Updated October 2026
A strong startup QA engineer job description says which kind of QA you need: a manual tester, an automation engineer or a quality owner. It says what should be true about releases six months in, keeps must-haves to six and shows salary and equity ranges.
Write the JD around making your developers faster at shipping. A QA engineer hired to catch other people's bugs becomes a gate at the end of the sprint, and developers stop testing because someone else will. One hired to build testing into how the team works shortens every release after the first few months.
Our illustrative example: a Seed-stage consumer app with six developers, a fortnightly release, and two founders who spend the night before each one tapping through the app by hand.
Copy-and-paste QA engineer job description
About [Company]
[Company] builds [one sentence on the product] for [who the customer is]. We raised [round] in [month, year], and [number] developers ship to [web / iOS / Android] every [release cadence].
The role
We're hiring our first QA engineer to help our developers ship faster and stop dreading release day. You'll build the automated checks that run on every change and work inside the product team from the start of each feature.
What you'll do in your first 6 months
- Replace our [length] manual regression pass with automated checks that run in [CI tool] in under [time].
- Fix or remove the flaky tests, so a red build means something is broken.
- Agree with developers who writes which tests, and add testing to our definition of done.
- Track every bug that reaches customers by cause, and reduce the biggest cause.
- Move us from releasing every [current cadence] to every [target cadence].
What you'll bring
- You've maintained automated tests in [Playwright / Cypress / Appium] for a product with real users.
- You code in [language] well enough to review developers' tests.
- You've taken a flaky test suite and made people trust it again.
- You decide what not to test, based on risk, and can explain why.
- You've worked inside a product team rather than a separate QA department.
Nice to have
- Testing mobile apps across devices and OS versions.
- API or contract testing for [integrations].
What we offer
- Salary: [£/$/€ X to Y], depending on experience.
- Equity: [X% to Y%] in [options / shares], [vesting schedule].
- [Remote / hybrid, X days a week in City].
- Stage: [Seed / Series A / Series B] with [number] months of runway.
Paste your own notes into the free job description builder for a first draft, then use our QA engineer interview questions to test each scorecard row.
Pick the kind of QA engineer you need
The title covers three different jobs, and people in each rarely apply for the others.
Our example app needs profile 2 now, with the habits of profile 3. A manual tester would take over the founders' night but never shorten it.
How a QA engineer job description changes by stage
| Seed | Series A | Series B | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Profile | Automation engineer who also tests by hand | Quality owner who builds the framework | QA lead plus engineers embedded in teams |
| Main job | Take founders out of release testing | Release confidence as teams grow | Standards and test tooling across teams |
| Who writes tests | QA writes most end-to-end tests | Developers write most; QA covers key journeys | Each team owns its tests |
Many startups hire QA too early, after one bad release.
Scorecard: how you'll judge success
| Outcome | What good looks like at 12 months | How you'll test it in interviews |
|---|---|---|
| Release confidence | Releases go out on schedule with no manual testing freeze | Ask how they decided a past release was safe |
| Regression automation | The pre-release manual pass runs in CI | Review a test they wrote; ask what it misses |
| Flaky tests | A red build is trusted; flaky tests fixed or quarantined in [days] | Ask about a suite nobody trusted |
| Developer testing habits | Developers write tests with each change | Ask how they won over a developer who hated tests |
| Escaped bugs | Tracked by cause, top cause shrinking | Ask what should have caught a real escaped bug |
For the example app, the first two rows matter most in year one. A low escaped-bug count early on often means nobody is looking yet.
30-60-90 day plan
| Days | Focus | By the end they should have |
|---|---|---|
| 1 to 30 | Test the product by hand, join planning, list flaky tests | A risk map of what breaks most |
| 31 to 60 | Automate the riskiest journeys, quarantine flaky tests | Sign-up and payments checked in CI on every merge |
| 61 to 90 | Hand testing habits to developers | One release shipped with no founder testing the night before |
Mistakes founders make in QA engineer job descriptions
- Writing "QA" without saying which kind. A manual tester won't build your framework, and an automation engineer won't stay to click through test plans.
- Promising zero bugs. It makes QA the person to blame for every incident.
- Hiring QA to cover developers who don't test. If developers stop testing once QA arrives, bugs just move to a slower, costlier stage.
Where Funded.club fits
We've helped 500+ startups from Seed to Series D across North America, Europe and APAC, and agree a low fixed fee upfront, averaging 6 to 9% of salary, from $4,900 to $21,900 per hire (see pricing).
One dedicated recruiter runs the search, with first screened candidates within 7 days. If we don't deliver a shortlist of at least 3 qualified candidates within 30 days, you can claim the advance back in full. Hiring several engineers? Read how to hire 5 engineers in 60 days.
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between a QA engineer and an SDET?
An SDET (software development engineer in test) is a developer who specialises in test code. Many startup QA roles are SDET roles in practice.
Should a startup hire a manual tester?
Rarely as a first QA hire. Manual testing adds a step to each release without shortening the next. Hire someone who automates and still tests by hand.
Who should a QA engineer report to?
The CTO or head of engineering. Reporting into product tends to turn QA into an acceptance gate.
Worth a brief chat about your next hire? Book a free call.
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