- What is a Quality Assurance Engineer?
- Job Roles and Responsibilities of a Quality Assurance Engineer
- Quality Assurance Engineer Salary
- Quality Assurance Engineer Salary by Experience:
- Quality Assurance Engineer Salary by Locations:
- Quality Assurance Engineer Salary by Skills:
- Quality Assurance Engineer Salary by Employer:
- How to Crack a Quality Assurance Engineer Interview?
- Conclusion
- FAQs
- Additional Resources
Quality Assurance Engineers are responsible for testing software to ensure it works as intended before being released to the public. They monitor a program to check that it is functioning as intended, identify problems as soon as they arise, and fix them before they can lead to widespread bugs. They also ensure that changes to a program don’t regress previously fixed problems, as well as that new addition, don’t introduce new bugs. Working as part of a QA team, this role can vary in some ways from job to job. However, the salary of a QA engineer is almost always the same. Here is an overview of the salary of a QA engineer.
What is a Quality Assurance Engineer?
The role of a QA engineer can vary significantly according to the company and the role they are hired to play. However, there are some general responsibilities of a QA engineer that don’t change whether they are hired to verify the functioning of a software program or to test the structural integrity of a building.
- You will conduct load testing to make sure that a program can handle the strain under which it will be used.
- You will use automated tools to check for bugs and other issues.
- You will update the documentation to reflect changes that have been made to the software.
- You will work with developers to create specifications for the program.
- You will coordinate with operations to make sure that the software can handle the strain that will be put on it.
Job Roles and Responsibilities of a Quality Assurance Engineer
QA engineers usually have the following roles and responsibilities. Depending on the type of software they are testing, they may also have some or all of the following—software development operations.
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- This involves ensuring that the software has been designed according to best engineering practices and that it can operate as intended.
- They will use tools to inspect the software for bugs and other issues.
- They will also create documentation such as bug reports and issue trackers to help other staff understand what is wrong with the program.
- They will coordinate with operations to make sure that the software can handle the strain that will be put on it.
- They will create test scripts to conduct load tests to make sure that a program can handle the strain under which it will be used.
Quality Assurance Engineer Salary
The salary of a QA engineer is almost always lower than that of a software developer. Although some companies will hire QA engineers with more senior-level experience, this is not always the case. A quality assurance engineer’s salary can be as low as $47,800 or as high as $130,000, depending on the size of the organization, the location, and the experience level. The average salary is $93,000. However, if the experience is senior-level, it can push this salary even higher. The salary of a QA engineer is also dependent on the type of software that they are testing. Depending on the size of the company and the role, a QA engineer may be hired to test non-software products, but they are almost always hired to test software.
Quality Assurance Engineer Salary by Experience:
Most QA engineers make $47,000 to $120,000 a year. Most QA engineers are interns or new graduates and work at startup companies. They may spend up to seven years with a particular organization before moving on to padlock security jobs i.e., lead roles or senior QAs within software companies like IBM, Google, Intel, Microsoft and other large companies. Salaries for junior QAs become higher as they move closer to lead level roles and the number of clients increases.
Quality Assurance Engineer Salary by Locations:
Some of the locations that have the highest paying job opportunities for QA engineers include Chicago, New York City, and San Francisco, and those have an annual raise in the low-three or mid-three percent term. Other types of testing that QA engineers do can be in product software, which are computer programs which users can download and use on personal computers besides business to create their own choices.
Quality Assurance Engineer Salary by Skills:
Software Quality Assurance Engineers require a license or certification from a professional certifying body (ex. CompTIA, A+e-Trainers, …). They should be skilled in six or seven different languages, programming platforms (e.g. C/C++, Java, .NET, Perl, …), and/or software tools (e.g. Agile tools like Scrum or Unified Process). Software Quality Assurance Engineers should be trained in computer security since vulnerabilities directly impact software quality. Lastly, it is important that software QA Engineers be comfortable with data capture and test recording (e.g. Selenium, Watir).
Quality Assurance Engineer Salary by Employer:
A quality assurance engineer’s salary is usually determined by the size of the company and their location. The average salary for a QA engineer is $80,000. However, this can be much higher or lower depending on the company and the experience level. A quality assurance engineer’s salary in California can be about $120,000, but it could be as low as $47,800 in other areas of the country. A senior-level QA engineer that has more than 11 years of experience can earn up to $130,000 per year.
Source: levels.fyi
How to Crack a Quality Assurance Engineer Interview?
The interview process for a quality assurance engineer position is very similar to that of a software engineer interview. The questions for a quality assurance engineer interview will be primarily focused on the role of a quality assurance engineer and the engineering skills that are necessary for this role. Depending on the company, the role of a QA engineer may be more focused on testing the structural integrity of a building or on testing the functionality of a piece of software. The questions for a quality assurance engineer interview will be mostly focused on these two areas. It’s also worth noting that in many companies, the quality assurance engineer interview is conducted by the QA manager. This means that they will be more focused on the role of a quality assurance engineer and less focused on the engineering skills that are necessary for the role.
Read More: QA Interview Questions
Conclusion
The salary of a QA engineer is almost always lower than that of a software developer. Depending on the role, a QA engineer may be hired to test non-software products or software, but they are almost always hired to test software. The salary of a QA engineer is also dependent on the type of software that they are testing. Depending on the size of the company and the role, a QA engineer may be hired to test non-software products or software, but they are almost always hired to test software.
FAQs
Q: What is the highest salary for QA?
Answer: The QA engineer salary range depends primarily on the experience in the job market, quality of education and the type of quality assurance engineering jobs that are available in the area. Other than this everything else is too hard to predict for us. The highest salary is $104K for a QA role in the US.
Q: Do QA engineers always expect the highest pay?
Answer: No. During the interview, you have to tell them the specifics of your previous position and try to bring up good examples. keep in mind they don’t care about your previous salary – they only care about accurate information (which is, after all, why you’re here anyway).
QA engineers should not seek out higher pay because they will inevitably lose very good people by letting them go to other economic climates with higher compensation and never engage in monetary negotiations.
Q: Is QA Engineering a good career?
Answer: QA engineering is one of the most highly demanded and in-demand careers. A QA engineer needs no technical skills at all to start testing software. The salary for this role doesn’t depend on the level of knowledge because a QA engineer needs no programming/programming skills. This can become a career path for anyone, be it a non-technical and non-programmer person or an experienced programmer.
Q: How do I become a QA tester?
Answer: You can easily become a QA tester as there are no particular educational qualifications required. The development of the software required is quite common in the job market, thus it can be easily found in the developer job market. As a QA engineer in the Private sector, with no college degree, I was able to earn a guaranteed salary above $100K from 2007.
