How to hire a senior quality analyst

Senior quality analyst hiring summary. Here are some key points about hiring senior quality analysts in the United States:

There are a total of 213,203 senior quality analysts in the US, and there are currently 126,363 job openings in this field.
The median cost to hire a senior quality analyst is $1,633.
Small businesses spend $1,105 per senior quality analyst on training each year, while large companies spend $658.
It takes between 36 and 42 days to fill the average role in the US.
It takes approximately 12 weeks for a new employee to reach full productivity levels.
HR departments typically allocate 15% of their budget towards recruitment efforts.
Los Angeles, CA, has the highest demand for senior quality analysts, with 8 job openings.

How to hire a senior quality analyst, step by step

To hire a senior quality analyst, you should clearly understand the skills and experience you are looking for in a candidate, and allocate a budget for the position. You will also need to post and promote the job opening to reach potential candidates. Here's a step-by-step guide on how to hire a senior quality analyst:

Here's a step-by-step senior quality analyst hiring guide:

Step 1: Identify your hiring needs
Step 2: Create an ideal candidate profile
Step 3: Make a budget
Step 4: Write a senior quality analyst job description
Step 5: Post your job
Step 6: Interview candidates
Step 7: Send a job offer and onboard your new senior quality analyst
Step 8: Go through the hiring process checklist

What does a senior quality analyst do?

A senior quality assurance analyst specializes in inspecting and assessing the quality of software and systems in a company, ensuring efficiency and smooth workflow. Their responsibilities include developing specific test structures, coordinating with different departments to gather data, troubleshooting, and studying client complaints to prevent issues from happening again. They may also perform regular maintenance checks, recommending solutions as needed. Furthermore, as a senior quality assurance analyst, it is essential to lead the quality assurance efforts on systems, all while serving as a mentor and role model to junior analysts.

Learn more about the specifics of what a senior quality analyst does

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Identify your hiring needs

The senior quality analyst hiring process starts by determining what type of worker you actually need. Certain roles might require a full-time employee, whereas part-time workers or contractors can do others.

Determine employee vs contractor status

Is the person you're thinking of hiring a US citizen or green card holder?

A senior quality analyst's background is also an important factor in determining whether they'll be a good fit for the position. For example, senior quality analysts from different industries or fields will have radically different experiences and will bring different viewpoints to the role. You also need to consider the candidate's previous level of experience to make sure they'll be comfortable with the job's level of seniority.

This list presents senior quality analyst salaries for various positions.

Type of Senior Quality Analyst	Description	Hourly rate
Senior Quality Analyst		$34-53
Analyst Lead	The duties of an analyst lead depend on one's line of work or industry of employment. Typically, their responsibilities revolve around performing research and analysis, coordinating with different departments to gather leads and data, reviewing findings, and producing reports and presentations for the stakeholders and other higher-ranking officials... Show more	$35-58
Quality Assurance Engineer	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... Show more	$29-52

Create an ideal candidate profile
Common skills:
- Data Analysis
- Test Cases
- QA
- Regression
- Test Scripts
- Status Reports
- Patients
- Data Integrity
- Selenium Web
- Java
- Jira
- Scrum
- Test Data
- Test Plan
Check all skills
Responsibilities:
- Track the defects using QC & JIRA, generate defect summary reports and also communicate issues to team leads and developers.
- Manage released versions of content using a dedicate SharePoint site to interact with development teams.
- Perform functional, regression, and user acceptance testing of Java, web-base applications using test scenarios and test case artifacts.
- Perform in executing manual and automate test scripts for functional, integration and regression testing and production validation.
- Perform back end testing of database records using SQL and PL/SQL.
- Drive the test process per the scrum principles and attending the daily scrum stand-ups.
More senior quality analyst duties

Make a budget

Including a salary range in your senior quality analyst job description is a great way to entice the best and brightest candidates. A senior quality analyst salary can vary based on several factors:

Location. For example, senior quality analysts' average salary in hawaii is 36% less than in delaware.
Seniority. Entry-level senior quality analysts earn 37% less than senior-level senior quality analysts.
Certifications. A senior quality analyst with a few certifications under their belt will likely demand a higher salary.
Company. Working for a prestigious company or an exciting start-up can make a huge difference in a senior quality analyst's salary.

