Throughline

Technology

Software Quality Assurance Analyst and Tester in San Francisco

24 postings read · sampled 2026-10-01 · source ats · 11 employers · largest 25% of it

What employers actually ask for

Credentials named in the 24 postings we read, ranked by how many mentioned each one.

What the official taxonomy says

O*NET surveys people already doing this job. That describes who got hired over a long window, not what employers are asking for now — where it disagrees with the counts above, the counts are the more current answer.

Education reported by people doing this job
50%reported bachelor’s degree
  • Bachelor’s degree50%
  • Associate’s degree or other 2-year degree26%
  • Post-secondary certificate9%

Job Zone Four: Considerable Preparation Needed. Most of these occupations require a four-year bachelor's degree, but some do not.

O*NET 15-1253.00 · pulled 2026-10-01 · percentages are of surveyed workers, each rounded separately, so they need not total 100

This sample is small enough that one posting moves any percentage by more than a couple of points, so we are not calling anything low-signal here. Read the numbers above as a direction, not a measurement.

What it pays

BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025. A different survey from the postings above, so the two do not share a sample.

$75,100
10th percentile
$134,630
median
$205,990
90th percentile

Who was hiring

Employers with at least one matching posting in this sample.

SpaceX · Rocket Lab · Zoox · Artech Information System · Astranis · Harbinger Motors · Nimble Robotics · Discord · Lucid Motors · Oura · System Canada Technologies

The same role elsewhere

Next

  • Roast and Resolve — Now aim your résumé at this target. Free roast, paid rewrite.
  • Synap — Two-minute daily lessons to drill the skills underneath the credential.