Hiring a QA: Find the Right Professional for Your Company

Deciding to hire a QA is often a reactive move. The product is already in production, a user ran into an embarrassing bug, and now the company is scrambling to fix the damage. It makes sense to avoid getting to that point, and understanding this professional better, who they are, what they do, how to evaluate them, and how to hire them, is exactly what we’ll cover in this article.

What does a QA actually do?

There’s a pretty common misconception: many people still picture the tester as the person who “uses the system before launch.” That view is limited, and costly.

The modern tester works throughout the entire development cycle. They don’t just find bugs; they work to prevent them from existing in the first place. There’s a relevant distinction between QA (Quality Assurance) and QC (Quality Control) that helps clarify this:

• QC is reactive: it verifies whether the delivered product meets requirements.
• QA is proactive: it defines processes, standards, and practices to prevent problems from the start.

In practice, the most mature teams integrate both approaches. And the financial impact of ignoring this is well-documented. According to the Cost of Poor Software Quality in the US: A 2022 Report, software quality issues cost the American economy at least $2.41 trillion in 2022. A number that’s hard to ignore.

Closer to the day-to-day reality of any product: a QualiTest Group study found that 88% of users will abandon an app when they run into bugs frequently. In other words, quality isn’t just about code, it’s about retention, reputation, and revenue.

What types of testers are there?

This tends to be the question that paralyzes managers the most when opening a position. There’s more than one profile, and hiring the wrong one can be just as problematic as not hiring anyone at all.

• Manual tester

This professional focuses on executing test cases without automation. They explore the system as a real user would, identifying unexpected behaviors, interface inconsistencies, and broken flows. Works well on smaller projects, in early product stages, or when automation coverage is still being built. The limitations become clear at scale, as the product grows, manually testing everything becomes unmanageable.

• Automation tester

Creates and maintains scripts that run tests automatically, regression, integration, smoke tests, and more. Proficient with tools like Selenium, Cypress, and Playwright, among others. This is the most recommended profile for growing products where deploy frequency is high and manually testing every cycle would be impractical. The upfront investment curve is steeper, but the return in speed and coverage is worth it.

• QA Engineer / SDET (Software Development Engineer in Test)

The most technically demanding profile in the category. Writes tests integrated into the CI/CD pipeline, contributes directly to the codebase, and collaborates with developers on defining testable architecture. The right choice for teams operating in continuous delivery that need quality built into the process, not bolted on afterward.

• Performance and security specialists

Niche roles with specific demands. The performance tester evaluates how the system behaves under load. The security tester maps vulnerabilities. These professionals don’t replace the profiles above, they complement them when the project requires that level of depth.

Hard skills and soft skills: what to evaluate

• The technical side

For any tester profile, some competencies are fundamental:

• Knowledge of testing methodologies (black-box, white-box, regression, exploratory)
• Familiarity with test management tools like TestRail, Xray, or Jira
• For automation roles: programming logic, at least at an intermediate level
• Understanding of CI/CD pipelines and DevOps practices

For more senior profiles, expect mastery in coverage strategies, acceptance criteria definition, and the ability to influence architecture decisions with testability in mind.

• The behavioral side

A good tester needs attention to detail without losing sight of the big picture. They need to communicate bugs clearly, without creating unnecessary friction with developers. And they need genuine investigative curiosity, the professional who only executes scripts is not the same as the one who questions why a flow exists the way it does.

Autonomy to define a testing strategy, not just follow predefined scripts, is another differentiator that separates average profiles from truly valuable ones.

Full-Time, contractor, or Staff Augmentation? 

There’s no universal answer here. The right model depends on the company’s context, the project, and the pace at which the team needs to operate.

• Full-time: provides a stronger employment bond, supports long-term cultural alignment, and works well for companies building a stable QA structure. The cost is higher and the hiring process tends to take longer.
• Independent contractor: offers more contractual flexibility and is often the go-to for companies that need a specific professional for a set period. It requires management maturity and careful attention to compliance.
• Staff Augmentation: is the alternative when the company needs speed and doesn’t want to take on the overhead of a full hiring process. It makes particular sense when the team needs to scale quickly, when the project has a fixed deadline, or when the company doesn’t yet have the internal maturity to manage a QA professional closely.

That’s exactly the scenario where NextAge’s Staff Augmentation model fits in. The difference from traditional outsourcing lies in the validation process: every allocated professional goes through both technical and behavioral assessments before placement. The client receives someone who is ready to deliver from day one. On top of that, Tech Leads are involved to ensure efficiency, the contract is straightforward, and there’s a discount during the onboarding period.

If you’re evaluating this approach, reach out to NextAge and learn how the model works in practice.

Common mistakes when hiring a tester

Bringing in the tester at the end of the project. One of the most classic, and most expensive, mistakes. The later a bug is found, the more it costs to fix. Involving QA from the early stages, even before any code is written, reduces rework and raises the overall quality of the final product.

• Expecting automation skills from a manual tester (and vice versa): these are different profiles with different skill sets. A job posting that asks for a “tester who does it all” rarely finds the right candidate.
• Running interviews without objective technical criteria: generic interviews produce generic hires. Without a practical test or a structured technical assessment, it’s hard to tell apart the ones who genuinely have the skills from the ones who just know the jargon.
• Underestimating onboarding: even an experienced professional needs time to understand the product, the context, and the company’s quality standards.
• Keeping the tester separated from the development team: QA isn’t a phase that happens after development, it’s part of the process. Testers who work integrated with the team catch problems earlier and contribute to product and architecture decisions.

When outsourcing makes more sense than hiring

There are situations where building an internal QA team simply isn’t the most efficient decision, at least not in the short term.

If the team is small and the development volume doesn’t justify a full-time dedicated tester, an on-demand allocation model can be more rational. If the project deadline is tight and there’s no time for a proper hiring process, the speed of outsourcing becomes a real advantage. And if the company wants automation but doesn’t yet have the internal maturity to define strategy, maintain testing frameworks, and grow the professional, hiring without that support structure tends to generate frustration on both sides.

For these situations, NextAge’s Quality Center is a solid option. It works as an independent layer of technical and functional validation, combining QA specialists with AI-driven automation. The focus is on early defect detection and process standardization, with delivery oriented toward zero critical bugs and a smooth user experience.

It’s a model built for companies that want real quality without having to build everything from scratch internally. Talk to NextAge and see if it makes sense for your context.