🧪 QA Roadmap Manual · Automation · AI — an open curriculum by Arifuzzaman Antor

📄 QA Resume & CV — Junior → Mid → Senior → SDET (templates)

📋 Open copyable template

Goal: write a resume that gets the interview — with copy-paste templates for every level and the exact rules recruiters and ATS bots screen for. This is a teachable tutorial: read the rules, copy the template for your level, swap in your own outcomes. Pairs with Career Journey (portfolio) and Interview Preparation (the rounds).

🎥 Teaching this? Screen-share a template, then rewrite one weak bullet into a strong one live (see the formula below). 📖 Then: Interview Prep

Worked example + copy-ready companion: open the full Arifuzzaman Antor Senior QA/SDET resume, complete CV timeline and blank master template. Learners can compare the public-profile facts with the focused application and then duplicate the blank version while you teach.

Tutorial plan — teach this without slides

Lesson Show on screen Learner output
1. Choose the target One real QA/SDET job description Target title + 12 true keywords
2. Build the skeleton Master template ATS-safe first draft
3. Rewrite bullets Weak-vs-strong table below Five measurable impact bullets
4. Add proof Learner’s GitHub and CI report Two linked portfolio projects
5. Tailor with AI Job description + resume in an LLM Gap analysis—not fabricated skills
6. Quality gate Final checklist + PDF test Application-ready PDF

Teaching rule: never tell learners to invent metrics, titles or tools. Use exact numbers when known; use honest scope (5 portals, 30+ cases, weekly releases) when a percentage is unavailable.

1. The 7 rules of a QA resume that passes

  1. One page for Junior/Mid; two pages max for Senior/SDET. Nobody reads three.
  2. Beat the ATS (the bot that reads it first): use a simple single-column layout, standard section headings, no tables/images/columns for the parts that matter, and mirror keywords from the job description (e.g., “Playwright”, “API testing”, “CI/CD”).
  3. Outcomes, not duties. Every bullet = what you did + how + the result. Numbers win.
  4. Front-load impact. Best bullet first under each role.
  5. Tailor per application. Reorder skills/bullets to match the specific JD. 10 minutes; huge lift.
  6. Consistent + clean. One font, consistent tense (past for old roles, present for current), no typos — a QA with typos is a contradiction.
  7. Link your proof. GitHub portfolio, LinkedIn, live test repo — the Playground artifacts.

2. The bullet formula (the whole game)

[Action verb] + [what you tested/built] + [tool/technique] + [result / metric]

❌ Weak (duty) ✅ Strong (outcome)
“Responsible for testing the website” “Designed 120+ test cases (EP/BVA) for checkout; caught 14 pre-release defects including a double-charge bug”
“Did automation testing” “Built a Playwright + TypeScript E2E suite (POM), cut regression time from 2 days to 25 min in CI”
“Worked with APIs” “Automated 60+ API tests in Postman/Newman; found 3 auth flaws (IDOR) before release”
“Used JIRA” “Ran defect triage in Jira; drove escape rate down 30% over 4 sprints”

No metric? Estimate honestly (“~”, “dozens of”, “5-portal”) or use scope (“across Chewy, Amazon, Walmart”).

Action verbs: Designed · Built · Automated · Led · Reduced · Caught · Owned · Shipped · Architected · Mentored.

3. Sections (in order) & what goes in each

  1. Header — Name · target title (e.g., “QA Automation Engineer”) · city/remote · phone · email · LinkedIn · GitHub. No photo, no DOB (for most markets).
  2. Summary — 2–3 lines: who you are + specialty + top achievement. (Template per level below.)
  3. Skills — grouped, keyword-rich: Testing · Automation · API · Performance · Security · Languages · Tools · CI/CD. (ATS bank in §6.)
  4. Experience — role, company, dates; 3–5 outcome bullets each.
  5. Projects / Portfolio — critical for juniors: your public repos (Playground artifacts) with links.
  6. Education & Certifications — degree; ISTQB/Coursera if any.

4. Copy-paste templates by level

Copy the block for your level into Google Docs / a builder and replace the bracketed parts.

🟢 Junior QA (0–2 yrs) — lead with skills + projects

YOUR NAME
QA Engineer  |  Dhaka, Bangladesh (Open to remote)
+880-XXXX-XXXXXX  •  you@email.com  •  linkedin.com/in/you  •  github.com/you

SUMMARY
Detail-oriented QA engineer with a strong manual-testing foundation and hands-on
Playwright automation. Comfortable with test design (EP/BVA), API testing, and
bug reporting. Built a public test portfolio and eager to grow into automation.

