Should you pay for a placement course in 1970?
A good bootcamp compresses your job-ready timeline from 12 months to 4–6 and adds structured mock interviews. A bad one takes ₹80,000 to teach the same YouTube playlist and places you in a ₹2.5 LPA manual-testing role that AI will replace by 2027. Judge by hiring data, not landing-page hype.
7-point evaluation checklist
Publishes placement rate + median salary for last 3 batches
Curriculum includes Playwright OR Selenium 4 + REST Assured + CI/CD
Includes at least one real GitHub portfolio project per module
Mock interviews with working SDETs (not just recorded content)
Placement partners are named companies you can verify on LinkedIn
Refund / job-guarantee terms are in writing (not verbal)
AI-testing module (prompt evals, guardrails) in the curriculum
Red flags to walk away from
'100% placement guaranteed' with no salary floor
Manual-testing-heavy curriculum (>40% of hours)
Placement fee > 2 months of promised salary
No visible alumni on LinkedIn or GitHub
ISA that kicks in even for non-QA jobs
Uses celebrity endorsements instead of hiring data
Refuses to share the placement-partner list before payment
Cost models — upfront vs ISA
- Upfront (₹30K–₹2.5L in India): lower total cost if you land a job, no long-term claim on your salary.
- ISA (Income Share Agreement): 12–17% of your first-year CTC for 2 years, capped. Read the fine print — many ISAs trigger even for non-QA jobs.
- Hybrid: Small upfront + reduced ISA. Only worth it if placement data is transparent.
The free 6-month self-taught alternative
- Month 1: Testing fundamentals — cover basics Q&A + one Udemy fundamentals course.
- Month 2: Java or Python + Git + SQL. Build 20 CLI scripts on GitHub.
- Month 3: Selenium 4 or Playwright + POM. Automate 3 public sites end-to-end.
- Month 4: Postman + REST Assured — cover API Q&A + build a contract-testing repo.
- Month 5: GitHub Actions + Docker + Allure. Ship a full pipeline in your portfolio.
- Month 6: 30 mock interviews on AI Mock Interview, ATS-optimize resume on Resume Review, apply through QA Jobs Radar.
When a paid course does make sense
- You're a career switcher with no tech network and need a cohort for accountability.
- You've tried self-study for 3+ months and stalled without structure.
- The provider publishes verifiable placement data (LinkedIn alumni, named companies, median CTC).