QAQE.GEN.M5

Director of Quality Assurance Engineering

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Director of Quality Assurance Engineering

technology › Quality Assurance (QA) Engineering · · M5 — M5 — Senior Director · Management

Directs the overall quality assurance strategy and testing organization across multiple product lines or business units.

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Median pay · United States · annual

$184,924 USD

▲ +120% vs M1 on this ladder

Typical range ()

$145,273$235,396

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Key statistics

The identity block — every fact is canon, none is generated.

5 of 8

Track

Management

Family rungs priced

M1 · M2 · M3 · M4 · M5 · M6

—

technology

Coordinates

2 / 4 spaces

pay@2 · 2026-07

What this role is

Directs the overall quality assurance strategy and testing organization across multiple product lines or business units. At the Senior Director (M5) level, the role owns multiple functions or a large department, org-level trade-offs and investment, and drives multi-function results. Leads directors and managers.

What changes across the ladder

Level-distinction canon isn't available for the adjacent levels of this profile yet.

Level differentiators

What separates M5 (M5 — Senior Director) from the levels around it — this level only. Every word is real canon for this profile.

Scope: Multiple functions or a large department
Autonomy: Owns multi-year strategy for the area
Complexity: Org-level trade-offs and investment
Impact: Multi-function results
Decision rights: Owns investment and org design across functions
Leadership: Leads directors and managers

Full level-by-level matrix (side by side across the ladder) lives on the Ladder drill-down — not here.

Promotion

The next rung from M5 is M6.

Performance criteria for this profile render in the assessment kit →

People also watch

Nearest coordinate neighbors — same , same level. Each row's (confident / review / no match) comes from its — computed, not curated.

Profile	Key	Median	Δ structural
Chief Quality Officer	QAQE.GEN.E5	$334,502†	confident0.05
Quality Assurance (QA) Engineering Senior	QAQE.GEN.P5	$135,890†	confident0.05
Lead QA Engineer	QAQE.GEN.S5	$59,521†	confident0.05
Senior Manager, Quality Assurance Engineering	QAQE.GEN.M4	$164,620†	confident0.06

†National-base pricing — this family's function differential is pending review, so the dollar level is not function-adjusted.

How to read this profile

Every number here is traceable — to a named source, a stated method, and an as-of date — and each value is labeled by how we know it: observed from data, computed by a model, projected forward, or governed canon. Nothing is a black box, and nothing is invented to fill a gap.

Where every number comes from

What	Source & method	Edition	State
Median pay + range	JobFrame pay equation (function base × family multiplier × level × focus differential)	pay@2	computed
Pay across the ladder	Same equation applied at each universal level	pay@2	computed
Demand — growth & openings	BLS Employment Projections; openings decomposed into growth + exits	EP 2024–34	projected
Pay by metro	BLS OEWS metropolitan medians	OEWS 2024	observed
Level distinctions	JobFrame universal-level canon (scope · autonomy · complexity · impact · decision rights · leadership)	canon	canon
Capability cluster	O*NET Knowledge / Skills / Abilities	O*NET	computed
Coordinates	JobFrame coordinate system — structural (weighted Gower) + content fingerprint	structural@1 · content@1 · pay@2 · semantic@1	computed
Related roles	Nearest neighbors in the structural coordinate space	structural@1	computed

The principles behind the numbers

Ranges, not false precision

Pay is P10 · median · P90, never a single misleading number.

Three honest states, never a fake %

Role matches resolve to confident / review / no-match — a calibrated verdict, not a made-up percentage.

Provenance on every value

Each number carries whether it's observed, computed, projected, or canon — so you always know how much to lean on it.

Gaps shown as gaps

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Frozen, versioned editions

Pay and coordinate editions are pinned, so a comparison you make today still means the same thing next quarter.

Privacy by min-N

Any aggregate over people is suppressed below a minimum count, so no individual is identifiable.

Freshness

As of2026-07-27Editioncanon-v2@2.1.0-completeSourcecanon-v2 cell + salary-benchmark (model)

Is this profile accurate?

Scan / share this profile

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https://jobframe.global/profile/QAQE.GEN.M5

As of · 2026-07-27

Edition · canon-v2@2.1.0-complete

Source · canon-v2 cell + salary-benchmark (model)

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Assessment criteria for this role

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what's in it

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what's in it

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Every work-products kit across all canonical profiles, refreshed as source editions land.

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Assessment Kits — All Access (Annual)

Every work-products kit across all canonical profiles, refreshed as source editions land. Annual billing (two months free).

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what's in it

Goal instruments

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Director of Quality Assurance Engineering

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Key statistics

What this role is

Pay across the ladder

Demand — is the field growing, or just turning over?

Where this role sits — growth vs. pay

Where it pays — by metro

What changes across the ladder

Level differentiators

Promotion

People also watch

Capability cluster

The Job Swatch

Structural

Content

3-state matching

Editions — frozen & versioned

How to read this profile

Where every number comes from

The principles behind the numbers

Freshness

Act on this profile

Guides

Assessments

Goal instruments

API