No, this is not another job salary review.

On the contrary, based on the results of a direct survey of QA specialists, we will talk about six reasons why job analytics are not very relevant to the real situation with salaries in the market (which are actually higher).

My responsibilities include tracking the fate of hundreds of QA engineers throughout their careers both in Russian-speaking countries and on the international market. Starting with the June stage, continuing with the middle grade and ending with the senior grade. Some of them have evolved from “I don’t know anything about testing” to “I work at Google”.
Monitor what challenges beginners and experienced specialists face on projects, which stacks are dying and which are emerging, how careers are developing, which path relocation is taking, and what salary ranges there are for each grade.

As for the latter, in the Russian-speaking market I am constantly confused by the salaries in the reviews. The numbers I’m seeing in job analytics don’t correlate very well with the numbers reported directly by the QA’s from the positions. Salaries in job analytics are often significantly lower.

According to these job reviews, junior testers with 1 year of experience earn ₽66,000 – ₽80,000 (median).
As if against the background of the average Russian level of salaries and good numbers. But what is the point of going to the test, if after a year and a half of studying, looking for a job and gaining the first experience, you will receive less than a metropolitan courier?

I conducted a direct survey of QA professionals to correlate real market salaries with job reviews for 2024.

In addition, six reasons for this discrepancy have been identified.

How much do testers with 2-6 months of experience really get paid

According to reviews of vacancies

Let’s open several reviews of vacancies from the Russian market for 2024 and look at the median salaries of testers:

According to the results of a direct survey of QA specialists

A survey of QA newbies gives the following numbers:

The initial career starting qualification of all interviewed QA specialists is a manual tester. In the following temporary “slices”, the number of those immersed in automation naturally increases due to gaining experience on the project and training.

As you can see, real salaries are 1.5 times higher than salaries from vacancies.

How much do testers with 6-12 months of experience really get paid

According to reviews of vacancies

According to the above job reviews, median salaries are in the range of 66,000 – 80,000 ₽.

According to the results of a direct survey of QA specialists

Real salaries are higher than salaries from vacancies by about a third.

How much do testers with 12-24 months of experience really get paid

According to reviews of vacancies

With experience from 12 months, more interesting numbers begin:

– according to the above job reviews – 100000 – 143000 ₽.

According to the results of a direct survey of QA specialists

For more experienced professionals, salaries from job reviews are finally catching up to real salaries in some places. But on the other hand, I take a narrow range of 12-24 months, while reviews use 1-3 years. Whether you start getting a good salary in a year with pennies or in three years is still a big difference.

How much do testers with 24-36 months of experience really get paid

According to reviews of vacancies

According to the above job reviews, 100,000 (?!) – 184,000 ₽.

According to the results of a direct survey of QA specialists

Salaries from vacancies again “evaded” real salaries.
My explanation is that the more experienced a specialist is, the less often he responds to vacancies and the more often he is fired.

“There are no vacancies with such salaries on the market!”

Why can there be such a discrepancy between salaries from vacancies and real salaries?

Five reasons can be classified as secondary:

1. Vacancies with high salaries close quickly

Well-paid jobs are in high demand, and the best candidates pay attention to such offers first of all. The company does not have any problems with the selection of candidates, and vacancies are closed quite quickly.

Vacancies with low salaries (and often high requirements) hang for a long time and, as a result, may not be closed at all.

But all the time that they are reflected, they greatly reduce the average market level of salaries.

2. The higher the qualification, the fewer vacancies there are

But not because initially the demand for such specialists is less. And therefore, the more highly qualified a specialist is needed, the higher the price of a mistake for the company and the more often the search is not through vacancies, but through word of mouth, acquaintances and the specialist’s portfolio.

A vivid example – in the Russian market, the salary of the Head of QA reaches 1,000,000 rubles. But you are unlikely to see open vacancies with such sums, since the position is filled through “hidden vacancies”. Salaries that do not get any reviews.

3. The greater the demand for jobs for newcomers, the fewer vacancies there are

The more HR has to review reviews, the less they want to post a job at all.

The more course graduates and their CVs are on the market, the more often courses start resorting to black tricks.
In the best case, there is a direct pull for interviews.
It is not uncommon to “learn” how to compile a resume with fake experience, solve test tasks, and learn to write off at interviews.
Unfortunately, even this “mastery” is not limited. This month I was told about a “mentor” who, through an earpiece in a student’s ear, helps answer questions during interviews.
The story about passing an interview with the help of a deepfake was on Habra.

