QA Interview Questions and ANSWERS

Why automated software testing fails?

2010-05-07T15:24:00.000-07:00

Automated software testing has plenty of benefits and a lot of challenges. Despite the availability of a broad array of tools for software automation Silk Test, Selenium, HP QTP, Watir and etc), almost every QA Testing teams struggle with the similar standard architecture issues. In my opinion most of the issues are due to a lack of a preparation and training for building automated software

What makes a good QA Tester?

2010-04-01T00:03:00.000-07:00

There are several QA tester tricks to show uncanny abilities, improve visibility and get promoted very quickly: Submit every typo, misprint as a separate Jira or Bugzilla bug report to inflate the bugs count. In case your QA manager keeps track of number of test cases you written, churn out test cases by copying existing ones or copying the software requirement into another document as detailed

How to evaluate QA tester's work?

2009-12-07T23:47:00.000-08:00

Tricky Test manager interview question may sound like : Imagine being a test manager and trying to evaluate the performance of your QA testers. As we all know staff performance reviews is a one of the responsibilities of QA Managers. Software quality assurance engineers do a wide variety of tasks, such as bug hunting, bug reporting, test planning, and test tool development. To fully evaluate the

What is a good ratio of QA tester to developer?

2009-11-06T09:06:00.000-08:00

It depends - is a correct answer on this no right or wrong Test Manager interview question. In my humble opinion, there exist no testing industry standards that cover the ratio of quality assurance testers to developers. In order to provide meaningful answer on the open ended interview question QA manager needs to know specific context. I would expect that the candidate for Test Manager position

What do you do when you get bored?

2009-10-16T16:34:00.000-07:00

Test interview question should show the real value of interviewee. One of this not puzzle interview questions is asking the prospective candidature about dealing with utter boredom. Occasionally testers get involved in the never ending testing of the same module of the same application. How should SQA Engineer adjust working behavior to continue successfully work on software project? One of the

QA interview - testing toaster

2009-09-18T15:44:00.000-07:00

How would you test a toaster, vending machine, electric kettle or ATM? Some QA managers consider this most common interview question as perfect QA interview question. In the same time the test interview question is the easiest one. QA engineer needs to tell just two magic words "requirements" and "specifications" and then approach toaster tests as any other usual application under test with

How would you test a toaster?

2009-09-01T11:00:00.000-07:00

Interview puzzles and riddles is the long going tradition in the software development companies like Google, Facebook and Microsoft. Personally I would not make hiring decision for software test engineer position based on the puzzle interview question like "How would you test a toaster, vending machine, electric kettle, pencil or other appliance?", but some hiring QA managers still think that

Should all testers be developers?

2009-08-17T10:54:00.000-07:00

One more QA manager interview question could help to analyze the management abilities of candidate for QA manager position. This interview questions especially critical for the QA teams working in Agile environment.In certain domains, there is some amount of testing that cannot reasonably be automated in the proper time. This testing requires that QA Engineer eyeballs carefully look at the

How would you deal with smarty pants SQA Engineer

2009-07-17T22:07:00.000-07:00

This is a perfect QA manager interview question. Software quality assurance job market took a dramatic hit early this year, some signs of stabilization are appearing. A few recruiters believe layoffs have slowed. In the same time companies are not ready to begin hiring full-time testers, but many companies started to hire the contract workers to handle quality assurance projects that had been

Name any software quality assurance or software testing magazine?

2009-07-08T15:54:00.000-07:00

As an interviewer I would not be surprised if prospective candidate for software quality assurance engineer position would answer that the interviewee doesn’t read software quality assurance or software testing magazines at all. I personally subscribed for couple of free software testing magazines, but usually I have found only one or two articles in the fiftyor so quality assurance magazines I

What's in your Testers Tool Box?

2009-06-11T18:05:00.000-07:00

The test interview is not only a test of interviewee specific knowledge, but an opportunity to knowledge exchange. As an interviewer I have to spend at least half an hour interviewing some potential Quality Assurance Engineer and I want to use these minutes wisely. For example, I like to interview testers about various tools they use during preparation and actual testing. Here are some wonderful

What do you hate about testing?

2009-06-07T22:00:00.000-07:00

Tester interview questions usually focused on positive results, like most obvious test interview question is what do you like about testing, but should it be the case. I believe asking reverse interview question would open the real mind of candidate for Test Engineer position and would perfectly describe the software development organization where Test Engineer works now. The most hated term

Why do you want to leave your current job?

