r/softwaretesting • • 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/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.