A QA engineer is paid to be professionally suspicious. Developers check that a feature works when used as intended; the QA engineer asks what happens when a user pastes an emoji into the phone number field, loses network halfway through payment, or opens the app on an old, low-memory Android phone. On a modern team they also write the automated tests that run on every pull request, so the same bug does not come back next release. A weak QA job description hires someone who runs a script of test cases. A good one hires someone who finds the defects the script never thought of.
This page gives you a ready-to-copy QA engineer job description that works for test automation roles too, then covers how the role changes by level, how to screen QA candidates properly, the job description mistakes to avoid, and how to choose between contract and permanent hiring.
QA engineer job description template
Adapt the square-bracketed parts to your product and stack. If the role is mainly manual testing, trim the automation lines; if it is mainly automation, keep them and add your framework language.
About the role
[Company] is looking for a QA Engineer / Test Automation Engineer to help us ship [product type: web app / mobile app / platform] with confidence. You will work inside our [team name] team in [city / remote], test new features before release, build and maintain automated UI and API test suites, and help developers catch defects earlier. You will report to [QA lead / engineering manager].
Responsibilities
- Review requirements and user stories early and raise gaps, ambiguities and untestable acceptance criteria.
- Design test scenarios and test cases covering functional, regression, edge case and negative paths.
- Build and maintain automated UI tests using [Playwright / Selenium WebDriver / Cypress] in [Java / TypeScript / Python].
- Automate API tests with [REST Assured / Postman and Newman], including authentication, payload and contract checks.
- Run automated suites in the CI/CD pipeline with [Jenkins / GitHub Actions] so they execute on every pull request.
- Investigate and fix flaky tests so pipeline results stay trustworthy.
- Carry out exploratory testing on new features and risky areas before release.
- Log clear, reproducible defects in [Jira] with steps, expected and actual results, and supporting evidence.
- Track test coverage and results in [TestRail / Zephyr] and report release readiness to the team.
Requirements
- [X]+ years of experience in software testing, including test automation.
- Strong grasp of test design techniques such as boundary values, equivalence partitioning and state transitions.
- Hands-on experience writing UI automation with Selenium, Playwright or Cypress.
- Experience testing REST APIs with tools such as Postman or REST Assured.
- Working programming skills in [Java / TypeScript / Python] and a test framework such as TestNG or JUnit.
- Experience running tests in a CI pipeline and reading build failures.
- Clear written communication, especially in defect reports.
Nice to have
- Mobile testing with Appium, Espresso or XCUITest, or on device clouds such as BrowserStack.
- Performance testing with JMeter, k6 or Gatling.
- BDD experience with Cucumber.
- Experience with contract testing or Docker-based test environments.
What we offer
- [Salary range] and [benefits].
- [Work mode: on-site / hybrid / remote].
- [Access to test devices, tools or certification support].
How the QA role changes by level
Junior QA engineer or manual tester. Junior testers execute and extend existing test cases, run regression and smoke tests, and log defects. Their job description should stress test case design, attention to detail and defect reporting. Some basic scripting or exposure to an automation tool is a plus, but not the main requirement.
Mid-level QA engineer or test automation engineer. At this level the person owns testing for a feature area. They decide what to automate and what to test by hand, write and maintain automation code, and get it running in CI. Ask for framework code they have written and maintained, not just tools they have used.
Senior QA engineer, SDET or QA lead. A senior hire shapes how quality works across the team. That means choosing or building the automation framework, setting quality gates in the pipeline, reviewing application code for testability, and coaching developers to write better tests. If the role is closer to software development, call it an SDET and say so, because it attracts a different pool of candidates. A QA lead job description should also cover test strategy, release sign-off and working with product managers on risk.
QA skills that matter most, and how to check them
- Test design. Give the candidate a simple feature, such as a login form with a password reset link, and ask them to list what they would test in a few minutes. Strong testers go beyond the happy path to session handling, rate limits, error messages and accessibility.
- Defect reporting. Show a buggy screen or a short recording and ask them to write the bug report. A good report lets a developer reproduce the issue without asking a single question.
- Automation code quality. Ask for a small automation task, or review code they have written before. Look for page objects or a similar structure, stable locators, sensible waits instead of fixed sleeps, and tests that do not depend on each other.
- Flaky test handling. Ask how they would deal with a test that fails now and then for no clear reason. The answer shows whether they investigate the root cause, such as timing, shared test data or environment issues, or just add retries.
- API testing. Give them an API endpoint and ask what they would check beyond a successful response: status codes, schema, authentication failures, invalid input and idempotency.
A short pairing session on a small part of your real product is often the most useful screen of all, because you see how the candidate explores something unfamiliar.
Common QA job description mistakes
- Mixing manual and automation roles without saying so. An ad that asks for heavy automation but describes a day of manual regression will disappoint whoever joins. Fix: state the rough balance between manual and automated work.
- Listing every tool on the market. Asking for Selenium, Playwright, Cypress, Appium, JMeter and LoadRunner in one ad tells candidates you have not decided what you need. Fix: name your framework and language, and put the rest under nice to have.
- Framing QA as the last step before release. If the ad only talks about testing finished builds, you attract testers who expect to be handed work at the end. Fix: mention reviewing requirements and working with developers from the start of a sprint.
- Ignoring the product type. Testing a banking app, a B2B dashboard and a mobile game need different instincts. Fix: describe the product, the users and the riskiest areas.
- Not mentioning devices and environments. Mobile and web testers want to know whether they will have real devices, a device cloud or only emulators. Fix: list what test environments and devices are available.
Contract, contract-to-hire or permanent: which suits a QA engineer
Contract QA engineers fit well around a launch, a large regression effort or a one-off project such as building a first automation framework or a performance test before a sale or peak season. Contractors who have built frameworks before can get one running quickly and hand it over with documentation.
Contract-to-hire is useful when you are moving from manual to automated testing and are not yet sure whether you need a test automation engineer or a full SDET. A trial period shows you which profile your team actually needs.
Permanent QA hires make sense when testing is continuous and the product is complex, because a tester’s value grows with their knowledge of your edge cases, your users and your history of defects. Zilo AI works across all three models: we hire QA engineers in India on contract, contract-to-hire or permanent terms, screening automation candidates on framework code they have written and functional testers on test design and defect reports. If you are building out more of your engineering team, our IT hiring page covers developers, DevOps and other roles.
Frequently asked questions
What should a QA job description include?
A QA job description should describe the product and its users, the balance between manual and automated testing, the automation framework and language you use, the CI tools and test management tools, and who the person reports to. Add core requirements in test design and automation, and list extras such as mobile or performance testing as nice to have.
What is the difference between a QA engineer and an SDET?
A QA engineer focuses on testing the product, through test design, exploratory testing and automated suites. An SDET is a developer-grade engineer who builds test infrastructure, service mocks and contract tests, and works on testability inside the application code. SDET roles usually need stronger programming skills.
What is the difference between QA and testing?
Testing is the activity of checking software for defects. Quality assurance is broader and includes the process around it, such as reviewing requirements, setting quality gates and improving how the team prevents defects. Most QA engineer roles include both.
Should a QA job description ask for coding skills?
Yes, for any role that includes automation. Name the language your framework uses. For a purely manual testing role, coding can be a nice to have, but say clearly that the role is manual so automation engineers do not apply expecting otherwise.
If you would rather have a shortlist of tested QA engineers than write the ad yourself, Zilo AI can handle the search and screening. Talk to our team about your product, your stack and the testing gaps you want to close.