Tech hiring Product, design & quality
Hire QA testers who find it before users do.
A QA tester works out how your software can fail and checks that it does not: by exploring it as a user would, by testing the API underneath and by automating the checks worth repeating. We shortlist testers assessed on test design, bug reporting and automation, not on tool lists.
01 The role
What you get, when you hire a QA tester.
A QA tester finds the problems in software before customers do. They read a requirement, work out what could go wrong, and test it: by hand where judgement is needed, through the API where the logic lives, and with automated suites for the paths that must never break. Each defect is reported so a developer can reproduce it in minutes.
The skill is in choosing what to test. No team can check everything, so a tester decides where the risk is highest: payments, permissions, data migrations, the feature changed yesterday. The other hard problem is automation that stays useful. A suite full of flaky tests gets ignored, and an ignored suite is worse than none.
Developers still write unit tests; a QA tester covers what unit tests miss, across services, browsers and devices. In current practice the role is involved from the requirement onwards instead of at the end, automation runs in the pipeline on every pull request, and Playwright has become the usual choice for new browser suites, with Selenium common in older ones.
What they ship
- Test plans and risk-based test strategies
- Exploratory test sessions with written findings
- Automated end-to-end suites running in CI
- API test collections covering contracts and error cases
- Regression packs for each release
- Bug reports with steps, evidence and severity
- Load test scripts with baseline results
02 Skills and stack
Skills to look for, in three columns.
Manual and automation are not two grades of the same job. Say in the brief how much of each you need, and which language your automation is, or should be, written in.
Core
The role cannot be done without these.
- Test design: boundaries, equivalence classes, risk
- Exploratory and manual testing
- Test automation in TypeScript, Python or Java
- API testing
- Clear, reproducible bug reporting
- Regression strategy and test data
- SQL for checking data
- Reading requirements for gaps and ambiguity
Tooling
Varies from team to team.
- Playwright or Cypress
- Selenium WebDriver
- Appium, Detox or Maestro for mobile
- Postman or Bruno
- k6 or JMeter
- pytest, Jest or JUnit
- Jira with Xray, Zephyr or TestRail
- GitHub Actions, GitLab CI or Jenkins
- BrowserStack or Sauce Labs
- Cucumber for BDD
Adjacent
Useful, not required.
- Security testing basics: OWASP Top 10
- Accessibility testing with axe and screen readers
- Contract testing with Pact
- Docker and test environments
- Reading logs and traces
- Evaluating AI and LLM features
- Performance profiling
03 When to hire one
When a QA tester is the right hire, and when not.
The wrong hire for the problem is an expensive way to learn what the problem was. Check your situation against both columns.
Hire a QA tester when
-
Customers are finding the bugs
Support tickets and one-star reviews are your test reports. Somebody needs to be finding these issues before release.
-
Releases wait on days of manual regression
Every release means the same clicks through the same screens. An automation-focused tester turns the stable part into a suite that runs in minutes.
-
Developers test their own work and nothing else
Unit tests pass and the feature works in isolation; it breaks when it meets the rest of the system. That gap needs an owner.
-
You handle money, health data or permissions
Where a defect costs real money or breaches a rule, independent testing with a record of what was checked is expected, not optional.
-
The test suite exists but nobody trusts it
Tests fail at random and are re-run until green. Someone has to fix or delete them and rebuild confidence in the pipeline.
Look elsewhere when
-
Your developers write no tests at all
A tester cannot inspect quality into code that has no unit tests. Fix engineering practice first; QA comes on top of it, not instead of it.
Hire software developers -
The pipeline is missing or broken
Automated tests need somewhere to run. If there is no CI, or deployments are manual, that comes before a test suite.
Hire DevOps engineers -
You need a penetration test or a security audit
QA testers cover basic security checks. Finding exploitable weaknesses is specialist work.
Hire security engineers -
Production keeps going down under load
A load test will confirm the problem. Capacity, monitoring and incident response are reliability engineering.
Hire site reliability engineers -
You need one test pass before a launch
A single round of testing on a finished build is a project with a clear end, not a permanent role.
