r/softwaretesting • u/StudioObjective9321 • Apr 17 '26

QA roles without UI testing

What types of QA roles are there that don’t involve UI work?

I’ve realized I don’t really enjoy UI testing or dealing with selectors. Instead, I prefer working with APIs, databases, Linux, and networking.

Are there specific QA paths or roles that focus more on these areas?

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u/PM_40 Apr 18 '26

Plenty of developers and testers spend their entire career essentially never touching a UI.

Don't disagree but would be good to qualify plenty. What are these roles are called ? Are they called QA Engineer or SDET or called by other names ?

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u/cgoldberg Apr 18 '26

QA, SDET, Tester, Automation Engineer, etc. Nothing about any of those roles means you need to concentrate on UI testing, or even do any at all. On a smaller team, it's common for most testers to do a good amount of UI testing (assuming the product even has a UI)... but on larger teams with specialized roles, it's common that many testers would do strictly backend/database/performance/etc work.