For the bug automation was never going to find
Hire Manual QA Testers
Automated tests check what someone already thought to check. The bugs that actually surprise a team are usually the ones nobody wrote a test for, an edge case, a confusing flow, an input nobody anticipated. These testers are evaluated on finding exactly that kind of gap, then placed wherever your product needs a genuinely curious set of eyes.
- Profiles typically within two business days
- Replacement Assurance: If an engineer is not the right fit, a replacement from our own team starts within ten business days of your request, at no extra cost
- You interview before placement if you want to
- At least four hours a day inside your core working hours. Two hours plus a daily written handover for the US West Coast
- 14-Day Risk-Free Trial: For your first engineer on a time-and-materials engagement. Up to 14 calendar days or 80 logged working hours, whichever comes first. End within the trial and pay nothing for trial hours. Continue beyond it and those hours are billed at the agreed rate. Unpaid trial work remains ours if you stop
How we evaluate a manual QA tester
The tasks, the signals and the onboarding, walked through by the people who run them.
90 secSample frame · video pending01Published, not promised
The assessment behind every tester we send.
The manual QA bar is published, not assumed: five competencies, the exact task behind each, and the shortcut that ends a candidacy. Most interviews ask about tools. This one asks whether the tester actually finds what automation misses.
What we listen forWhether they explore with structure, not just click around.
You are given a new feature with a one-line specification and no other documentation. Walk us through your exploratory approach.
- What strong sounds like
- Describes a structured exploration strategy (charters, boundaries, personas) rather than unstructured clicking, even without formal test cases.
- What gives us pause
- Describes clicking through the feature generally without any structured approach to what to explore or why.
Exploratory Testing · Test Case Design · Bug Tracking
Web · Mobile (iOS/Android) · Cross-browser
JIRA · TestRail · BrowserStack
Usability Review · Accessibility Checks · Regression Planning
02Who you actually meet
The bench, priced by seniority.
Three seniority tiers, priced honestly, and the engineers who fill each one today. Real names and photos take their place as soon as we can share them, and the standard stays exactly the same.
Engineer
Features scoped tightly enough to ship inside your review bar, every time.
The right first hire when your seniors already set the standard.
$1,600–2,100per month
Senior
The hard module nobody else wants to own, taken end to end.
Ownership of a surface, without adding a manager to your headcount.
$2,300–2,900per month
Lead
The workstream's decisions, made daily, so nothing waits on a meeting.
One accountable voice for a pod or initiative that can't afford to drift.
$3,200–4,000per month
Manual QA tester
2 yrs · US East overlap
Found a form-validation edge case that had been silently corrupting data for weeks
- Exploratory Testing
- Bug Reporting
- TestRail
Senior manual QA tester
5 yrs · UK + EU hours
Documented usability issues in a checkout flow that automated tests had passed cleanly
- Usability Review
- Regression Planning
- Cross-browser
Lead QA tester
8 yrs · EU + US split
Owns the exploratory testing standard applied before every major release
- Test Leadership
- Accessibility
- Mobile Testing
Indicative ranges, representative profiles. Exact figures and named engineers arrive with your shortlist.
Weighing this against a freelancer, a direct hire or a marketplace? See the honest comparison
03From stated problem to first change
Four steps, each closing on evidence.
This process tests exploratory judgement, not tool familiarity. Nothing is owed if you decide to stop at any point.
Define the coverage gap
We map where your product's manual coverage or usability testing is actually thin. The brief names that gap, not a list of testing tools to know.
A brief your leads signMatch against your product
Candidates are screened against your actual product surface, your release cadence and your review culture. Three testers who understand your product beat thirty who list QA on a CV.
Three fits, not thirty CVsAssess on the real tasks
Your team can watch the exploratory-testing and bug-report exercises directly. What shows up is curiosity and judgement, not a checklist recited from memory.
Evaluation you can watchOnboard inside your process
Access, standards and a first real exploratory pass on production features. Continuity cover keeps a departure from ever becoming your release-day gap.
A merged change in week one
04Evidence and proof
Testers who found what automation was going to miss.
Manual QA proof is a real issue found before launch, not a checklist completed. Every record here waits for written client approval before production.
Explore case studies
A confusing checkout flow found before launch, not after.
Koru Health's new checkout passed every automated test while quietly confusing real users in exploratory testing. An embedded manual tester documented the specific confusion points before launch, avoiding a costly post-launch redesign.
- Usability issues found pre-launch
- Three, all fixed before release
- Post-launch redesign required
- None
She found an edge case in our form validation that had been silently corrupting data for weeks.
Sample · pending client approval
His bug reports were so clear our developers stopped needing to ask follow-up questions.
Sample · pending client approval
05Three shapes, one standard
Add a tester, a coverage pod, or a practice.
Most teams start with one tester covering exploratory gaps in an existing product. Some need a pod that owns manual coverage across every release. Where a whole product needs building and testing together, we point you to the practice instead.
- Team extension
One named tester
A single manual QA specialist inside your direction and your reviews. The smallest commitment, and the usual first step.
- Delivery pods
A coverage pod
A pod with its own lead that owns exploratory and usability coverage across every release. You set priorities while the pod carries delivery.
- Product engineering
The practice, not the person
Where a whole product needs building and testing together, product engineering takes that scope on instead.
06Straight answers
Asked before a manual QA hire is signed.
01What does a manual QA tester actually do day to day?
Explores new features with structure rather than a script, writes bug reports developers can act on without follow-up questions, and catches usability problems functional tests structurally cannot see. The unglamorous majority of the work is genuine curiosity applied systematically.
02Isn't manual testing being replaced by automation?
Automation checks what someone already thought to test. Manual testing finds what nobody thought to check yet, which is precisely the gap automation cannot close by definition.
03Can we run our own interviews as well?
Yes, the published tasks are built to be reused directly. Several clients now run the exploratory-testing exercise themselves in later hiring rounds.
04How fast can a manual QA tester start?
A shortlist arrives within days from a bench evaluated continuously. Onboarding speed after that depends mostly on how quickly your side can grant product access.
05Who manages the tester day to day?
Your leads set priorities and hold the quality bar. We take on what sits behind that instead: continuity, payroll, replacement risk and the handoff if plans change.
06What if the tester is not the right fit?
Say so within the first weeks and the replacement is funded by us. The next tester arrives briefed on the exact gap, keeping a repeat mismatch uncommon.
07Do your manual QA testers use AI tools?
Yes, for drafting repetitive test-plan documentation and reports. The actual exploration and judgement about what to test stays entirely with the tester.
08How does pricing work for a hired manual QA tester?
The tier bands above hold for this role; the shortlist carries the confirmed figure once scope is set. Monthly billing, no placement fee, notice-period exit only.