On Windows you can use DLLDESTDIR
variable which specifies where to copy the target dll or exe. Just add this to your .pro :
CONFIG(release, debug|release): DLLDESTDIR += $$PWD/../exec
On Linux you can use QMAKE_POST_LINK
variable which contains the command to execute after linking the TARGET together. So it is like:
CONFIG(release, debug|release): QMAKE_POST_LINK += $$quote(cp project $$PWD/../exec)
Here project
is the name of the target file which you provide by TARGET = project
These will copy the executable binary to a directory named exec
one level upper than the program working directory. You can have your arbitrary path.