Quality assurance vs quality assurance specialist

The differences between quality assurances 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 quality assurance and a quality assurance specialist. Additionally, a quality assurance specialist has an average salary of $63,443, which is higher than the $51,313 average annual salary of a quality assurance.

The top three skills for a quality assurance include test cases, food handling and java. The most important skills for a quality assurance specialist are GMP, patients, and FDA.

Quality assurance vs quality assurance specialist overview

	Quality Assurance	Quality Assurance Specialist
Yearly salary	$51,313	$63,443
Hourly rate	$24.67	$30.50
Growth rate	-	6%
Number of jobs	69,366	83,505
Job satisfaction	-	-
Most common degree	Bachelor's Degree, 47%	Bachelor's Degree, 58%
Average age	44	44
Years of experience	4	4

What does a quality assurance do?

The primary role of quality assurance specialists is to inspect the quality system's implementation and perform quality assurance audits. They are responsible for monitoring and recording results from procedures and processes within manufacturing industries. They are also responsible for some other tasks, including keeping up-to-date manufacturing and auditing documentation, training less experienced QA team members, and creating standard operating procedures. To be a quality assurance specialist, you must have a high school diploma, organizational skills, and strong attention to detail.

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.

Quality assurance vs quality assurance specialist salary

Quality assurances and quality assurance specialists have different pay scales, as shown below.

	Quality Assurance	Quality Assurance Specialist
Average salary	$51,313	$63,443
Salary range	Between $28,000 And $92,000	Between $41,000 And $97,000
Highest paying City	Cupertino, CA	San Francisco, CA
Highest paying state	California	Rhode Island
Best paying company	Meta	Apple
Best paying industry	Finance	Pharmaceutical

Differences between quality assurance and quality assurance specialist education

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

	Quality Assurance	Quality Assurance Specialist
Most common degree	Bachelor's Degree, 47%	Bachelor's Degree, 58%
Most common major	Business	Business
Most common college	Stanford University	Stanford University

Quality assurance vs quality assurance specialist demographics

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

	Quality Assurance	Quality Assurance Specialist
Average age	44	44
Gender ratio	Male, 55.8% Female, 44.2%	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 quality assurance and quality assurance specialist duties and responsibilities

Quality assurance example responsibilities.

Participate in weekly scrum meetings with project leads and the QA team to track and report overall progress.
Manage the logistics requirements, handling, processing, and repairing of avionics equipment and avionics support equipment.
Champion use of detail bug tracking (JIRA) and strict release methodology to achieve field stability and maintainability.
Experience in working with product teams, product owners and scrum masters to compose and manage integrate project plans.
Manage all ALM relate issues, user requests and customize the defect templates to cater to various project needs.
Provide support for different environments including DEV, QA, UAT, staging, and production.

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.

Quality assurance vs quality assurance specialist skills

Common quality assurance skills

Test Cases, 6%
Food Handling, 6%
Java, 5%
Selenium, 4%
Data Entry, 4%
Test Procedures, 4%

Common quality assurance specialist skills

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

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Quality Assurance vs Quality Assurance Specialist

Updated January 8, 2025

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