TETest & Evaluation Engineer
TE
Career

Test & Evaluation Engineer

By the numbers
Typical pay
$104,300 / yr
Education to start
Bachelor's degree
Future demand
+10.0% by 2034
People in this job
187K
Figures shown for ·closest of 3 O*NET occupations
The work
A day, hour by hour
07:45
Morning triage

Review overnight automated test runs; flag any failures before standup.

08:15
Standup & sync

Sync with dev and PM — sort what's blocked, what's ready to test.

08:40
Instrument setup

Calibrate sensors and test rigs before the day's evaluation run begins.

09:30
Test execution

Push the system through edge-case conditions; log every result carefully.

11:30
Failure dig

One result looks wrong — real failure or bad test setup? Find out.

13:15
Data analysis

Run stats on the morning's data; isolate the anomaly, trace its cause.

14:30
Design review

Flag two components in the new spec that will be nearly impossible to test.

15:30
Report writing

Document what broke, why, and exactly what the dev team needs to fix.

16:30
Automate & wrap

Script a new test case; queue tomorrow's automated run before logging off.

Things you do
  • Design test plans that try to break a product before launch.
  • Run a system through extreme conditions to find hidden failure points.
  • Dig through test data to figure out exactly why something failed.
  • Write detailed reports telling engineers what broke and how to fix it.
  • Set up and calibrate specialized instruments to measure system performance.
Decisions you’ll make
  • Is this test result a real failure, or a flaw in my test setup?
  • Have I tested enough edge cases to actually trust this system is safe?
  • Do I flag this borderline anomaly and delay the launch, or let it go?
  • Should I build a new test for this scenario, or adapt one that already exists?
  • Is the development team's explanation for this failure convincing, or are they rationalizing?
Education Pathways · how you get there
88 in 100 went the college route · 12 in 100 found another way in None, typically
Education mapped from O*NET:
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