150,000–$200,000
- Senior Space Avionics Test Engineer
Varda Space Industries · El Segundo, California, United States · $140,333–$202,703
- Senior Manager, GCP Quality Assurance
Madrigalpharma · Remote (United States) · $147,000–$180,000
- Senior Software QA Engineer
The Predictive Index · Westwood, MA · $140,000–$175,000
- Quality Assurance Senior Manager
Amgen · Remote (United States) · $132,037–$178,639
- Hardware Test Engineer
Lunar Energy · Mountain View, CA · $130,000–$165,000
- Senior Mfg Test Engineer (SW/MECH/Limbs/Links)
Agility Robotics · Onsite- Salem, OR · $126,000–$164,000
- Principal Propulsion Test Engineer
Voyager Technologies · Pueblo, CO · $128,000–$160,000
- Senior Instrumentation Flight Test Engineer
Boeing · USA - Oklahoma City, OK · $118,150–$159,850
Methodology
What's counted. The pay range published in QA Engineer job ads in the United States paying in US dollars (USD), from FindAJobAI's index of job ads on employers' career pages and applicant tracking systems (Greenhouse, Lever, Ashby, Workday and others) and a few public job boards; no LinkedIn or Indeed data. It is the advertised base salary: not total compensation, bonus, commission or equity, and not what people in the role are actually paid. Only full-time ads and ads that don't state a job type count: internships, traineeships, part-time and contract ads are left out.
Period and sample. Ads posted or last seen between 4 August 2026 and 2 November 2026 (90 days): 506 ads from 256 employers. That is every ad in the window with a usable salary, not a sample. Copies of the same ad on several sites count once, and ads in another currency are left out of this page.
How amounts are annualized. Each ad counts once, at the midpoint of its range (or the single figure it gives), as a yearly amount: hourly pay × 2,080 hours, daily × 260, weekly × 52, monthly × 12. A monthly amount stored without its period is recognized by its size for the currency and multiplied by 12; an amount that could be either is dropped.
Outliers. Amounts outside a plausible full-time range are treated as parsing errors and dropped: below $24,000 a year, or above the equivalent of $1,000,000 a year. A range with one implausible end is dropped whole.
Thresholds. A page needs at least 30 ads from 5+ employers, none of them more than a third of the ads. A seniority level, the remote vs on-site split and a metro need 10+ ads; a company needs 3+. Below that, a number is not shown; nothing is estimated or filled in. Seniority comes from the job title: staff, principal, lead, director, head of or VP; senior; junior, entry level or graduate; everything else is mid-level or not stated.
Limitations. Most job ads don't publish pay, and the ones that do lean towards larger companies, technology and places where pay transparency laws apply (several US states require a range in job ads). Our index also leans towards employers that use modern applicant tracking systems. So these figures describe advertised ranges, not every job, and they move a little from day to day.
Updated daily. Data licence: CC BY 4.0, free to use with a link to FindAJobAI.
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Suggested citation
FindAJobAI, "QA Engineer salary in the United States" (advertised salaries in job ads), November 2026. https://findajobai.com/en/salaries/qa-engineer-united-states