Why should HR dive into all these stories when you can go to partners and directly fill your needs without having to sift through thousands of resumes with fake experience? Every month I communicate with dozens of managers and HR people who come directly to me for new personnel.

This is another type of “hidden vacancies”.

4. A fake resume and write-offs at an interview, if successful, will lead to a lower salary

In the previous point, I talked about the fact that in the case of hiring HR people, they are increasingly trying to use proven channels for attracting applicants.

But does a candidate with a fake and painted resume have a chance of finding a job? Yes, there are – even if they are not too high. At the same time, it should be understood that he will not get to the company of the first or second division.

It is difficult to imagine a qualified leader who is not able to distinguish a candidate with real practical experience from a candidate without experience at an interview.
Such ice poses few theoretical questions “from the textbook”. He is interested in what real problems the specialist faced on the project and how effectively he solved them.
And he doesn’t just ask single open-ended questions like “Tell me about the most difficult problem you faced in testing and how you solved it,” or “Tell me about a time you insisted on fixing a bug that others thought was trivial.” This is a series of several subsequent “contextual” questions that cannot be prepared.

A lead that is not able to identify a candidate without experience is most likely not very qualified himself and works in a third division company with corresponding salaries.

5. The offer can be higher than the fork in the vacancy

According to the results of entrance tests and tests, an interesting candidate can be offered a salary higher than the fork.

As an experienced specialist, I personally encountered this many times. But this is not uncommon even for beginners, I know enough similar examples. In order for a novice tester to be strongly interested in the company, he must have some “chip” – for example, specialized financial experience in the case of a FinTech company. But such coincidences happen much more often than it is customary to think. Especially if you choose companies based on your previous experience, and not mindlessly respond to all vacancies in a row.

An offer below the salary bracket specified in the vacancy is offered very rarely and only by very bad companies. Only hardened candidates agree to this. After all, if the company offers below the pre-announced minimum, then definitely expect surprises in the future.

“And after six months of searching, I barely found a job as a tester with a salary three times less”

The primary reason for the discrepancy is the vague concept of who is considered a qualified tester.

Especially when it comes to beginners.
Can he consider himself a tester who has studied on a purely theoretical course for several months? Yes, because it is written in the certificate.
Can someone who spent 2-3 times more time studying, gained the practical skills needed by the employer and first commercial experience during a long internship-internship consider himself a tester? So too.

Both specialists are testers, just with different levels of training. But a different level of training is, logically, a different salary. Especially if we are talking about beginners. After learning “watch the lectures, do a couple of dozen simple exercises, get a certificate”, getting an offer with a salary of 48,000 ₽ can be perceived as a great success. After a better education, the graduate’s ambitions (and his value to the employer) are much higher.

From this point of view, the difference between salaries in analytics and those that the testers tell me directly can be easily explained.

All newcomers who participated in my survey completed an internship in IT companies for at least several months after their studies. In fact, this is one of the most obvious differences that separates real novice tester from unreal.

After all, the fact that a newcomer was simply able to pay for a certain course is hardly an indicator of qualification for an employer.

But if a newcomer was able to work for a couple of months, let’s say as an intern, but on a real project, and he was not excluded, it means that he already has the necessary minimum knowledge and practical skills. Fortunately, all major courses now offer internships and internships included in the training.

That is why in most vacancies, the primary HR filter is the presence of at least minimal commercial experience.

Together

Positions with good salaries are closed much faster than “cheap” ones that hang in open positions for a long time.

The demand for adequate specialists of various grades is always high and they often receive salaries above the specified salary bracket.

Experienced specialists often swing for good salaries directly, bypassing vacancies (“hidden vacancies”).

Newbies often try to use resumes with fake experience, which forces HR to look for candidates through other channels instead of publicly posting vacancies (also “hidden vacancies”).

All this distorts the analytics from vacancies to the lower side.

As you can see, the salary market is very strongly segmented both by the “openness” of vacancies and by who is considered a qualified tester.
And job analytics reflects only the open and, in many ways, low-paid part of the market.

Announcements of the following Khabr articles will appear in the Telegram channel “Let’s become a tester”.
Spoiler: one of the following articles on AI testing best practices (based on the results of setting up QA processes on two AI projects).