Quality assurance and software testing roles are excellent entry points for tech careers in India. Companies across all sectors need QA engineers to maintain product quality. Testing roles span manual QA for functional verification to automation engineering where candidates write test scripts using Selenium, Cypress, or Playwright.
Services firms (TCS, Infosys, Wipro, Capgemini) are the biggest employers of QA freshers. Product companies prefer candidates who can write automation scripts from day one. The shift toward shift-left testing means QA engineers work alongside developers earlier in the development cycle.
Typical range: Manual QA freshers: ₹2.5–5 LPA; Automation engineers: ₹4–9 LPA; SDET roles at product companies: ₹6–13 LPA.
Automation skills (Selenium + Java or Cypress + JS) command significantly higher salaries than pure manual testing. API testing with Postman is a quick skill to add for salary differentiation.