How to Hire a Test Engineer

When recruiting for a test engineer, it’s important to know exactly what you’re going to need from the candidate. If you need someone to slot into a team and perform manual scripts on a day to day, you’re looking at paying a modest package of between £30-35k however if you’re looking for someone to come in and head up a new QA function, you’re looking at something in excess of £40k. The part where they start to get expensive is if you need automation testing experience, these candidates are going for upwards of £45k in today’s market, so it’s important to know what sort of test engineer you need before advertising.

An important consideration is also looking at what other companies are doing in terms of their resource. Lots of clients that come to us don’t actually know how many test engineers they should be onboarding, and neither do I! You know your business the best, so have a look what project road maps are coming to an end and also look at how similar companies are doing in terms of head count. This should give you a rough idea of the amount of people you need to hire to create an effective testing department. A key thing to remember is that testing isn’t the most fun job in the world, so building a team is a great way to keep staff motivated and wanting to be productive for the greater good of the builds you’re releasing.

From experience, Test Engineer roles come with an unusually high amount of direct applications. This is down to the test market not being as candidate driven as developers. Whilst direct applications are always good, its important to properly vet the applicants skills and experience in comparison to your own job description and specification. This will help you to narrow down if the candidate look to be a good match before inviting for an interview. Some clients that we work with have tried to recruit for test engineers themselves before, before coming to us for help. The main reason for them coming to us was that they had a lot of direct applications, but once interviewed it was clear they were not right for the role. As we work on roles such as Test Engineers (Manual and Automation) on a day to day, we know the very best candidates in the market that we can reach out to direct and get them in front of you, saving you time and enabling you to get on with you day job!

Overall, Test Engineers are an important function to all agile teams and there should be careful consideration before hiring in terms of technical ability, salary and package expectations, experience levels and most importantly, can they work well in a team? Without all the boxes ticked, it will be very difficult to gage if the candidate will be a success at your organisation.

 

Get in touch with us today if you'd like any advice on hiring a Test Engineer for your business - just click here.