QA Engineer Career Guide for 2027
- Median annual pay
- $104,300
- BLS OEWS, May 2025
- Projected growth, 2025-35
- 5.7%
- BLS Employment Projections
- Typical entry education
- Bachelor’s
- BLS Employment Projections
Key takeaways
- QA engineers find out how software fails before its users do. They design tests, run them, and write up each defect so a developer can reproduce and fix it. BLS counts them, with QA analysts and software testers, as software quality assurance analysts and testers: 186,740 workers with a median of $104,300 in May 2025.
- The way in is wider than for developers. BLS lists a bachelor’s degree as the typical entry education, yet in O*NET’s survey of workers in the job only 50% said a new hire needs one, and 26% named an associate’s degree. Testing is one of the few software jobs where a two-year degree and a strong eye for detail can open the door.
- The job is changing shape. In its projection notes, BLS says testing is being folded into software development and that some testing tasks are being automated by AI. It projects 5.7% growth from 2025 to 2035, against 10.2% for software developers. The testers who do well write automated tests, not only manual test plans.
- Software firms are not the only employers. Computer systems design and related services employs the most, 57,200, but management of companies and enterprises, insurance carriers and related activities and banks and other credit intermediation all hire testers in numbers, because a bug in a claims or banking system costs real money.
- The career runs from executing test cases to designing test strategy, and many testers cross into development, where they already know the product and its weak spots. BLS publishes no pay by level, so this guide shows the full pay range instead of a salary for each step. Pay by state and metro is in the QA engineer salary report.
What QA engineers do
Counted by BLS as software quality assurance analysts and testers.
QA engineers make sure software does what it is supposed to do, and keeps doing it after every change. They read the requirements, design tests that probe the edges, run those tests by hand or in code, and document each failure so it can be fixed and checked again.
BLS has no separate count for QA engineers: they sit in software quality assurance analysts and testers, alongside QA analysts and testers. The tasks below, from O*NET, show how much of the job is investigation and writing rather than clicking through screens.
The core tasks
- Identify, analyze, and document problems with program function, output, online screen, or content.
- Document software defects, using a bug tracking system, and report defects to software developers.
- Develop testing programs that address areas such as database impacts, software scenarios, regression testing, negative testing, error or bug retests, or usability.
- Design test plans, scenarios, scripts, or procedures.
- Document test procedures to ensure replicability and compliance with standards.
- Provide feedback and recommendations to developers on software usability and functionality.
Task statements for software quality assurance analysts and testers, quoted from O*NET OnLine, in O*NET’s order of importance.
Job titles you will see
- Automation Tester
- Information Technology Analyst
- Quality Assurance Analyst
- Quality Assurance Engineer
- Quality Engineer
- Software Quality Assurance Analyst
- Software Quality Assurance Engineer
- Software Quality Engineer
- Software Test Engineer
- Test Engineer
Titles reported by workers in this occupation, O*NET OnLine.
Where QA engineers work
The largest employers of software quality assurance analysts and testers among the 24 industries we checked, BLS OEWS, May 2025.
The biggest employers build or sell software, but testers are spread across insurers, banks and consulting firms, where defects in claims, payments or client systems are expensive. Employment services is among the largest employers too, a sign of how much testing work is done on contract.
Software Quality Assurance Analysts and Testers, national industry-specific estimates, BLS OEWS, May 2025. A candidate list of industries, ranked by employment; not BLS’s complete industry ranking. Share is the industry’s employment divided by the occupation’s national employment, 186,740.
Ways to become a QA engineer
BLS lists a bachelor’s degree as the typical entry education. Lengths are NCES’s definitions of each degree.
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A bachelor’s in software engineeringusually at least four years of full-time study · median 121 credits
Software engineering programs teach testing, requirements and design alongside programming, which is the ground QA work stands on. Build a small automated test suite before you graduate so you can show it.
Compare software engineering bachelor’s programs → -
A bachelor’s in computer scienceusually at least four years of full-time study · median 120 credits
The broader computing major. Add a testing or software engineering course and an internship where you write or run tests.
Compare computer science bachelor’s programs → -
An associate’s degree or other two-year routeshorter than a bachelor’s; NCES sets no single length
26% of workers O*NET surveyed said a new hire needs an associate’s degree, so a two-year route into manual or contract testing is real, though BLS lists a bachelor’s as typical. Many testers finish the bachelor’s later.
Compare online computer science bachelor’s programs → -
A master’s for a career changergenerally one or two years of full-time study beyond the bachelor’s · median 30 credits
For people with a bachelor’s in another field. It is not required for entry, but it gives a career changer the programming and testing coursework employers look for.
