Quality Assurance Engineer Salary Overview
Quality Assurance Engineers at SaaS companies design, build, and maintain automated test suites and QA processes that ensure product reliability. They work closely with Software Engineers on test coverage, DevOps Engineers on CI/CD pipeline integration, and Engineering Managers on quality strategy and release gates.
QA Engineer compensation reflects growing demand for automation expertise, with salaries rising as companies invest in shift-left testing. The role progresses toward Technical Lead or senior QA architecture roles. View all SaaS salary benchmarks.
Detailed Quality Assurance Engineer Compensation Breakdown
Percentile Band | Average Base Salary | # of salaries |
|---|---|---|
| Top 25% | $184,486 | 30 salaries |
| Middle 50% | $63,928 | 64 salaries |
| Bottom 25% | $27,284 | 22 salaries |
What Drives Higher Quality Assurance Engineer Pay?
Test automation framework expertise (Selenium, Cypress, Playwright)
Performance and load testing experience at scale
CI/CD and DevOps integration skills
Security and compliance testing in regulated industries
Quality Assurance Engineer Compensation Structure
Base salary is the primary component (80–90% of total comp)
Equity grants at growth-stage SaaS (0.03–0.15%)
Performance bonuses typically 8–12% of base
Automation specialization commands 10–20% premium over manual QA