Post a freelance project
04 How we assess
Four checks, before a name reaches you.
A CV says what someone claims. We test what they can do, then send you the evidence with the shortlist.
-
Stage 1
Profile review
We look for evidence of testing as a craft: test plans, bug reports or an automation repository we can open. We check whether automation experience means writing and maintaining a framework, or only running scripts someone else wrote.
-
Stage 2
Technical test
A timed test covering test-design techniques and API and SQL fundamentals, with practical exercises such as deriving test cases from an ambiguous requirement, writing a bug report and, for automation roles, writing test code.
-
Stage 3
Conversation with our team
Our team asks the candidate how they would test a feature described on the spot, then about a serious bug they caught and one they missed. We listen for risk-based thinking, curiosity about how the system works and precise language.
-
Stage 4
Review and levelling
Reviewers score accuracy, speed, problem-solving, communication and teamwork, then assign a level using our QA framework. The notes state where the person sits between manual and automation work, so you can match them to the testing you actually need.
-
Then
Your shortlist
Assessed candidates, with notes and scores.
The engine
Evalia
Assessments run on Evalia, the assessment platform we built ourselves. Across the ProDevs network, more than 100,000 assessments have been completed.
The levels we assign are public. Read the QA framework, or see how a hire runs from brief to offer.
05 Seniority
How much can you hand over? It depends on the level.
Years of experience are a weak guide. Ask what the person has owned, and who was checking their work.
Junior
Owns test execution for a feature
- Runs test cases and explores a feature against its acceptance criteria
- Writes bug reports a developer can reproduce at the first attempt
- Adds tests to an existing automation framework by following its patterns
- Needs guidance on what to prioritise and how to design test data
Mid-level
Owns quality for a product area
- Designs the test approach for a feature from the requirement onwards
- Writes and maintains automated UI and API tests that run in CI
- Diagnoses flaky tests and fixes the cause instead of adding retries
- Challenges unclear requirements before development starts
Senior
Owns the test strategy
- Decides what is automated, at which level, and what stays manual
- Builds the automation framework and the standards others follow
- Sets release criteria and advises on whether a build is ready to ship
- Coaches developers and testers on testing earlier and better
06 Interview questions
Interviewing a QA tester? Ask these.
For your own interviews, after ours. Each question comes with what a strong answer tends to show.
-
Here is a login form with email, password and “remember me”. How would you test it?
A good answer shows: Clarifying questions first, then a structured spread: valid and invalid input, boundaries, lockout, session behaviour, accessibility, security basics. Watch whether they prioritise. A long unranked list of cases is a junior answer.
-
What would you automate, and what would you deliberately leave manual?
A good answer shows: Automate stable, repeated, high-value paths; keep exploratory, visual and fast-changing work manual. They mention the maintenance cost of every automated test. “Automate everything” has not been tried by the person saying it.
-
A test passes locally and fails one run in ten on CI. How do you investigate?
A good answer shows: Likely causes in order: timing and waits, shared test data, dependence on test order, environment differences. They use traces and logs and fix the cause. Adding sleeps or retries until it goes green is the weak answer.
-
Tell me about a bug that reached production on your watch. What changed afterwards?
A good answer shows: Ownership without drama, a real analysis of why it was missed, and a change to process or coverage. Candidates who say nothing has ever escaped are either new or not looking.
-
How do you test an API endpoint that has no user interface yet?
A good answer shows: Contract and schema checks, status codes, authentication and authorisation, invalid and boundary input, idempotency and side effects in the database. Naming a tool is fine; describing what they would check matters more.
-
You have one day to test a release that normally takes three. What do you do?
A good answer shows: Rank by risk and by what changed, cover the paths that take payments or hold customer data first, and tell the team plainly what was not tested. Trying to do everything faster, or silently skipping areas, both fail.
-
What makes a good bug report?
A good answer shows: A specific title, exact steps, expected and actual results, environment, evidence such as logs or a recording, and a severity with reasoning. Ask to see one they have written; it tells you more than the description.
