SDET vs Dev

Question

Do SDET roles pay considerably less than dev roles in the US? From my experience, there's a huge range of technical abilities/responsibilities of SDETs depending on company.

bluejay · Accepted Answer

hello im an sdet. tbh ive seen same pay and a decent disparity.

for ex, meta pays the same base and and bonus but less in equity

but now that i’m at a startup, i think there’s a decent difference in pay here

Metaman · Answer

At Meta, SWE vs SDET:Base: samePerf Bonus: sameEquity: SDET makes ~60% of SWE equity

19g6vl1p63hdw · Answer

It depends on the company. Some places view SDETs like old-style QA manual testers with a bit of selenium thrown in. This is a usually seen as a less-valuable skillset.

Any company with more modern software practices will value them as regular developers who just happen to focus on internal tools targeting testing and developer productivity. The pay will be equal to any other developer.

SDET vs Dev

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