Written By Nat Davis
Edited By Jess Feldman
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Course Report strives to create the most trust-worthy content about coding bootcamps. Read more about Course Report’s Editorial Policy and How We Make Money.
Quality assurance (QA) testing is an imperative part of the product development process, which makes QA testers an in-demand role on tech teams across industries and companies. The US Bureau of Labor Statistics predicts job growth of 25% in the QA testing field between 2022-2032, which equates to over 400,000 new QA jobs!
QA testing is a great way to break into tech without going directly into software engineering. In this QA testing career path and salary guide, learn what to expect from a QA testing career at every stage, the top companies hiring QA testers now, and our picks for learning QA testing with a bootcamp.
Quality assurance (QA) testing, or software testing, is a process in product development that ensures the final product is free from errors or bugs when it reaches the customer. |
Within quality assurance there is manual QA and QA automation:
The primary responsibility of QA testers is to test new and existing software and products to identify bugs and user experience issues. They are involved in every step of the development process and work closely with developers. QA testers need to be excellent problem-solvers with an analytical mindset and strong attention to detail.
QA testing is a subset of the software engineering process, but QA testers are not typically software engineers. Sometimes software engineers will do QA testing if there is not a dedicated QA testing team.
Manual QA testers do not need to know programming languages to land entry-level quality assurance jobs. Any coding done on the job involves simple commands and logical sequences. However, knowing at least one programming language, like Java, C#, JavaScript or Python will make a manual QA tester more marketable.
Worried that AI will take over QA testing jobs? Stephen Hudson, the Curriculum Lead at TripleTen says, “One of the first places where we see potential for AI to help QA testers is with writing automation scripts… At the moment, writing scripts requires some of the skills of a software engineer, which can be tricky. The hope is that AI will help QA engineers write these automation scripts and relieve that burden.”
While quality assurance is necessary across industries, QA testers are most commonly hired in these industries:
The 7 top companies hiring QA testers include:
Chris learned QA engineering from TripleTen and landed a role as a QA Automation Engineer at Trustwell! About his new QA role, Chris says, “The role I got was advertised as a mid-level position so they're expecting me to know a decent amount without needing hand-holding.”
Guzal sharpened her existing skills to learn QA testing from Test Pro and land a QA Analyst role at Meta! About the QA testing job interview, Guzal says, “The QA team at Meta basically validated my Test Pro education during the interview. They were interested in my hands-on experience, my projects, and my method for testing, which made the interview process pretty easy. Every question the interviewer asked me, I could locate an answer in my Test Pro resources because Test Pro covers everything.”
Roman has been a QA Tester at Nike and Tesla after graduating from Careerist! Roman says of his decision to make a career change into QA: “When I started the Manual QA job my salary jumped 1.6x! Now that I'm in automation it's more than twice what I made before joining any IT company.”
Quality assurance jobs fall under many different names. Most people starting a QA career begin with a Manual QA Tester role before advancing to more complex, test automation roles.
The 8 most common roles in a QA testing career path include:
QA tester salary will vary depending on your experience, location, and skill levels as well as knowledge of manual testing and automation.
QA Job Title |
Experience Level |
Job Description |
Average Salary |
QA Analyst or Manual QA Tester |
Entry-level |
|
💰 The average QA Analyst salary is $42K-$62K. |
QA Engineer |
Entry-level to Mid-level |
|
💰 The average QA Engineer salary is $59K-$80K. |
QA Automation Tester |
Mid-level |
|
💰 The average QA Automation Engineer salary is around $74K. |
Lead Test Analyst or Senior Quality Analyst |
Senior-level |
|
💰 The average Senior Software Tester salary is $89K-$122K. |
Senior Software Development Engineer in Test (SDET) |
Senior-level |
|
💰 The average Senior SDET salary is around $125K. |
While you may be able to self-teach or pick up QA skills on the job, learning QA testing at a bootcamp will ensure you receive the foundational knowledge you need to successfully launch a career in quality assurance. At a QA testing bootcamp, you will learn how to test software, and effectively communicate with and work on a dev team!
Bootcamps that teach QA testing include:
You could also start with the free Quality Assurance Certification Course at freecodecamp to determine if this is the right path for you before enrolling in a QA testing bootcamp!
Nat Davis connects to writing to communicate stories, thoughts, ideas, and resources. When not jotting, Nat is a health coach, hiker, youth advocate, foodie, comedian, improviser, and karaoke singer.
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