Software QA Engineer / Tester
What Does a Professional in this Career Do?
A Software QA Engineer or Tester designs and runs in-depth diagnostic tests to evaluate software and check for problems before new products are marketed. Pilots software and applies tests to check for errors and glitches.
Job Outlook
There were 1376 Software QA Engineer / Tester job postings in North Carolina in the past year and 37537 in the United States.
In combination with other careers in the Software QA Engineer / Tester industry, which includes the Software QA Engineer / Tester career, the following graph shows the number of people employed for each year since 2016:
Salary
Many new Software QA Engineer / Tester jobs have salaries estimated to be in the following ranges, based on the requirements and responsibilities listed in job postings from the past year.
National
The average estimated salary in the United States for this career, based on job postings in the past year, is $110,482.
State
The average estimated salary in North Carolina for this career, based on job postings in the past year, is $103,313.
Percentiles represent the percentage that is lower than the value. For example, 25% of estimated salaries for Software QA Engineer / Tester postings in the United States in the past year were lower than $92,189.
Education and Experience
Posted Software QA Engineer / Tester jobs typically require the following level of education. The numbers below are based on job postings in the United States from the past year. Not all job postings list education requirements.
| Education Level | Percentage |
|---|---|
| Associate's Degree | 0% |
| Bachelor's Degree | 58.57% |
| Master's Degree | 14.27% |
| Doctoral Degree | 2.74% |
| Other | 5.01% |
Posted Software QA Engineer / Tester jobs typically require the following number of years of experience. The numbers below are based on job postings in the United States from the past year. Not all job postings list experience requirements.
| Years of Experience | Percentage |
|---|---|
| 0 to 2 years | 18.57% |
| 3 to 5 years | 48.24% |
| 6 to 8 years | 21.14% |
| 9+ years | 12.05% |
Skills
Below are listings of the most common general and specialized skills Software QA Engineer / Tester positions expect applicants to have as well as the most common skills that distinguish individuals from their peers. The percentage of job postings that specifically mention each skill is also listed.
Baseline Skills
A skill that is required across a broad range of occupations, including this one.
- Communication (38.46%)
- Safety Assurance (35.11%)
- Quality Assurance (27.89%)
- Management (24.75%)
- Problem Solving (23.58%)
- Troubleshooting (Problem Solving) (19.76%)
- Detail Oriented (14.67%)
- Leadership (13.96%)
- Planning (13.86%)
- Operations (13.07%)
Defining Skills
A core skill for this occupation, it occurs frequently in job postings.
- Test Tools (10.2%)
- Agile Methodology (34.36%)
- Test Automation (51.09%)
- Computer Science (33.41%)
- Automation (54.97%)
- Software Testing (22.28%)
- Python (Programming Language) (27.71%)
- Manual Testing (7.98%)
- Test Case (7.99%)
- Selenium (Software) (25.01%)
- Scenario Testing (8.39%)
- Test Execution Engine (9.81%)
- Regression Testing (15.06%)
- Performance Testing (11.48%)
- Test Planning (39.56%)
- Test Engineering (21.32%)
- API Testing (8.13%)
- Postman API Platform (8.37%)
Necessary Skills
A skill that is requested frequently in this occupation but isn’t specific to it.
- Acceptance Testing (7.07%)
- Workflow Management (7.64%)
- Git (Version Control System) (10.91%)
- Systems Engineering (10.79%)
- JavaScript (Programming Language) (12.96%)
- Java (Programming Language) (23.61%)
- Application Programming Interface (API) (16.46%)
- Software Development (17.07%)
- C++ (Programming Language) (7.39%)
- Amazon Web Services (8.18%)
- JIRA (21.64%)
- Electrical Engineering (7.62%)
- Software Development Life Cycle (10.04%)
- Auditing (6.68%)
- Continuous Improvement Process (7.98%)
- C# (Programming Language) (8.81%)
- DevOps (9.16%)
- Continuous Integration (9.16%)
- Version Control (7.21%)
- Debugging (15.87%)
- Computer Engineering (7.38%)
- Operating Systems (4.73%)
- Linux (8.82%)
- Functional Testing (8.82%)
- Project Management (12.68%)
- Scalability (8.04%)
- Systems Development Life Cycle (9.8%)
- SQL (Programming Language) (22.12%)
- System Testing (10.41%)
- Scrum (Software Development) (14.95%)
- Scripting (15.76%)
- Software Engineering (13.47%)
- Jenkins (12.85%)
- Process Improvement (7.6%)
- CI/CD (16.75%)
- Software Quality (SQA/SQC) (17.58%)
- Test Data (11.41%)
- Programming Languages (6.69%)
Distinguishing Skills
A skill that may distinguish a subset of the occupation.
- Non-Functional Testing (1.27%)
- Cucumber (Software) (8.7%)
- Bug Tracking And Management (3.98%)
- REST Assured (3.82%)
- Selenium Webdriver (3.57%)
- Behavior-Driven Development (5.51%)
- Code Coverage (7.13%)
- Load Testing (3.33%)
- Defect Tracking (4.13%)
- Exploratory Testing (1.76%)
- Apache JMeter (7.59%)
- Appium (5.31%)
- TestNG (5.51%)
- SoapUI (4.18%)
- HP Loadrunner (4.64%)
- Test Management (3.83%)
- Junit (5.03%)
- Test Design (3.22%)
- Test Management Tools (4.01%)
- Test Strategy (6.99%)
- Playwright (Software Testing) (2.96%)
Salary Boosting Skills
A professional who wishes to excel in this career path may consider developing the following highly valued skills. The percentage of job postings that specifically mention each skill is listed.
- Test Tools (12.7%)
- Test Automation (63.58%)
- Computer Science (41.57%)
- Python (Programming Language) (34.47%)
- Manual Testing (9.94%)
- Test Planning (49.22%)
Alternative Job Titles
Sometimes employers post jobs with Software QA Engineer / Tester skills but a different job title. Some common alternative job titles include:
- Test Engineer
- Quality Assurance Engineer
- Test Automation Engineer
- Quality Assurance Automation Engineer
- Software Quality Assurance Consultant
- Automation Tester
- Quality Assurance Tester
- Software Development Engineer in Test
- Software Tester
- Performance Tester
Similar Occupations
If you are interested in exploring occupations with similar skills, you may want to research the following job titles. Note that we only list occupations that have at least one corresponding NC State Online and Distance Education program.
- Process Quality Engineer
- Automation Engineer
- Software Developer / Engineer
- Application Developer / Engineer
- Hardware Test Engineer
- Quality Engineering Manager
Common Employers
Here are the employers that have posted the most Software QA Engineer / Tester jobs in the past year along with how many they have posted.
United States
- Apple (553)
- Insight Global (416)
- Actalent (369)
- Randstad (309)
- GovCIO (292)
- Infosys (274)
- Deloitte (257)
- Wolters Kluwer (251)
- Ryder (250)
- Kforce (245)
North Carolina
- Genesis10 (50)
- Infosys (40)
- Randstad (27)
- First Citizens Bank (26)
- Actalent (23)
- Epic Games (22)
- Wells Fargo (21)
- Cognizant Technology Solutions (18)
- Kforce (16)
- Deloitte (16)
NC State Programs Relevant to this Career
If you are interested in preparing for a career in this field, the following NC State Online and Distance Education programs offer a great place to start!
All wages, job posting statistics, employment trend projections, and information about skill desirability on this page represents historical data and does not guarantee future conditions. Data is provided by and downloaded regularly from Lightcast. For more information about how Lightcast gathers data and what it represents, see Lightcast Data: Basic Overview on Lightcast's Knowledge Base website.