How To Become A Principal Test Engineer: What It Is and Career Path

What is a principal test engineer and how to become one

Updated January 8, 2025

3 min read

The major duties of a principal test engineer include testing automation tools, developing and releasing test software to the factory floor, providing technical guidance to engineers, enhancing existing test solutions by reducing test time, minimizing retests, and yield analysis. Your job is to ensure that by testing, you influence better software design, security, scalability, and better bug prevention strategies. You will be required to lead project teams and write scripts for the automation of tasks. It is also important that you define test goals, prepare and execute system-level functional levels.

Some of the most rated skills for every principal engineer are python, DOD, and test scripts. Communication skills, teamwork, and project management are also important skills. The average principal engineer makes $105000 annually and $50.6 annually. The minimum qualification is a bachelor's degree in computer science, electrical engineering, or other related fields.

ScorePrincipal Test EngineerUS Average

Salary

8.0

Avg. Salary $116,493

Avg. Salary $59,228

Stability level

5.1

Growth rate 3%

Growth rate 0.3%

Diversity

4.1

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 0.51%

Asian 11.99%

Black or African American 6.24%

Hispanic or Latino 8.82%

Unknown 4.70%

White 67.73%

Gender

female 10.16%

male 89.84%

Age - 43

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 3.00%

Asian 7.00%

Black or African American 14.00%

Hispanic or Latino 19.00%

White 57.00%

Gender

female 47.00%

male 53.00%

Age - 43

Stress level

5.1

Stress level is manageable

7.1 - high

Complexity level

6.1

Complexity level is intermediate

7 - challenging

Work life balance

6.0

Work life balance is fair

6.4 - fair

Key steps to become a principal test engineer

Explore principal test engineer education requirements

Most common principal test engineer degrees

Bachelor's

72.3 %

Master's

15.2 %

Associate

9.4 %

Start to develop specific principal test engineer skills

Skills	Percentages
Python	10.73%
C++	7.97%
Java	7.09%
DOD	6.42%
Test Procedures	6.06%

Complete relevant principal test engineer training and internships

Accountants spend an average of 3-6 months on post-employment, on-the-job training. New principal test engineers learn the skills and techniques required for their job and employer during this time. The chart below shows how long it takes to gain competency as a principal test engineer based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data and data from real principal test engineer resumes.

Research principal test engineer duties and responsibilities

Lead text fixture design with emphasis on RF test signal conditioning and high-speed digital signaling.
Lead a group of 9 engineers responsible for technology development for handling electronic packages (computer CPU) during HVM.
Create FPGA and microprocessor designs.
Implement system customization through XML scripts.

Get principal test engineer experience

Generally, it takes 2-4 years to become a principal test engineer. The most common roles before becoming a principal test engineer include senior test engineer, test engineer team lead and senior software engineer.

Prepare your principal test engineer resume

When your background is strong enough, you can start writing your principal test engineer resume.

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