SKILLS
Testing: Manual, functional, regression, exploratory, test case design (EP/BVA), UAT
Automation: Playwright, Selenium (basics)   API: Postman, REST
Tools: Jira, TestRail, Git, Chrome DevTools, SQL (basics)   Languages: JavaScript/TypeScript (basics)

PROJECTS
• QA Portfolio (github.com/you/qa-portfolio) — test plan, 40 test cases (EP/BVA),
  8 documented bugs for a demo e-commerce app (SauceDemo).
• Playwright E2E demo — 10 regression tests running in GitHub Actions on every push.
• Postman API suite — 30+ requests (CRUD + negatives) against restful-booker.

EXPERIENCE  (internship / freelance / part-time if any)
QA Intern — Company, City                                   Mon 20XX – Present
• Executed 200+ test cases per release; logged 30+ reproducible bug reports.
• Verified fixes and ran regression on the checkout module each sprint.

EDUCATION
B.Sc. in CSE — University Name, 20XX
Certifications: ISTQB Foundation (if any) · Test Automation University

🟡 Mid QA (2–4 yrs) — lead with impact

YOUR NAME
QA Automation Engineer  |  City • Remote
phone • email • linkedin.com/in/you • github.com/you

SUMMARY
QA engineer with 3+ years across web and API testing, owning a feature area end to
end. Build and maintain Playwright/Selenium suites in CI and cut regression time
significantly. Strong on test strategy, API automation, and cross-team collaboration.

SKILLS
Testing: test strategy, risk-based testing, functional, regression, exploratory
Automation: Playwright (TS), Selenium, Page Object Model, data-driven
API: Postman, REST Assured, Newman, contract testing   Performance: k6 (basics)
CI/CD: GitHub Actions, Jenkins   DB: SQL   Tools: Jira, TestRail, Allure, Git

EXPERIENCE
QA Engineer — Company, City                                  20XX – Present
• Own quality for [feature/area]; set the test strategy and release gates.
• Built a Playwright (TS) E2E suite (POM, data-driven) in CI — regression 2 days → 30 min.
• Automated 70+ API tests (Postman/Newman); caught 5 auth/validation defects pre-release.
• Cut defect escape rate ~30% by adding smoke gates and risk-based prioritization.

QA Engineer — Previous Company                               20XX – 20XX
• [outcome] • [outcome] • [outcome]

EDUCATION / CERTIFICATIONS
B.Sc. CSE — University, 20XX  ·  ISTQB Foundation

🔴 Senior QA / QA Lead (4+ yrs) — lead with scope, risk & leadership

YOUR NAME
Senior QA Engineer / QA Lead  |  City • Remote
phone • email • linkedin.com/in/you • github.com/you • portfolio-url

SUMMARY
Senior QA professional with 5+ years owning risk and quality strategy for
[domain, e.g. fintech/healthcare] at scale. Lead release readiness across
cross-functional teams, combine exploratory/API/automation coverage, and improve
quality metrics such as escape rate, cycle time and production incidents.

SKILLS
Quality leadership: strategy, risk analysis, release gates, metrics, hiring, mentoring
Automation: Playwright (TS), Selenium, CI regression, framework review
API & contract: Postman/Newman, REST Assured, Pact, GraphQL
Performance: k6, JMeter (load/stress/soak, percentile SLAs)
Security: OWASP Top 10, ZAP/Burp (release-gate checks)
CI/CD & cloud: GitHub Actions, Jenkins, Docker, AWS

EXPERIENCE
Senior QA Engineer / QA Lead — Company, City                 20XX – Present
• Led QA for [product] ([scale metric, e.g. 13M+ trips / 5 marketplace portals]);
  owned the go/no-go call and release gates.
• Built a risk-based test strategy across UI, API and data workflows, reducing
  release validation from [before] to [after].
• Cut defect escape rate from [X]% to [Y]%; mentored [N] junior/mid QAs.
• Partnered with Product, Engineering and Support to triage [scope] and prevent
  [business impact / production incident].

