A gaming studio in the Financial District, Manhattan, needs an Associate Game QA Tester who can play a build for hours and still catch the one bug everyone else walked past. This is a full-time, on-site position, and the studio wants someone in the office testing on their hardware and working alongside the development team, not filing reports from a distance.
The job itself
You'll spend most days inside a build that isn't finished yet, running through test cases designed to break it in specific ways. When something's off, whether a texture pops in wrong or a save file corrupts after a particular sequence of actions, you write it up clearly enough that a developer can reproduce it without guessing. Once a fix comes back, you verify it actually works before it ships, and you don't sign off until it does.
- Design and run test cases against new builds and updates
- Log defects with clear repro steps, screenshots, and severity ratings
- Re-test fixes to confirm they resolve the reported issue
- Work directly with developers to explain what broke and why it matters
- Flag gameplay balance or design issues, not just technical bugs
That last one matters more than people expect. Knowing games well enough to notice when something feels off, even when it's technically working as coded, is part of what separates a good tester from someone just checking boxes.
A recent case on this team involved a boss fight that technically passed every scripted check but felt unbeatable to most players testing it, because a single enemy attack pattern overlapped with the player's dodge window in a way nobody had caught in design review. The tester who flagged it didn't file it as a bug in the traditional sense, since nothing was technically broken, but wrote up the pattern with video and frame data clearly enough that the design team could see the problem and adjust the timing before launch. That's the kind of judgment call this role expects on a regular basis, and it comes up more often on a live game than people coming from strictly linear titles tend to expect.
What gets you hired
A bachelor's degree is the baseline expectation here, generally in computing or software, since that background tends to make the technical side of the role easier to pick up. Twenty-one months of hands-on QA or testing experience is required, and it should be real experience with test case design, defect tracking, and at least some exposure to automation tooling, not just familiarity from a course.
- Manual game testing across multiple platforms or builds
- Bug tracking in tools like Jira or similar defect management software
- Attention to detail sharp enough to catch inconsistencies most players would miss
- Genuine gaming knowledge across a few different genres, not just one
If you've used automated testing frameworks like Selenium or written basic scripts to speed up repetitive test passes, mention it. It's not required for this role, but it's the kind of thing that moves an application to the top of the pile.
The twenty-one months of experience doesn't need to come from a AAA studio background specifically. Testers coming from mobile games, indie projects, or even a long stretch of dedicated QA work on a single title have all done well in this seat before, as long as they can speak concretely about the process they followed and the kinds of bugs they were responsible for catching.
Pay and where you'd work
This role pays $12,000 a month and is based on-site in Manhattan's Financial District. Anyone tracking game QA tester salary in New York per month should note that figure sits well above typical entry-level QA pay, which reflects the specific mix of technical and gaming knowledge this studio is looking for. The office is a short walk from several subway lines, which matters given how this part of Manhattan gets during rush hour.
Health insurance, paid time off, and professional development support are included, and as an on-site role, the studio also offers employer-sponsored health coverage on top of the base plan, along with 401(k) matching. The professional development support has covered conference passes and certification courses for testers on this team in the past, which is worth asking about directly during the interview if that's something you'd want to use.
Life on the QA team
Crunch happens here, usually in the two or three weeks before a major release, when test passes run longer, and defect counts climb faster than the dev team can close them. Outside of that window, the pace is steadier: scheduled test cycles, regular defect triage meetings, and enough breathing room to actually think through an edge case instead of rushing past it. Anyone applying through this Naukri Mitra listing should expect those crunch stretches rather than be surprised by them later.
The team is close-knit, and testers here regularly sit in on design discussions, not just bug triage. That's unusual for a QA role at this level and gives people a chance to shape a game beyond just finding what's broken in it. Weekly standups run about twenty minutes and cover open defects, upcoming test priorities, and anything that came up in the previous day's playtesting session, so nobody's guessing what to focus on next.
Applying
Send a resume along with any specific examples of bugs you've caught or test plans you've built, even informally through personal projects or modding communities. If you're one of the people actively browsing game QA tester job openings in New York right now, know that this studio pays close attention to actual testing habits, like how you structure a bug report or prioritize what to test first, rather than just years of title history.
Interviews run in two stages: a conversation about your testing background, followed by a hands-on session where you'll actually test a short build and write up what you find. Candidates who move past that second stage usually hear back within a week, and the studio is looking to fill this seat within the current hiring cycle.
