How to Become a QA Engineer: From Manual Testing to Automation

Every app you use has bugs that were caught before you ever saw them. QA engineers are the people who found them. They break software on purpose, think about what users will do wrong, and build the automated checks that let teams ship quickly without fear.

QA is also one of the more accessible ways into software. Many QA engineers started in support, customer service or non-tech jobs, learned testing on the job, then moved into automation and beyond.

This guide lays out the path from manual tester to automation engineer, the tools worth learning, and how to grow once you’re in.

What a QA engineer does

QA (quality assurance) engineers make sure software works the way it should before it reaches users. According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), software quality assurance analysts and testers:

• Write test plans, scenarios and procedures for new software
• Identify project risks and suggest ways to reduce them
• Run manual and automated tests, including exploratory testing
• Record and report defects
• Give developers and stakeholders feedback on usability and functionality

In practice, a QA engineer’s week might include reviewing new feature requirements, writing test cases, testing a release candidate, filing bug reports with clear steps to reproduce, maintaining an automated test suite and working with developers to fix flaky tests.

Is QA engineering a good career?

BLS reports a median annual wage of $104,300 for software quality assurance analysts and testers in May 2025. About 187,600 people worked in the occupation in 2025, and BLS projects that to grow 6% to about 198,200 by 2035.

The role is shifting, though. Pure manual testing jobs are less common than they once were, while teams increasingly want testers who can code, automate and work inside CI/CD pipelines. AI coding tools are also changing how tests are written; our article on AI coding assistants and software teams covers the broader shift.

Key takeaway: Manual testing is a good way in, but automation is how you stay in demand and grow. Plan to learn coding within your first year in QA.

Stage 1: Learn testing fundamentals

Before tools, learn how testers think. These concepts apply to every product and every tool:

• Types of testing: functional, regression, smoke, exploratory, usability, performance and security testing
• Test levels: unit, integration and end-to-end tests. Our guide to unit vs integration vs end-to-end testing explains how they fit together.
• Test design techniques: equivalence partitioning, boundary value analysis, decision tables and state transitions
• Writing test cases: clear preconditions, steps, expected results and test data
• Bug reports: a good title, steps to reproduce, expected vs actual results, environment, and screenshots or logs
• The software development life cycle and how testing fits into agile sprints

A useful habit from day 1: when you find a bug, ask “how would I have caught this automatically?” That question leads straight to automation.

Stage 2: Get your first QA role (manual or junior)

Many people land their first QA job through manual testing. Ways in include:

• Junior QA or QA analyst roles at software companies and agencies
• Internal moves from customer support, where you already know the product and its common problems
• Crowdtesting and freelance platforms, which let you practice on real products and build references
• Open-source contributions, such as reproducing and triaging bug reports on a project’s issue tracker

To stand out, build a small portfolio: a test plan for a public website, 20 well-written test cases and 5 detailed bug reports (from a demo site built for practice, not a real company’s production system without permission). Our pre-launch software QA checklist is a good model for how professional teams organize testing.

Stage 3: Learn to code, automate and run tests in CI/CD

This is the biggest career step. Automation engineers, sometimes called SDETs (software development engineers in test), write code that tests code.

Pick 1 language

• JavaScript or TypeScript if you want to test web apps, since modern web tools such as Playwright and Cypress use them
• Python for a gentle learning curve and broad use in API and data testing
• Java or C# if you’re targeting enterprise teams that already use them

Learn variables, functions, loops, classes, async code and how to read other people’s code. You don’t need to be a senior developer, but your test code should be clean and maintainable.

Learn the core automation tool types

Start with 1 browser tool and 1 API tool. Playwright is a strong first choice for many people because it covers both UI and API testing, but any widely used tool teaches the same ideas.

Learn automation design, not just tools

Good automation is more than recorded clicks. Learn:

• The page object model or similar patterns to keep tests maintainable
• Stable selectors that don’t break when the design changes
• Test data management, including setup and cleanup
• Avoiding flaky tests caused by timing, shared state or test order
• Choosing what to automate. Stable, repetitive, high-value checks are good candidates; one-off or highly visual checks often aren’t. See manual vs automated testing for a fuller comparison.

Plug your tests into CI/CD

Automated tests deliver the most value when they run on every code change. Learn how to:

• Run your test suite in a CI pipeline and fail the build on errors
• Read pipeline logs and debug failures
• Run tests in parallel to keep feedback fast
• Report results so developers can act on them quickly

Our explainer on what CI/CD is covers the basics, and how to build a CI/CD pipeline walks through a sample setup. Learning Git, Docker basics and how to test in different environments rounds out this stage.

Certifications: helpful but optional

Certifications are less important than a portfolio in QA, but they can help you get your first role, especially at larger companies and consultancies.

The most widely known is the ISTQB Certified Tester Foundation Level (CTFL). The v4.0 exam has 40 multiple-choice questions in 60 minutes (75 minutes for non-native English speakers), and you need 26 correct (65%) to pass. It covers testing vocabulary, techniques and processes rather than specific tools. ISTQB also offers advanced and specialist certifications, including test automation.

Tool vendors and training platforms offer their own certificates, but employers usually care more about seeing your automation code. For help weighing options, read how to choose an IT certification.

Portfolio projects that get interviews

1. End-to-end test suite for a demo web app. Use a practice site, write 15 to 20 Playwright or Cypress tests with the page object model, and run them in GitHub Actions.
2. API test collection. Test a public demo API with positive, negative and edge cases, including authentication and error codes.
3. Bug report showcase. 5 detailed, reproducible bug reports from practice apps, written to professional standards.
4. Performance test. A simple k6 or JMeter script with a short write-up of results and what you’d recommend.
5. Test strategy document. A 2-page plan for a fictional app explaining what you would automate, what you would test manually, and why.

Put the code on GitHub with a clear README and link it from your tech resume.

How QA careers grow

Once you’re an automation engineer, common next steps include:

• Senior QA or SDET: owning the test framework and strategy for a product
• QA lead or test manager: leading a team and setting quality processes
• Performance or security testing specialist
• Software engineer: many automation engineers move into development; see how to become a software engineer
• DevOps, site reliability or platform roles, building on CI/CD and environment knowledge

Some teams also practice test-driven development, where developers write tests first. QA engineers who understand TDD can coach teams and focus on higher-level testing.

Where to start this month

1. Learn the fundamentals with a free testing course or the ISTQB Foundation syllabus.
2. Test a practice app and write 10 test cases and 3 bug reports.
3. Pick 1 language and spend 30 to 60 minutes a day on it.
4. Install Playwright or Cypress and automate 1 login test.
5. Run that test in GitHub Actions so it executes on every push.
6. Apply for junior QA roles while you keep building, and look for internal moves from support or operations. Our guide to getting an entry-level IT job has more job-search tactics.

The bottom line

Becoming a QA engineer starts with learning to think like a tester and usually begins with a manual or junior role. The career really grows once you learn to code, automate tests and run them in CI/CD. Build a small, public portfolio of test plans, bug reports and automated suites, and you’ll have proof that matters more to employers than any single certificate.

Sources

• US Bureau of Labor Statistics: Software Developers, Quality Assurance Analysts, and Testers — QA duties, May 2025 median wage, employment and 2025–2035 projections
• ISTQB: Certified Tester Foundation Level (CTFL) v4.0 — certification overview
• ASTQB: What is the passing score for ISTQB? — 40 questions, 26 correct to pass
• Playwright documentation — browser and API test automation framework