07 Ways to engage
Four ways to bring a QA tester in.
A permanent hire is the usual route, not the only one. Choose by how long the work lasts and who should employ the person.
- Placement fee, of first-year salary. One-time.
- 10–15%
- Replacement guarantee on direct hires.
- 2 weeks
- To a first shortlist, for most roles.
- 48h
-
Direct hire
A permanent employee on your contract and your payroll. One-time placement fee of 10–15% of first-year salary.
Tech hiring -
Dedicated team
A QA tester inside a team we assemble and run for you: product, design and engineering on your roadmap, for a monthly retainer.
Dedicated teams -
Outsourcing & payroll
A full-time person in a country where you have no legal entity. ProDevs employs and pays them: 20% of salary if we find the person for you, or 5% of salary, capped at $500 a month, for payroll and compliance on someone you have already chosen.
Outsourcing -
Freelance project
A defined piece of work with a clear end. You pay the agreed price per milestone through escrow, plus a 5% client fee. Free to post.
Freelancers
08 Around the role
Around the role: who a QA tester works with.
A QA tester is usually embedded in a product squad, working next to the developers whose code they test, and may also belong to a small QA group that shares tools and standards. They are most useful when brought in before a feature is built, not after.
- Developer
- Agrees acceptance criteria up front and pairs on defects that are hard to reproduce.
- Product manager
- Questions requirements for gaps and edge cases before they reach a sprint.
- Product designer
- Checks the build against the intended behaviour and reports where they differ.
- DevOps engineer
- Gets the automated suites running in the pipeline with stable environments and test data.
- Customer support
- Turns reported problems into reproducible cases and regression tests.
09 Client testimonials
Hear it first-hand, from companies that hired.
Founders, operators and executives describe working with ProDevs, in their own words.
Play video: Client testimonial: Olufemi Seyi, COO, Casafina development company
Play video: Client testimonial: Aproko Doctor, Building AwaDoc
Play video: Client testimonial: JT Liddell, Promenade CEO
10 Questions
Before you hire a QA tester: the usual questions.
Something else? Book a call (opens in a new tab) and ask us directly.
-
What is the difference between a manual tester, an automation engineer and an SDET?
A manual tester explores software by hand and designs test cases. An automation engineer writes code that runs those checks repeatedly. An SDET, or software development engineer in test, is a developer who specialises in test frameworks and tooling. Many good testers do some of each; say in the brief where the weight should fall.
-
Do we still need QA testers if developers write tests?
Usually, yes. Developer tests confirm the code does what the developer intended. A tester asks whether that intention was right, and what happens across services, devices and odd user behaviour. Teams with strong engineering practice need fewer testers, but the ones they have tend to be more senior.
-
Which automation tools should a QA tester know in 2026?
For web, Playwright or Cypress, with Selenium still widespread in older suites. For APIs, Postman or code-based tests in pytest or Jest. For mobile, Appium, Detox or Maestro. For load, k6 or JMeter. The tool matters less than whether the candidate can design tests that stay reliable.
-
Can AI tools replace manual testing?
They speed up parts of it: drafting test cases, generating test data and writing first-pass automation code. They do not replace a person deciding what is risky or noticing that something feels wrong. If your product has AI features of its own, testing those is a growing skill worth asking for.
-
How do you assess QA testers?
In four stages. We review test plans, bug reports or automation code the candidate has produced, set a timed test with practical exercises, hold an in-depth conversation with our team, and review the results together to assign a level against our public QA framework.
-
How quickly can I hire a QA tester through ProDevs?
For most roles the first shortlist arrives within 48 hours of agreeing the brief, and most companies find their hire within two to three weeks. A direct hire carries a one-time placement fee of 10–15% of first-year salary, with a two-week replacement guarantee.
Talk to ProDevs
Tell us about the role.
Tell us the level and the stack. We will tell you how quickly we can put assessed QA testers in front of you.
Project work
Need it for a project instead?
Not every job needs a full-time hire. Describe the work, get proposals from vetted freelance QA testers, and pay per milestone through escrow. Free to post.