Having gone through the whole cycle from 1 dev... to 2 dev-lead... to 3 large-ish team qa-lead for offshore devs... to 4 qa-lead for offshore qa... to 5 actual qa ("a" is for assurance as opposed to the quality control that passes as qa) in an industry that needs it... to 6 kind-of principal engineer... I would advise you that generalities about qa are useless, environments differ. Still always true: some mgmt will either want more for less, or even something for nothing, and in the long run we are all dead, and some folks' horizon is surprisingly short!