How to hire a QA Engineer

Why this role is hard to hire

The hiring challenge

Manual QA and QA automation are fundamentally different jobs, but job descriptions often blur them together. A candidate who is excellent at exploratory testing may have no automation skills, and a strong automation engineer may miss obvious usability issues because they only test what is scripted. The interview needs to start with clarity about which type you need, then test for the right skills: test design thinking (can they identify edge cases that matter?), automation depth (for automation roles, can they write maintainable test code?), and risk-based prioritisation (do they know what to test first when time is short?).

What to look for in a QA Engineer

Four traits matter: Adversarial thinking (do they naturally look for ways the software could fail, or do they only verify the happy path?). Test strategy design (can they decide what to automate, what to test manually, and what to skip based on risk?). Communication clarity (can they write a bug report that an engineer can act on without asking five follow-up questions?). Collaboration instinct (do they work with developers early in the process, or only show up after the code is written?).

For Indian companies, also check for experience with the testing tools your team uses (Selenium, Playwright, Cypress, Appium for mobile), comfort with agile workflows (many Indian QA teams are still transitioning from waterfall), and willingness to learn new technologies — the testing landscape changes quickly, and a QA engineer who only knows one tool will fall behind.

Common mistakes when hiring QA Engineers

Hiring manual testers for an automation role. If you need someone to write and maintain automated tests, test for coding ability. A manual tester who "wants to learn automation" is a training investment, not an immediate hire.

Not testing for edge-case thinking. Give the candidate a simple feature and ask them to list all the ways it could break. Strong QA engineers will find issues you had not considered. Weak ones will list only the obvious cases.

Ignoring communication skills. A QA engineer who finds bugs but cannot describe them clearly wastes the development team's time. Ask them to walk you through a bug they reported and how they made it easy for the developer to fix.

What to test

Key skills for a QA Engineer

• Test strategy and planning
• Automation frameworks (Selenium, Playwright, Cypress)
• API testing
• Edge-case and adversarial thinking
• Bug reporting and communication
• Risk-based test prioritisation
• Debugging flaky tests
• Collaboration with development teams

Sample questions

What a great interview looks like

Every question is from the GoodFit library. Customize the rubric for your context in the platform.

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