Compare software engineering master’s programs →
Degree lengths: NCES, Digest of Education Statistics 2022, Appendix B: Definitions. Credits: the median of the programs in each ranking that state a credit total on their own page.
What employers expect
BLS’s typical entry requirements for software quality assurance analysts and testers, BLS Employment Projections, occupation tables 1.2, 1.10 and 1.12, 2025-35.
- Typical entry education
- Bachelor’s degree
- Work experience in a related occupation
- None
- Typical on-the-job training
- None
What workers say a new hire needs
Share of surveyed workers in the occupation giving each answer, O*NET OnLine. Not a hiring requirement.
Programs to start with
The top two programs in each of our rankings, with the score and rank they carry there.
- San Jose State University #1 in our Bachelor’s in Software Engineering Score 87.0 of 100
- Florida Gulf Coast University #2 in our Bachelor’s in Software Engineering Score 85.2 of 100
- California State University-Long Beach #1 in our Computer Science Degrees for Software Engineers Score 94.1 of 100
- California State University-Fullerton #2 in our Computer Science Degrees for Software Engineers Score 93.0 of 100
- The University of Texas at Arlington #1 in Software Engineering Master’s Programs Score 86.9 of 100
- Arizona State University #2 in Software Engineering Master’s Programs Score 86.1 of 100
What the degree costs
IPEDS tuition, 2023–24, at the programs in our rankings: in-state undergraduate for bachelor’s, the school’s average graduate rate for master’s.
Tuition is before fees, housing and financial aid, and it is the school-wide IPEDS figure, so the price a student pays can differ widely from the sticker. Public schools charging in-state rates sit at the low end of the bachelor’s range.
For what the job pays once you are in it, the QA engineer salary report shows pay in every state BLS publishes, plus the top-paying metros and industries.
QA engineer pay and job outlook
Software Quality Assurance Analysts and Testers, BLS OEWS, May 2025; BLS Employment Projections, 2025-35.
Top-paying factors
Where the highest medians are, against the national median of $104,300. Each is a published median from the same release, not an estimate for any one person.
Software Quality Assurance Analysts and Testers, BLS OEWS, May 2025: state, metropolitan area and national industry-specific medians.
Half of software quality assurance analysts and testers earned more than $104,300 in May 2025 and half earned less; the middle half fell between $80,310 and $133,180. California has the highest state median, $128,740. BLS publishes no pay by years of experience, so this guide gives the range, not a ladder of salaries. The QA engineer salary report breaks pay down by state, metro and industry.
How the career moves
Typical stages. Titles and scope change by employer; BLS publishes no stages or pay by level.
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Test analyst
QA Analyst · Software Tester · Junior QA Engineer
Run test cases someone else wrote, log defects clearly enough that a developer can reproduce them, and retest the fixes. The skill being built is noticing what is wrong and describing it exactly.
-
QA engineer
QA Engineer · Software Test Engineer · Automation Tester
Write the test plans and the automated tests, decide what gets regression tested before each release, and sit in planning with developers so testing starts before the code is finished.
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Senior QA or SDET
Senior QA Engineer · SDET · Software Quality Engineer
Build and maintain the test framework, wire it into the build pipeline, and coach developers on testing their own code. At this point the work is mostly software development aimed at quality.
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Lead, architect or crossover
QA Lead · Test Architect · QA Manager · Software Engineer
Set the testing strategy for a product or a company, manage a QA team, or move across into development. Testers who cross over bring a habit of thinking about how things break.
Pros and cons
What people like about being a QA engineer, and what wears on them.
What draws people in
- Pro: A real way in: a two-year degree, a career change or a support role can lead to a first testing job.
- Pro: You see the whole product, which makes testing a good place to learn how software is built and released.
- Pro: Testers are needed wherever software runs money or safety, from insurers to banks to manufacturers.
- Pro: A clear entry point: BLS lists no prior work experience and no on-the-job training as typical for entry.
- Pro: A natural bridge into development for people who learn to write automation.
What to weigh first
- Con: Pay trails software developers, and the gap is why many testers eventually switch.
- Con: Manual testing is the part of the job most exposed to automation and AI.
- Con: Testing often gets squeezed at the end of a release, so deadlines land on QA.
- Con: Repetitive stretches: regression passes and retests can run the same steps many times.
- Con: Being the person who finds problems takes tact, especially when a release date is at stake.
A day in the job
Illustrative: a composite day built from the job’s core tasks, not a record of one person’s day. Real days vary by team and employer.
- MorningChecking the overnight automated test run, sorting real failures from flaky tests, and filing the real ones with steps to reproduce.
