Junior tester vs quality assurance specialist

The differences between junior testers and quality assurance specialists can be seen in a few details. Each job has different responsibilities and duties. It typically takes 2-4 years to become both a junior tester and a quality assurance specialist. Additionally, a junior tester has an average salary of $70,002, which is higher than the $63,443 average annual salary of a quality assurance specialist.

The top three skills for a junior tester include test results, test scripts and manual test cases. The most important skills for a quality assurance specialist are GMP, patients, and FDA.

Junior tester vs quality assurance specialist overview

	Junior Tester	Quality Assurance Specialist
Yearly salary	$70,002	$63,443
Hourly rate	$33.65	$30.50
Growth rate	-	6%
Number of jobs	44,154	83,505
Job satisfaction	-	-
Most common degree	Bachelor's Degree, 60%	Bachelor's Degree, 58%
Average age	44	44
Years of experience	4	4

What does a junior tester do?

A junior tester has strong critical thinking skills and is very much familiar with automation. They must be a team player; they work with others to create and test out a software program. They monitor and report issues, like system bugs, and help to fix them. Most of the time, a junior tester works at a company that is related to software, web application, java games, or video games.

What does a quality assurance specialist do?

A quality assurance specialist is an individual who is responsible for monitoring, inspecting, and proposing measures to correct and improve a company's product. Quality assurance specialists need to outline quality assurance policies and procedures, making sure that quality standards are assured. It is important that a quality assurance specialist should have strong attention to detail and is excellent in data collection. This work may require a minimum of bachelor's degree and certification to get certified.

Junior tester vs quality assurance specialist salary

Junior testers and quality assurance specialists have different pay scales, as shown below.

	Junior Tester	Quality Assurance Specialist
Average salary	$70,002	$63,443
Salary range	Between $52,000 And $93,000	Between $41,000 And $97,000
Highest paying City	Arlington, VA	San Francisco, CA
Highest paying state	Virginia	Rhode Island
Best paying company	QSSI	Apple
Best paying industry	Start-up	Pharmaceutical

Differences between junior tester and quality assurance specialist education

There are a few differences between a junior tester and a quality assurance specialist in terms of educational background:

	Junior Tester	Quality Assurance Specialist
Most common degree	Bachelor's Degree, 60%	Bachelor's Degree, 58%
Most common major	Computer Science	Business
Most common college	California State University - Long Beach	Stanford University

Junior tester vs quality assurance specialist demographics

Here are the differences between junior testers' and quality assurance specialists' demographics:

	Junior Tester	Quality Assurance Specialist
Average age	44	44
Gender ratio	Male, 59.2% Female, 40.8%	Male, 42.8% Female, 57.2%
Race ratio	Black or African American, 6.2% Unknown, 4.7% Hispanic or Latino, 8.8% Asian, 12.0% White, 67.7% American Indian and Alaska Native, 0.5%	Black or African American, 6.2% Unknown, 4.7% Hispanic or Latino, 8.8% Asian, 12.0% White, 67.7% American Indian and Alaska Native, 0.5%
LGBT Percentage	11%	11%

Differences between junior tester and quality assurance specialist duties and responsibilities

Junior tester example responsibilities.

Manage departmental inventory and troubleshoot testing, reporting and inventory issues.
Organize meetings to discuss outstanding issues with QA team and developers.
Raise defects in ALM QC during execution and tracking them until it get close.
Diagnose and troubleshot UNIX and windows processing problems and apply solutions to increase client security.
Used JIRA for repository, reporting and tracking bugs, and providing updates on resolve bugs.
Perform UAT for track customer behavior and spending habits and provide the issue list to the CCB for further action.

Quality assurance specialist example responsibilities.

Manage all NDT relate gauges to ensure calibrations requirements are meet.
Provide employee training and manage all NDT certification records per ASNT SNT-TC-1A.
Lead the HACCP team to ensure full compliance with regulatory and industrial food safety standards.
Manage product and environmental sampling for chemical and microbial analysis to meet HACCP requirements.
Lead cross functional project team to build user-friendly windows base customer support applications which interface with the OmniPlan/OmniPlus mainframe application.
Execute quality processes in tissue banking and medical device, FDA requirements 21 CFR 1271 and 21 CFR 820.

Junior tester vs quality assurance specialist skills

Common junior tester skills

Test Results, 16%
Test Scripts, 10%
Manual Test Cases, 5%
Regression, 5%
Test Scenarios, 5%
Linux, 4%

Common quality assurance specialist skills

GMP, 6%
Patients, 5%
FDA, 5%
CAPA, 4%
Corrective Action, 4%
CFR, 4%

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Junior Tester vs Quality Assurance Specialist

Updated January 8, 2025

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