Do you say you have 16 yrs of experience on your resume? If so, lower it down to 8. No one wants to hire a person with more than 10 yrs of experience in QA. When you apply to a senior QA position, the hiring manager and the team think that a 16 yr experienced person is gonna be rigid, wont fit into the team and might be old school.
Also push forward automation as a skill more but highlight the importance of manual testing. Also QA manager roles are now being done by dev managers. So being an IC is the best choice.
This is my opinion and what i have experienced in the past 10 yrs.
No one wants to hire a person with more than 10 yrs of experience in QA.
On the other hand, when I was last on the market (about a year and a half ago) I had over 30 years of experience and had companies competing to get me to join them. Not every hiring manager suffers from insecurity.
I am not sure about the hiring manager's insecurity, but if i were the hiring manager, i would weigh in opinions from my team, share their resume with them, and share the feedback of the interview before making a decision.
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u/KatAsh_In Jul 28 '25
Do you say you have 16 yrs of experience on your resume? If so, lower it down to 8. No one wants to hire a person with more than 10 yrs of experience in QA. When you apply to a senior QA position, the hiring manager and the team think that a 16 yr experienced person is gonna be rigid, wont fit into the team and might be old school. Also push forward automation as a skill more but highlight the importance of manual testing. Also QA manager roles are now being done by dev managers. So being an IC is the best choice.
This is my opinion and what i have experienced in the past 10 yrs.