2009-06-02T22:01:00.000-07:00

Here are some suggestions for answering this interview question. Try to put some positive spin in your answer. First of all it means that you shouldn’t say anything negative about your current position and people while being interviewed at new company or at least try a neutral mode. For example one interviewee could answer as "I have had it with working with QA Engineers who couldn't test a

Define test automation requirements for developing web application?

2009-05-29T16:37:00.000-07:00

Imagine that you were asked to evaluate web application from test automation friendliest point of view. These criteria could be used to name web application automation friendly in order to test an application with SilktTest, QTP, Selenium or any other test automation tool.All web pages should have namesSimilar objects should have consistent names Unique names should be used for various objectsAll

The Downfall of Agile

2009-05-27T15:58:00.000-07:00

The agile lead goes crazy when he learns his agile team has not been following the principles of the agile manifesto. Show this clip to an interviewee. If the interviewee starts smiling and commenting, hire this person immediately.

How do you keep your testing skills updated?

2009-05-19T11:22:00.000-07:00

This is a wonderful testing interview questions and I ask this one to everyone whom I interview recently for QA Engineer position. There are a few possible answers:Read testing websites, magazines and books to understand latest trends in software testing industry. Read about new testing tools available in market. Practice by trying out different testing toolsAttend professional testing

Does your team use continuous integration?

2009-05-08T10:25:00.000-07:00

If tester doesn't understand what interviewer means by continuous integration, the tester probably didn't work in a good software environment. How can QA Engineer get steady code build for testing if there is no bulletproof method of building and deploying code to testing and production environment? If there is no continuous integration process in place, QA Engineers most likely would spend time

Why does test automation project fail?

2009-04-30T15:46:00.000-07:00

The following problems are often encountered during test automation projects and may result in failing test automation projects:Management doesn't treat test automation as software development. Anyone can test and automation is easy – just record and playback.QA team select wrong set of test cases for test automation. In the same time, management aims for 100% test automation of all test cases.

How to report bugs effectively?

2009-04-20T10:03:00.000-07:00

The best way to report bugs effectively is too use standard bug report template. The bug tracking tools like Jira or Bugzilla already have predefined bug report template. Quality Assurance Engineer should include good supporting documents with some of the bug reports like screen shots, data samples or log files.

How do you know when to stop testing?

2009-04-18T08:00:00.000-07:00

There are several ways for Quality Assurance Engineer to find out when testing stops:Software product is never tested enoughRelease, testing or customer deadline has been metAll test cases have been executed and certain predetermined percentage of the passedPredetermined code coverage percentage is metThe number of found bugs or bug severity falls to a certain pointNo money left to continue

Could you name a few testing activities?

2009-04-15T20:15:00.000-07:00

QA Engineer role usually includes a variety of testing activities:Create test plans and test casesExecute testsLog bugsCommunicate with various team members like testers, developer and managersMake crucial decisions on whether something is a bug or a design constraintSchedule projectsAllocate human and technical resourcesMake crucial decisions about the software applications Automate testing

What makes a good QA Engineer?

2009-04-13T21:07:00.000-07:00

A good QA Engineer should able to perform the following tasks successfully in any environment:Verification: A good QA Engineer can officially state that it is possible to accomplish certain tasks.Detection: A good QA Engineer seeks issues that exist, either in the process or the product.Prevention: A good QA Engineer recognizes potential issues before they become visible.Reflection: A good QA

What are prerequisites for white box testing?

2009-04-07T21:30:00.000-07:00

In general prerequisites for white box testing are the same as for black box testing. The only difference is the access to the application source code. The white box tester should ask for detailed requirement, functional specifications, high-level design documents, detailed design documents and source code. The white box QA Engineer would analyze the source code and prepare test cases for

Can you solve this QA interview puzzle?

2009-04-01T01:30:00.000-07:00

As you know many interviewers like to ask interviewee to solve tricky puzzle as QA interview question. Perhaps you heard about puzzles like: why are manholes covers round, how do they make M&Ms, how many piano tuners are there in San Francisco. Almost all puzzles used for QA interview are documented in the book How Would You Move Mount Fuji? : Microsoft's Cult of the Puzzle. If after reading

What tests shouldn't we automate?

2009-03-24T08:41:00.000-07:00

Most types of testing benefit from automation, but some testing type's needs a real human attention and intelligence. It is possible, but difficult to automate GUI even with agile compatible tools like Selenium. Usability testing, exploratory testing and test that will never fail should not be considered as targets for test automation.