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Hire QA Engineers
QA is the easiest engineering role to fill on paper and the easiest to fill badly. 'Automation testing' on a CV covers everything from recording Selenium scripts that break weekly to designing a test framework other engineers build on. Those are different jobs at different bands, and the gap is invisible until your suite is red for a month and everybody starts ignoring it.
How We Fill It
We screen on what their automation actually looks like: how the framework is structured, how they handle waits and flakiness, whether they test APIs as well as UI, and whether anybody other than them can add a test. A suite that only its author can maintain is a liability, and candidates who have built one tell you so without realising.
Manual QA still has a real place — exploratory testing, domain-heavy flows in BFSI and insurance, release sign-off — and we recruit for it. But we are direct about the difference: if you want a suite in CI, you need someone who writes code, and the salary band has to reflect that.
Timelines & Market
Salary Benchmark
Indicative metro ranges for 2026 — Delhi NCR, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Pune and Chennai. Tier-2 cities typically run 20–30% lower for the same scope.
| Experience | Indicative CTC | What that buys |
|---|---|---|
| 0–2 years | ₹3.5–6.5 LPA | Largely manual at this level; automation is aspirational |
| 3–5 years | ₹7–14 LPA | Real automation ability starts here and is well paid |
| 6–9 years | ₹14–24 LPA | SDET and QA lead, framework and strategy ownership |
| 10+ years | ₹24–40 LPA+ | QA architect and head of quality engineering |
These are negotiating frames drawn from the mandates we run, not a quote. Bands move with sector, funding stage, city and how scarce the specific skill is in that market — ask us for a benchmark against your exact role and location.
Our Screen
One automation tool used to build rather than just run tests, a programming language they can actually write in, API testing ability, defect reports that stand on their own, and a clear view of what should not be automated
Framework design experience, CI integration, Playwright or Cypress alongside Selenium, performance testing with JMeter or k6, SQL for data verification, and some mobile or cross-browser coverage
Whether they wrote the framework or inherited it, how they deal with a flaky test — a candidate who answers 'add a sleep' is screened out here — and whether their suite survived them going on leave
JD Outline
Use this as the starting point for your job description — it is the scope we brief candidates on.
Interview Structure
Four rounds, each testing something different. Rounds that repeat each other cost you candidates without improving the decision.
What they automated and what they inherited, which layers they test, language ability, and the flakiness question that sorts this role faster than anything else.
Write a test for a real flow and explain the framework structure. For SDET roles this should be a proper coding round, not a tool quiz.
Given a feature, what do they test, in what order, and what do they consciously leave untested. Judgement is the scarce skill in QA, not tool knowledge.
How they raise a defect developers will not argue with, and how they behave when release pressure meets a failing suite.
Why It Stays Open
We raise these at the briefing rather than after a month of silence.
A genuine SDET is an engineer and costs like one. Budgeting at manual-QA bands and expecting a maintainable framework in CI is the single commonest reason these roles stay open for months.
Someone strong in Selenium with Java picks up Playwright in a fortnight. Insisting on an exact tool match shrinks your pool for very little, and in QA the pool of genuinely strong people is already small.
If nobody has decided what coverage means or who fixes a red build, the hire inherits an impossible job. Candidates with good judgement ask this in round one, and a vague answer loses them.
Teams that hand finished features to QA at the end get slow, adversarial testing. The good candidates have seen both models and will choose the one where they are involved from the start.
Sector Context
60–90 days; 30 days in startups and most GCC-to-GCC moves
Sector practice30 days for frontline sales and collections, 60–90 days for corporate and compliance roles
Sector practiceImmediate to 30 days at agent level; 30–60 days for team leaders and specialists
Sector practiceFAQs
An SDET is an engineer who happens to work on testing: they design the framework, write code other people extend, and are hired and paid on a developer band. A QA engineer executes and extends tests, often mixing manual and automated work, at a lower band. Deciding which you need before the search starts is the most useful thing you can do for this requisition.
We screen it. Candidates are asked whether they built or inherited their framework, how it is structured, how they handle waits and flakiness, and whether a colleague could add a test without them. We also test API-layer testing separately, because UI-only automation is much more common than CVs suggest.
Yes, for exploratory testing, for domain-heavy flows where the risk is a misunderstood rule rather than a broken button — insurance, lending, payroll — and for release sign-off. What manual QA cannot give you is a regression suite in CI. Mixing the two expectations into one JD at one band is what leaves the role open.
Yes, and QA is one of the easiest roles to staff this way. Notice periods are shorter at the junior and mid levels, availability is good in NCR, Pune, Bengaluru and Chennai, and the engineer sits on our payroll with statutory compliance handled by us for the duration of the engagement.
Send the requisition to info@recruitmentconsultant.co.in and we will come back with a realistic band and timeline before any search starts.
Send us the job description and get a screened shortlist within 48 working hours. No obligation, no upfront fee, and a 90-day replacement guarantee on every permanent placement.
