The skills behind each salary band

"How do I get to 20 LPA as an SDET?" is really three different questions depending on where you start. A generic roadmap ignores that. This one is organised by salary band, so you can jump to your target and see exactly which skills unlock it.

Band 1 — Fresher to ₹8–12 LPA

The goal here is a solid, hireable foundation. Master these and you clear the first band:

• Core: Java (OOP, collections, exceptions), Selenium WebDriver, TestNG, and manual-testing fundamentals (SDLC, STLC, test design).
• Proof: one clean automation framework on GitHub (Page Object Model + TestNG + reporting).
• Interview: round-1 manual questions, core Selenium, basic DSA (arrays, strings, HashMaps).

Practise with the Manual Testing, Selenium and Java simulators.

Band 2 — ₹12–18 LPA

This band rewards breadth and a real framework. Add:

• API testing with RestAssured, BDD with Cucumber, and SQL for data validation.
• CI/CD — Jenkins pipelines, Git fluency, Maven.
• Framework design you can defend in depth (hybrid: POM + data-driven + reporting).
• Medium DSA — two-pointers, sliding window, trees, heaps.

Drill the API, Framework, Jenkins and Git simulators.

Band 3 — ₹18–22 LPA

Now you are competing for product-company SDET roles. The differentiators:

• Docker + Selenium Grid for parallel, reproducible runs — see the Docker + Grid guide.
• Performance (JMeter/k6) and security (OWASP) basics — the Performance and Security guides.
• Strong DSA and the start of system design for testing.
• AI-assisted testing awareness — the Agentic AI Testing guide.

Band 4 — ₹22–30 LPA and beyond

Senior and lead SDET. What separates this band:

• System design for testing you can lead — the System Design guide.
• Cloud (AWS), Kubernetes, and infrastructure-level test strategy.
• Leadership — mentoring, test strategy ownership, cross-team influence (the behavioural guide).
• Negotiation — at this band, a competing offer is worth lakhs; see the negotiation guide.

Target companies by tier