Information technology and software development has become a rapidly evolving field with various specialized careers. Software and applications are used in almost every industry, and fixing a problem late in the game can cost way more than resolving a problem in the early stages of a project. Therefore, professional software QA engineers with lucrative testing skills are in high demand.
The software testing services market tends to have an estimated CAGR growth of 7% during the years 2021 and 2027 due to the higher integration of advanced technologies. This rise in the software testing industry increased the demand for software testers, resulting in higher salaries. The evolution of advanced technologies like artificial intelligence, machine learning, cloud computing, and DevOps has pushed manual testing to the side and moved to automation testing, which is already revolutionizing the industry.
All the fastest-growing companies in the world are now software-based. Therefore, software testing has become an essential thing to optimize business performance. The estimated salary for a software quality assurance engineer is $101,143/year in the US, with an average of $80,373/year.
These numbers represent the median, the midpoint of the ranges from the proprietary Total Pay Estimate model, depending on the salaries collected from different users. However, the estimated additional amount is $20,770/year. This extra amount might include commission, tips, bonuses, and profit-sharing.
Here is an estimate for a Software QA Engineer's salary at different companies.
| Companies | Average Base Salary in USD |
| Cisco Systems | $141,983/year |
| ServiceNow | $100,609/year |
| Apple | $127,898/year |
| Yahoo | $120,398/year |
| Keysight Technologies | $111,242/year |
| PayPal | $105,698/year |
| eBay | $105,698/year |
| Amazon | $112,133/year |
| IBM | $108,378/year |
| Tesla | $128,842/year |
A software tester's pay is not the same for everyone. It can vary based on various factors. These include software tester skills and certifications, location, organization, and technical knowledge. There are several other factors but the mentioned ones make it easier for a candidate to understand high-income opportunities.
Location is one of the most crucial factors affecting the salary of a software test engineer. The highest paying location for a tester is Hawai, with a $50.62 hourly rate and an average yearly salary of $105,294.
In New York, the annual average salary is $76,673, with an hourly rate of $36.86. However, if we talk about Indiana and South Carolina, the average yearly salary is $60,249 and $59,823, with an hourly rate of $28.97 and $28.76.
Usually, product companies pay more salary than service-based companies. Even within service-based organizations, a well-established organization with more industry experience will pay you more than a startup. Tech giants across the globe offer good salary packages to software QA testers. If you want to get into a similar career, it's important to look at the top firms and their average salaries to get a sense of market value.
The table below shows some software companies with handsome salary packages.
| Companies | Salary |
| HCL Technologies | $154,803/year |
| Apple | $152,163/year |
| NVIDIA | $133,393/year |
| Akamai Technologies | $126,951/year |
| Starbucks | $126,008/year |
| Amazon | $125,127/year |
| Cisco | $120,893/year |
| eBay | $117,620/year |
| Fortinet | $124,569/year |
| JPMorgan Chase | $117,454 per year |
Events like the introduction of decentralized Web3 Internet demand higher technical skills required for software testers. The reason is that Web3 applications need end-to-end testing. Therefore, it's essential to understand which are the skills of software testers dealing with web3 applications. If a candidate is well-versed with advanced technologies and skills required for testers, they can demand a higher salary than others.
Besides these software quality tester skills, certifications and training provide you with more advanced skills—your chances of getting a higher salary increase if you have more recognizable certifications.
Here are some of the best software testing certifications.
While years of experience and educational background are always essential factors in determining QA Engineer salary, there are several other steps you can take to increase your earnings potential.
Here are some tips to help you earn a higher QA engineer salary.
Instead of just going with the flow, question client requirements, specifications and define a strategy for everything.
The baseline of any QA strategy needs to be addressing the original deliverables from stakeholders. They will have an impact on selecting the right tools, arrange priorities and even forecast potential pitfalls in the future. Allowing room for adjustments along the way is also a factor to consider.
Without a proper plan, metrics and set of logical goals from the start, issues like investing in automated testing and CI/CD when the nature of a project is constantly changing are prone to happen.
As a QA engineer, one of the best ways to increase your salary is to sharpen your testing skills. By becoming an expert in your field, you can command a higher salary and have more career options. Here are some ways to enhance your testing skillset.
You need a firm foundation in manual testing before adding automated testing to your “to-learn” list.
See automated testing as an advancement from manual, not a replacement. Like DevOps, security practices or microservices, they’re the technical concepts software quality engineers need to know to stay competitive.
It’s safe to say that creativity is much needed when testing. The different scenarios and combinations of instances where a software/application might not function properly are endless. Accuracy is the main offering that automation software brings to the table, making it perfect for repeated jobs and long-term software projects. In contrast, manual testing would make more sense when flexibility is required to mimic real-world interactions from end-users.
Deploying software onto cloud environment is upon the key drivers of digital transformations.
Without having to put down an up-front investment on building apps, IT infrastructures and hire dedicated in-house technical personnel, SaaS providers have successfully introduced pay-as-you-go and boilerplate solutions.
The issue with SaaS is that though it puts off some of the heavy maintenance work of self-built applications, the complexity in QA and testing SaaS applications also rises.
Industry verticals say healthcare, have its own regulations on maintaining the secrecy of patient records. Factors such as Service Level Agreements (SLA) or General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) compliance raise the stake for software quality.
The UI/UX of an app or software is extremely critical to making or breaking business gains. Visual aspects often get overlooked compared to testing the functionalities.
There’s a whole hashtag of #GUIGoneWrong dedicated to logging visual errors from popular apps.
Functional testing only verifies if buttons are clickable, destination URLs are accurate or user credentials are properly stored in the database. However, factors like texts lying on top of each other and making users unable to see the content on a particular call-to-action are note covered.
AI-infused solutions for visual testing, in particular, replace the traditional pixel-based comparisons and reduce insignificant mismatches. Not only will this cut down the hours of spotting the difference for QA, but AI visual testing speeds up testing cycles by encountering fewer false positives.
Software testers need to know how a system works, its defects, and what adjustment needs to be made. The more experienced, skilled, and certified a software tester is, the more chances they get to demand a higher salary.
Learn software automation testing from professionals and increase your chances of getting a high-paying job. Katalon Academy lets you master in-demand tools and implement them on real projects. You can pick a course based on the skill you want to learn, profession and interest. Build your testing skills now, and shift from manual to automation testing with Katalon Academy.