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The differences between quality assurance developers and lead developers can be seen in a few details. Each job has different responsibilities and duties. It typically takes 2-4 years to become both a quality assurance developer and a lead developer. Additionally, a lead developer has an average salary of $116,340, which is higher than the $91,359 average annual salary of a quality assurance developer.
The top three skills for a quality assurance developer include python, QA and java. The most important skills for a lead developer are java, javascript, and architecture.
| Quality Assurance Developer | Lead Developer | |
| Yearly salary | $91,359 | $116,340 |
| Hourly rate | $43.92 | $55.93 |
| Growth rate | 21% | 21% |
| Number of jobs | 175,658 | 274,208 |
| Job satisfaction | - | - |
| Most common degree | Bachelor's Degree, 68% | Bachelor's Degree, 68% |
| Average age | 44 | 39 |
| Years of experience | 4 | 4 |
A quality assurance developer creates well-structured, comprehensive, and detailed test cases, test plans, and test strategies. They develop and implement test automated test cases and automation frameworks. Besides setting automation creation and maintenance targets, a quality assurance developer also designs, creates, and executes automation scripts. Moreover, quality assurance developers review technical design documents, requirements, and specifications to deliver timely and useful feedback. Finally, quality assurance developers monitor all software development stages to note, track and solve all system and application issues so as to meet the required quality standards.
A lead developer is responsible for creating software programs and applications, following the client and the business's software quality standards and design specifications. Lead developers assist a team of developers in implementing strategic procedures, managing system codes, debugging applications, running diagnostic tests, and troubleshooting defects to ensure its smooth performance. They also respond to clients' inquiries and concerns, performing feature adjustments as needed. A lead developer must have strong knowledge of the technology industry and command on programming languages and software design processes.
Quality assurance developers and lead developers have different pay scales, as shown below.
| Quality Assurance Developer | Lead Developer | |
| Average salary | $91,359 | $116,340 |
| Salary range | Between $68,000 And $121,000 | Between $83,000 And $161,000 |
| Highest paying City | San Mateo, CA | San Francisco, CA |
| Highest paying state | California | California |
| Best paying company | NVIDIA | Mayo Clinic |
| Best paying industry | Health Care | Retail |
There are a few differences between a quality assurance developer and a lead developer in terms of educational background:
| Quality Assurance Developer | Lead Developer | |
| Most common degree | Bachelor's Degree, 68% | Bachelor's Degree, 68% |
| Most common major | Computer Science | Computer Science |
| Most common college | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
Here are the differences between quality assurance developers' and lead developers' demographics:
| Quality Assurance Developer | Lead Developer | |
| Average age | 44 | 39 |
| Gender ratio | Male, 69.3% Female, 30.7% | Male, 76.4% Female, 23.6% |
| 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, 4.5% Unknown, 4.8% Hispanic or Latino, 8.2% Asian, 29.9% White, 52.5% American Indian and Alaska Native, 0.2% |
| LGBT Percentage | 11% | 8% |