QA & Test Automation Engineer
Guarantees product quality through test automation: test strategy, regression safety, continuous quality.
Why this hire matters.
Every bug that reaches production costs 10 to 100 times more than one caught in development — in engineering time, customer support and eroded trust. Without QA automation, two scenarios: either your developers spend their days testing manually (velocity halved), or you ship without a net (cascading incidents, customers discovering your regressions). The QA automation engineer builds the safety net that lets you deploy several times a day with confidence. Beware the most common hiring misunderstanding: a manual tester who 'knows Selenium' is not an automation engineer. Look for someone who genuinely codes (SDET) and thinks in test strategy, not scenario execution.
Key missions.
- Define test strategy (pyramid, coverage, priorities)
- Build and maintain automated test suites (E2E, API, integration)
- Integrate tests into CI/CD (quality gates)
- Hunt down and stabilize flaky tests
- Set up performance and load testing
- Spread quality culture among developers
- Track quality metrics (coverage, bug escape rate)
Skills.
Technical skills
- E2E automation (Playwright, Cypress)
- API and integration testing
- Programming (TypeScript, Python, Java)
- CI/CD and quality gates
- Performance testing (k6, Gatling)
Expected qualities
- Critical thinking
- Rigor
- Constructive communication with devs
Common stack
Salaries 2025-2026
| Level | Experience | Annual gross base |
|---|---|---|
| Junior | 0-2 yrs | 31–43 k€ |
| Mid-level | 2-5 yrs | 45–55 k€ |
| Senior (SDET) | 5-8 yrs | 53–65 k€ |
| QA Lead | 8+ yrs | 65–75 k€ |
Paris market ranges, 2025-2026.
Outside the Paris region, expect 10 to 20 % less.
Sources : Hellowork 2026 · Seyos 2026 · UNLCK 2026
Hiring this profile.
Typical background
Tester who leveled up into development, or a developer drawn to quality. ISTQB certifications are common but code comes first.
When to hire
When regressions multiply or manual test cycles slow releases — often 10-15 engineers, Series A/B.
Career path
Senior/SDET → QA Lead → Head of Quality Engineering, or a move into development or DevOps.