Average senior quality analyst salary

$89,722yearly

$43.14 hourly rate

Entry-level senior quality analyst salary

$71,000 yearly salary

Updated January 16, 2026

Average senior quality analyst salary by state

Rank	State	Avg. salary	Hourly rate
1	California	$109,820	$53
2	Washington	$103,901	$50
3	Maryland	$102,221	$49
4	New York	$100,993	$49
5	New Jersey	$99,656	$48
6	Massachusetts	$98,220	$47
7	District of Columbia	$97,867	$47
8	Virginia	$96,484	$46
9	Illinois	$95,869	$46
10	Texas	$94,697	$46
11	Minnesota	$92,641	$45
12	Pennsylvania	$91,457	$44
13	Connecticut	$91,178	$44
14	Indiana	$88,889	$43
15	Arizona	$88,138	$42
16	Ohio	$88,069	$42
17	South Carolina	$87,802	$42
18	Utah	$87,590	$42
19	North Carolina	$86,028	$41
20	Georgia	$85,268	$41

Average senior quality analyst salary by company

Rank	Company	Average salary	Hourly rate	Job openings
1	Google	$121,583	$58.45	102
2	Mayo Clinic	$114,381	$54.99	9
3	Barclays	$112,515	$54.09	3
4	Nomura Securities	$110,286	$53.02	12
5	Bloomberg	$107,125	$51.50	14
6	Citi	$106,816	$51.35	25
7	Riot Games	$106,734	$51.31	1
8	Citicorp North America, Inc	$106,039	$50.98
9	Edwards Lifesciences	$105,586	$50.76	27
10	Edelman Financial Engines	$103,962	$49.98
11	Thoughtworks	$103,046	$49.54
12	Marriott International	$100,226	$48.19	11
13	Morgan Stanley	$98,757	$47.48	17
14	Data	$98,305	$47.26	2
15	NBCUniversal	$97,809	$47.02	22
16	Cybersource	$97,666	$46.95
17	Grandbridge Real Estate Capital	$97,408	$46.83	73
18	CFA Institute	$96,208	$46.25	3
19	Whirlpool	$95,638	$45.98	7
20	T-Mobile	$94,298	$45.34	2

Writing a senior quality analyst job description
A senior quality analyst job description should include a summary of the role, required skills, and a list of responsibilities. It's also good to include a salary range and the first name of the hiring manager. To help get you started, here's an example of a senior quality analyst job description:
Senior quality analyst job description example
Looking to hire an experienced QA resource to prepare test plans, test cases, and test scripts, while executing tests to ensure the in-house Unemployment Insurance Tax applications are secure, scalable, robust and high performing.

This is a hybrid opportunity where the contractor must be onsite a minimum of 2 days/week - without exception. The clients preference for this position is local candidates.

IWD is seeking candidateswith strong functional and non-functional testing experience in addition to experience analyzing suitable opportunities for test automation. Desirable, but not required, are candidates with experience setting up automation framework and implementing/monitoring automated test scripts to assess non-functional requirements. NOTE: Candidates with this mix of experience will be the first candidates considered.