- Late morningIn a planning session for the next feature, asking what should happen when inputs are empty, wrong or far too large, and writing those cases down.
- AfternoonWriting automated tests for a new screen, then running the same flow by hand on a few phones and browsers to see what the scripts miss.
- Late afternoonRetesting fixes developers marked done and talking one of them through a defect that only appears with a particular set of data.
- End of dayUpdating the test plan and the bug tracker so the team can see what is covered and what is still risky before release.
Five questions before you commit
If most of these get a yes, the job is likely a good match.
- Do you notice small things other people miss?A misaligned field or an odd error message is often the first sign of a deeper bug.
- Do you enjoy trying to break things on purpose?Good testing means thinking like a careless user, a malicious one and an unlucky one.
- Can you write clearly and precisely?A defect report that a developer cannot reproduce is a report that does not get fixed.
- Are you willing to learn to code?Automation is where the job is heading, and the manual-only path is narrowing.
- Can you deliver bad news calmly?You will often be the one telling a team their release is not ready.
Frequently asked questions
What does a QA engineer do?
QA engineers plan and run tests on software, record what breaks and work with developers until it is fixed. O*NET’s top task for the occupation is to “Identify, analyze, and document problems with program function, output, online screen, or content.”
Do QA engineers need to know how to code?
Manual testing roles can start without much code, but the trend runs the other way. BLS expects testing to move into development teams and some of it to be automated, so writing and maintaining automated test suites is the skill that keeps a tester employable. O*NET lists the task to “Develop testing programs that address areas such as database impacts, software scenarios, regression testing, negative testing, error or bug retests, or usability.”
What degree do you need to be a QA engineer?
BLS lists a bachelor’s degree as typical for entry, usually in computer science, software engineering or information technology. In O*NET’s survey, 50% of workers said a new hire needs a bachelor’s and 26% said an associate’s degree, so a two-year route is more common here than in development.
How much do QA engineers make?
Software quality assurance analysts and testers, the BLS occupation that includes QA engineers, earned a median of $104,300 in May 2025, with the middle half between $80,310 and $133,180.
How long does it take to become a QA engineer?
The usual route is a bachelor’s degree, which NCES defines as usually at least four years of full-time study; the computer science bachelor’s programs we rank require a median of 120 credits. BLS lists no work experience in a related occupation as typical for entry, so the degree is the main clock. A master’s takes generally one or two years of full-time study beyond the bachelor’s.
Will AI replace QA testers?
BLS does not expect the job to disappear: it projects 5.7% growth from 2025 to 2035, with about 10,700 openings a year. It does expect AI to automate some testing tasks and testing to shift toward developers, which favors testers who build automation over those who only run scripts by hand.
What is the difference between a QA engineer, a tester and an SDET?
The titles overlap and BLS counts them together. A tester usually runs test cases; a QA engineer also designs the test approach and the process around it; an SDET, a software development engineer in test, writes test code and tooling and works much like a developer.
How much does a degree for QA work cost?
At the 75 bachelor’s programs in our software engineering ranking with a figure, median in-state tuition for 2023–24 was $20,696 a year, from $7,258 to $48,037. Those IPEDS figures are before fees, housing and financial aid.
References
Every figure on this page comes from one of these, read by the site’s data scripts and computed at build time, never typed in.
- 1 Software Quality Assurance Analysts and Testers, O*NET OnLine Task statements and reported job titles, quoted verbatim, and the education survey of workers in the occupation. O*NET OnLine, read 2026-10-06.
- 2 BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025: national, industry Software quality assurance analysts and testers: employment, median and percentiles nationally, and employment and median in the 24 industries we checked. Read .
- 3 BLS Employment Projections, 2025-35 Projected employment change and annual openings, 2025 to 2035, for software quality assurance analysts and testers and the related occupations.
- 4 BLS Employment Projections, occupation tables 1.2, 1.10 and 1.12, 2025-35 Table 1.2: BLS’s typical entry education, work experience and on-the-job training.
- 5 NCES, Digest of Education Statistics 2022, Appendix B: Definitions Definitions of the bachelor’s and master’s degree, including their usual length in full-time study.
- 6 NCES IPEDS IC2023_AY, 2023-24: undergraduate tuition for bachelor’s programs; for master’s, the school-wide average graduate tuition, which excludes program fees Tuition for the 75 ranked bachelor’s and 44 ranked master’s programs, the same figures the ranking pages show.
- 7 BLS Employment Projections, occupation tables 1.2, 1.10 and 1.12, 2025-35: table 1.12 BLS’s stated factor behind the projection for software quality assurance analysts and testers: testing integrated into development, and some testing tasks automated by AI.