EDUCATION / CERTIFICATIONS
B.Sc. CSE — University  ·  ISTQB Advanced (if any)

⚙️ SDET / Automation Architect (4+ yrs) — lead with engineering depth

YOUR NAME
Senior SDET / Test Automation Architect  |  City • Remote
phone • email • linkedin.com/in/you • github.com/you • portfolio-url

SUMMARY
Senior SDET with 5+ years designing test systems for web, API and distributed
services. Architect CI-integrated Playwright and contract-test frameworks,
improve reliability and observability, and use MCP/AI agents with human-reviewed
assertions to accelerate coverage without weakening quality gates.

SKILLS
Languages: TypeScript/JavaScript, Python or Java
Frameworks: Playwright, Selenium/Cypress, fixtures, POM, parallelization, sharding
API & contract: REST Assured/Postman, Pact, GraphQL, service virtualization
Performance/reliability: k6/JMeter, chaos testing, Prometheus/Grafana
Platform: GitHub Actions/Jenkins, Docker, AWS, test environments, secrets
AI-assisted QE: Playwright MCP, agent-generated tests, promptfoo/DeepEval, eval gates

EXPERIENCE
Senior SDET — Company, City                                  20XX – Present
• Architected a Playwright + TypeScript framework adopted by [N] contributors,
  reducing regression from [before] to [after] with parallel CI execution.
• Moved [X]% of brittle UI checks to API/contract layers, cutting flaky failures
  from [before] to [after] while preserving critical-path coverage.
• Added traces, videos, logs and failure classification, reducing mean time to
  diagnose failed builds by [X]%.
• Introduced supervised MCP/AI workflows for exploration and candidate-test
  generation; all assertions remained code-reviewed and deterministic in CI.
• Set engineering standards, reviewed automation PRs and mentored [N] engineers.

EDUCATION / CERTIFICATIONS
B.Sc. CSE — University  ·  ISTQB Advanced (if any)

5. Free tools & builders

  • Reactive Resume — free, open-source, ATS-friendly, export PDF
  • FlowCV — clean free templates
  • Google Docs — search “resume” templates (simple, safe, ATS-readable)
  • Overleaf — LaTeX (e.g. Jake’s Resume) for a crisp one-pager
  • ATS check: paste the JD + your resume into an LLM: “Which keywords from this job description are missing from my resume?”

Safe AI workflow for tailoring

You are reviewing my QA resume against the job description below.
1. Extract the 15 most important hard-skill and responsibility keywords.
2. Map each keyword to evidence already present in my resume.
3. Mark missing evidence as GAP — do not invent experience.
4. Suggest a clearer summary and reordered skills section.
5. Rewrite up to five bullets using only facts I provided.

[JOB DESCRIPTION]
[RESUME]

AI is the editor, not the author of your career history. You approve every claim.

6. ATS keyword bank (include the ones true for you)

Manual testing · test case design · EP · BVA · exploratory · regression · smoke · UAT · defect lifecycle · Jira · TestRail · Playwright · Selenium · Cypress · Appium · Page Object Model · API testing · Postman · REST Assured · Newman · GraphQL · contract testing · SQL · k6 · JMeter · performance testing · OWASP · security testing · CI/CD · GitHub Actions · Jenkins · Docker · JavaScript · TypeScript · Python · Java · Agile · Scrum · SDET · AI testing · MCP · LLM evals

7. Cover letter & LinkedIn (short but worth it)

  • Cover note (3 lines): why this company + your single strongest match + a link to proof. Skip generic paragraphs.
  • LinkedIn: headline = target title + top skills (e.g., “QA Automation Engineer · Playwright · API · CI/CD”); About = your summary; feature your GitHub. Recruiters search here.

8. Common mistakes

  • ❌ “Responsible for…” bullets (duties, not outcomes) · ❌ walls of text · ❌ listing every tool you’ve ever opened · ❌ fancy multi-column templates that ATS can’t parse · ❌ no links to proof · ❌ one generic resume blasted everywhere · ❌ typos.

✅ Exercise

  1. Copy your level’s template; fill it with your outcomes using the §2 formula.
  2. Rewrite 3 duty-bullets into outcome-bullets (add a number to each).
  3. Paste a real QA job description + your resume into an LLM and ask which keywords you’re missing; add the true ones.
  4. Get one peer to read it in 20 seconds and tell you your top achievement — if they can’t, front-load it.

Next → Interview Preparation · Career Journey · The Playground (build the portfolio your resume links to)