Iowa Workforce Development (IWD) is a state agency committed to providing re-employment services for job seekers. We are looking to hire an experienced Quality Analyst for our Unemployment Insurance (UI) Tax Modernization Project. This individual will be part of a talented software team that works on mission-critical applications using Agile methodologies. The project aims to modernize IWD's UI Tax system by re-architecting its components to industry leading architecture and frameworks, with the goal of providing better service to both the agency staff and the end-users while positioning the agency for future technological improvements. The ideal candidate is a leader and strong team contributor who is eager to learn and develop their craft as a software professional and will find great satisfaction in the patient pursuit of excellence. This individual will be responsible for preparing test plans, test cases, and test scripts, while executing tests to ensure the Tax applications are secure, scalable, robust and high performing in nature.
Requirements
Experience testing modern frameworks, both desktop and mobile applications REQUIRED 5 Years
Experience testing APIs REQUIRED 5 Years
Experience developing test strategy for functional testing REQUIRED 5 Years
Experience developing and executing test plans REQUIRED 5 Years
Experience processing test results, compiling/analyzing statistical data, reporting defects/errors REQUIRED 5 Years
Experience monitoring efforts to resolve product issues and tracking progress REQUIRED 5 Years
Experience drafting quality assurance standards, policies and procedures REQUIRED 3 Years
Ability to ensure that user expectations are met during the testing process REQUIRED 5 Years
Experience monitoring and enforcing compliance with quality standards REQUIRED 3 Years
Experience providing recommendations for product enhancement and improved efficiency REQUIRED 5 Years
Demonstrate strong verbal and written communication skills REQUIRED 5 Years
Experience in setting up automation framework Highly Desired 5 Years
Ability to identify and analyze suitable opportunities for test automation Highly Desired 5 Years
Ability to implement and monitor automation test scripts to assess non-functional requirements for the product Highly Desired 5 Years
Ability to implement end to end test automation Highly Desired 5 Years
Experience leading, mentoring team members Highly Desired 5 Years
Post your job
To find senior quality analysts for your business, try out a few different recruiting strategies:
- Consider internal talent. One of the most important talent pools for any company is its current employees.
- Ask for referrals. Reach out to friends, family members, and your current work to ask if they know any senior quality analysts they would recommend.
- Recruit at local colleges. Attend job fairs at local colleges to recruit entry-level senior quality analysts with the right educational background.
- Social media platforms. LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter have more than 3.5 billion users, and they're a great place for company branding and reaching potential job candidates.
Post your job online:
- Post your senior quality analyst job on Zippia to find and recruit senior quality analyst candidates who meet your exact specifications.
- Use field-specific websites such as dice, engineering.com, stack overflow, it job pro.
- Post a job on free websites.
Interview candidates
Your first interview with senior quality analyst candidates should focus on their interest in the role and background experience. As the hiring process goes on, you can learn more about how they'd fit into the company culture in later rounds of interviews.
It's also good to ask about candidates' unique skills and talents. You can move on to the technical interview if a candidate is good enough for the next step.
Sometimes, it's not enough to interview senior quality analyst candidates, so you can ask them to do a test project. If you are not a technical person and don't know what a test project should be, you can use these websites:
- TestDome
- CodeSignal
- Testlify
- BarRaiser
- Coderbyte
The right interview questions can help you assess a candidate's hard skills, behavioral intelligence, and soft skills.
Send a job offer and onboard your new senior quality analyst
Once you've found the senior quality analyst candidate you'd like to hire, it's time to write an offer letter. This should include an explicit job offer that includes the salary and the details of any other perks. Qualified candidates might be looking at multiple positions, so your offer must be competitive if you like the candidate. Also, be prepared for a negotiation stage, as candidates may way want to tweak the details of your initial offer. Once you've settled on these details, you can draft a contract to formalize your agreement.
It's equally important to follow up with applicants who don't get the job with an email letting them know that the position has been filled.
Once that's done, you can draft an onboarding schedule for the new senior quality analyst. Human Resources should complete Employee Action Forms and ensure that onboarding paperwork is completed, including I-9s, benefits enrollment, federal and state tax forms, etc. They should also ensure that new employee files are created for internal recordkeeping.
Go through the hiring process checklist
- Determine employee type (full-time, part-time, contractor, etc.)
- Submit a job requisition form to the HR department
- Define job responsibilities and requirements
- Establish budget and timeline
- Determine hiring decision makers for the role
- Write job description
- Post job on job boards, company website, etc.
- Promote the job internally
- Process applications through applicant tracking system
- Review resumes and cover letters
- Shortlist candidates for screening
- Hold phone/virtual interview screening with first round of candidates
- Conduct in-person interviews with top candidates from first round
- Score candidates based on weighted criteria (e.g., experience, education, background, cultural fit, skill set, etc.)
- Conduct background checks on top candidates
- Check references of top candidates
- Consult with HR and hiring decision makers on job offer specifics
- Extend offer to top candidate(s)
- Receive formal job offer acceptance and signed employment contract
- Inform other candidates that the position has been filled
- Set and communicate onboarding schedule to new hire(s)
- Complete new hire paperwork (i9, benefits enrollment, tax forms, etc.)
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How much does it cost to hire a senior quality analyst?

Before you start to hire senior quality analysts, it pays to consider both the one-off costs like recruitment, job promotion, and onboarding, as well as the ongoing costs of an employee's salary and benefits. While most companies that hire senior quality analysts pay close attention to the initial cost of hiring, ongoing costs are much more significant in the long run.

You can expect to pay around $89,722 per year for a senior quality analyst, as this is the median yearly salary nationally. This can vary depending on what state or city you're hiring in. If you're hiring for contract work or on a per-project basis, hourly rates for senior quality analysts in the US typically range between $34 and $53 an hour.

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Updated January 16, 2026

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How to hire a senior quality analyst