Explore jobs
Find specific jobs
Explore careers
Explore professions
Best companies
Explore companies
The differences between quality assurance developers and quality assurance engineers 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 quality assurance engineer. Additionally, a quality assurance developer has an average salary of $91,359, which is higher than the $82,215 average annual salary of a quality assurance engineer.
The top three skills for a quality assurance developer include python, QA and java. The most important skills for a quality assurance engineer are java, python, and regression.
| Quality Assurance Developer | Quality Assurance Engineer | |
| Yearly salary | $91,359 | $82,215 |
| Hourly rate | $43.92 | $39.53 |
| Growth rate | 21% | - |
| Number of jobs | 175,658 | 243,536 |
| Job satisfaction | - | - |
| Most common degree | Bachelor's Degree, 68% | Bachelor's Degree, 71% |
| Average age | 44 | 44 |
| 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 Quality Assurance Engineer's role is to oversee the overall production and ensure that the product is cost-efficient and aligns with the company's standards. The responsibility mainly revolves around conducting activities that examine and scrutinize the condition of a product or service to identify issues and come up with possible solutions to resolve the issue or attain stronger customer satisfaction. Furthermore, the Quality Assurance Engineer must also ensure that the product adheres to the government regulations and market guidelines.
Quality assurance developers and quality assurance engineers have different pay scales, as shown below.
| Quality Assurance Developer | Quality Assurance Engineer | |
| Average salary | $91,359 | $82,215 |
| Salary range | Between $68,000 And $121,000 | Between $61,000 And $109,000 |
| Highest paying City | San Mateo, CA | San Mateo, CA |
| Highest paying state | California | California |
| Best paying company | NVIDIA | The Citadel |
| Best paying industry | Health Care | Technology |
There are a few differences between a quality assurance developer and a quality assurance engineer in terms of educational background:
| Quality Assurance Developer | Quality Assurance Engineer | |
| Most common degree | Bachelor's Degree, 68% | Bachelor's Degree, 71% |
| 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 quality assurance engineers' demographics:
| Quality Assurance Developer | Quality Assurance Engineer | |
| Average age | 44 | 44 |
| Gender ratio | Male, 69.3% Female, 30.7% | Male, 69.5% Female, 30.5% |
| 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% |