Manual tester vs automation tester vs QA engineer - which do I need?

A manual tester finds bugs through hands-on testing, exploratory analysis, and real-device verification. An automation tester writes scripts (Selenium, Cypress, Playwright) that run tests automatically. A QA engineer combines both and may also handle test strategy and process improvement. If you need someone to test new features, verify releases, and catch visual/UX issues, hire a manual tester. If you need repeatable test suites that run on every commit, add an automation tester. Most teams benefit from having both.