QA Engineer Resume Example

A QA engineer resume has to answer one question quickly: do you find the bugs that matter before customers do? Show the products you tested, the automation you wrote and what escaped to production, because those are the facts a test lead checks first.

The Sample resume below belongs to a QA engineer with six years split between a healthcare software vendor and a retail systems company, moving from manual test cases into building an automation suite the team runs on every pull request. The bullets pair a testing activity with a number: defects caught before release, regression time cut, escaped bugs down, releases certified.

Shape the page to the posting. A QA analyst role wants test planning, exploratory testing and clear bug reports; an SDET or automation role wants a framework, a language and CI integration; a regulated industry wants traceability and documentation. Name the exact tools in the posting, from Playwright to TestRail, since automated screens match on them. The software engineer example shows the development side of the same team, the DevOps engineer example covers the pipeline your tests run in, and the Chronological template keeps release history easy to follow.

Updated . The person and employers in this Sample resume are fictional.

QA Engineer sample resume

Marisol Quintanar

QA Engineer, Test Automation

Raleigh, NCmarisol.quintanar@example.com(919) 555-0172

Summary

QA engineer with six years of experience testing web and mobile applications, four of them building automated suites in Playwright and Cypress. Grew a regression suite from zero to about 1,400 automated checks that run in under twenty minutes on every pull request, and escaped defects per release fell by two thirds. Writes bug reports developers can reproduce on the first try.

Experience

QA Engineer, Ledgerline Health Software

– Present

Raleigh, NC

  • Designed and maintain the Playwright end-to-end suite for a patient billing application, about 1,400 tests running in GitHub Actions on every pull request in under twenty minutes.
  • Cut the manual regression cycle from four days to one by automating the highest-risk claim submission flows first, based on defect history.
  • Own release certification for monthly production deploys, producing the traceability matrix that maps requirements to tests for compliance audits.
  • Found and documented a rounding defect in copay calculations before release that would have affected about 30,000 patient statements.
QA Analyst, Halcyon Retail Systems

–

Durham, NC

  • Wrote and executed test plans for point-of-sale software used in about 600 stores, covering payment, returns and offline mode.
  • Introduced exploratory testing sessions before each release and logged 180 defects in the first year, a third of them rated high severity.
  • Built the first automated smoke suite in Cypress, so overnight builds were checked before testers arrived each morning.

Education

Bachelor of Science in Information Systems

Neuse River State University, Goldsboro, NC

Skills

  • Playwright
  • Cypress
  • Selenium WebDriver
  • TypeScript and JavaScript
  • API testing with Postman
  • Test planning and case design
  • Exploratory testing
  • Regression and smoke suites
  • Jira and TestRail
  • GitHub Actions
  • SQL for test data
  • Accessibility testing
  • Defect triage

Certifications

  • ISTQB Certified Tester, Foundation Level, ASTQB,
  • ISTQB Test Automation Engineer, ASTQB,

Start yours from this example

Bring your own resume or start blank, then tailor it to each posting in about two minutes.

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Templates for the qa engineer resume

All templates

How the resume changes with experience

The same qa engineer resume, written at three levels: a summary and three bullets for each.

Entry level

Zero to two years, or a first role in the title

Junior QA analyst with an information systems degree, an ISTQB foundation certificate and a year of testing a university registration system as a student employee.

  • Executed about 300 manual test cases per release cycle for a course registration web application.
  • Logged 45 defects in a single semester, each with reproduction steps that developers accepted without follow-up questions.
  • Flagged a scheduling conflict bug as a release blocker even though the team wanted to ship, and it was fixed before students noticed.

Mid level

Three to seven years, owns a process or a workload

QA engineer with five years of experience combining manual test design and Cypress automation for consumer web products.

  • Test three web applications across two release trains with a team of two other testers.
  • Automated the checkout regression so it runs in nine minutes instead of a full day of manual testing.
  • Recommended dropping flaky screenshot comparisons in favor of DOM assertions, which ended a month of false failures.

Senior

Eight years or more, leads people, budgets or programs

QA lead with eleven years of experience setting test strategy for a product line, managing a team of six testers and owning quality metrics reported to the executive team.

  • Lead quality for a platform with about 2 million monthly users and a team of six QA engineers.
  • Reduced escaped high-severity defects to near zero over two years through risk-based test planning and contract testing between services.
  • Chose to move the team from a separate QA phase into embedded testers on each squad, and release cadence doubled without more staff.

Skills to put on the qa engineer resume

Hard skills

An automation framework such as Playwright, Cypress or Selenium
Most QA postings now require automation, and naming the framework with the size of the suite you built gets you shortlisted.
A programming language
Automated tests are code, and hiring managers want to see TypeScript, Python or Java on the page so they know you can maintain the suite.
Test planning and case design
Automation only covers what someone thought to test, and interviewers ask how you decide what to test first.
API testing
Postman, REST Assured or plain HTTP clients let you test below the interface, and teams value testers who can work at that layer.
Defect tracking and reporting
Jira and TestRail experience is expected, and clear bug reports are the most visible part of a tester's work.
CI/CD integration
Tests that run on every commit are worth far more than tests run by hand, and knowing GitHub Actions or Jenkins shows you can make that happen.
SQL
Setting up test data and checking what was actually written to the database is a daily task on most teams.

Soft skills

Attention to detail
The job is noticing what everyone else missed, and interviewers look for examples of it on the page.
Skepticism with tact
You tell developers their work is broken several times a day, and doing it without friction keeps the team moving.
Prioritization
There is never time to test everything, so managers want testers who can explain which risks they covered first and why.
Written communication
A reproducible bug report saves hours of back and forth, and test plans are read by people who never run them.

Mistakes that cost qa engineer interviews

  1. Listing testing types instead of what you tested

    Functional, regression, smoke and UAT are categories, not accomplishments. Say what product you tested, how many users depended on it and what you found.

  2. No defect numbers

    Testers produce countable output: defects logged, severity mix, escaped bugs after release. Leaving those out makes the page read like a job description.

  3. Claiming automation you only ran

    Executing someone else's suite is not the same as writing one. Be precise about whether you designed the framework, added tests to it or maintained it, because a technical interview will find out.

  4. Ignoring the release process

    Managers want to know how you fit into sprints, code freezes and go or no-go decisions. Mention release certification, sign-off responsibilities and how you worked with developers.

  5. A skills list that is out of date

    Postings in this field change tooling quickly. If you still lead with a framework the industry has moved past, add the current one you have learned and show where you used it.

Questions about the qa engineer resume

Do I need to know how to code to be a QA engineer?

For most postings today, yes at least at the level of writing and maintaining automated tests. Manual-only QA analyst roles still exist, especially in regulated industries, but the resume should show a path toward automation.

How do I show impact as a QA engineer?

Use what quality teams measure: defects found before release, escaped defects after release, regression cycle time, automation coverage and release frequency. Pair each with the product and the number of users affected.

Should I list ISTQB on my resume?

Include it if you have it, in a certifications section. It helps with automated screens and with employers in regulated fields, but a working automation suite you built matters more to most hiring managers.

What is the difference between QA engineer and SDET on a resume?

An SDET resume reads like a developer's, with languages, frameworks and code contributions up front. A QA engineer resume balances test strategy with automation. Match the posting's title and adjust the emphasis.

How should a manual tester move into automation?

Add a project section showing a small suite you built, name the language and framework, and note any tests you contributed to your current team's pipeline. Employers hire on evidence, not on a stated intention to learn.

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