Software Testing Interview Q&A – part 1

www.testing.com.vn
Author: Khoa Bui
SOFTWARE TESTING INTERVIEW Q&A – PART 1

SOFTWARE TESTING INTERVIEW Q&A – PART 1 (WWW.TESTING.COM.VN)
1.FIRST QUESTION IS ALWAYS: COULD YOU PLEASE INTRODUCE YOURSELF?
‣ We try to introduce short summary in 3 minutes including education, working experience, strong point.
Below is example:
I’m 30 years old, belongs to HCMC, the biggest city of Vietnam. I’m graduated in Software
Engineering from Bach Khoa university with excellent grade.
I’m carrying 10 years of experience in QA industry. I worked as QA Engineer at ABC corporation in 4
years (from 2005-2009), then moving to DEF company as QA leader from 2009 – 20012. Currently,
I’m working at XYZ corporation as QA Architecture / Application Support since 2012.
As a QA member and working on different kinds of projects types as Windows, Web, Mobile
projects, I have experience in test cases writing, bug reporting, testing summary reporting. Take a
QA leader role, I got some experience to create test plan, do estimation, communicate with global
clients, manage and monitor testing progress of projects. I’ve experience to work on both manual
and automation testing projects and applied by Scrum framework, so client communication is my
daily task. That’s all about myself

2.COULD YOU PLEASE TELL YOUR RESPONSIBILITIES IN YOUR CURRENT PROJECTS?
‣ As QA Engineer:
Create and execute test cases
Verify bugs and update status of bugs (fixed or not fixed)
Create bug report and submit bug report on Bug Tracking tools if finding during execute test cases
Do ad-hoc testing, exploratory testing to find bugs of application
Implement automation test scripts
Run automation test scripts
Communicate with BA/Leader/Developer/Clients to clarify user story requirement and create test cases
for next functions.
Report testing status everyday to test leader / manager…
Support leader to do others when requested

‣ As Leader or Manager
Create test plan at the beginning of project
Do estimation the testing tasks of team (estimate user stories each sprint)
Prepare test environment for testing team (if required)
Transfer requirement of project to members
Assign tasks to members of team
Manage and monitor the testing progress
Communicate to Manager/Product Owner/Stakeholders/other team to clarify all
things related projects

‣ As Leader or Manager (Cont.)
Support UAT/Production team to clarify the issues, bugs
Collect testing results and report the ﬁnal summary report of testing team
Motivate team to help them always happy in work
Working as QA engineer:
Create test cases and execute test cases
Do ad-hoc to ﬁnd bugs of systems
Create bug reporting

3.COULD YOU PLEASE TELL ME YOUR STRONG POINT AND WEAK POINT? ALMOST INTERVIEWER WILL ASK THIS
QUESTION AND 80% INTERVIEWEE DON’T KNOW HOW TO ANSWER THIS. IF WE DON’T KNOW ANSWER, WE SHOULD PREPARE AT HOME
WITH SOME ANSWERS. BELOW IS GOOD SAMPLE:
Strong Point:
‣ The ﬁrst strong point is good experience in software testing. I’ve 10 years experience to work
on different kinds of projects with global clients.
‣ The second strong point is good communicate. As QA leader, I often communicate with
clients to get requirement, clarify issues, support stakeholders in UAT testing.
‣ The last one is leadership skills. Although working as leader but I’m also the QA/QC member
so that I understand mindset of one QC, I know the strong point/weak point of every
member, and assign tasks to suitable member based on their strong point. Besides, I also
support them to improve weak point by assigning difﬁcult task and support that person to
complete that tasks.

3.COULD YOU PLEASE TELL ME YOUR STRONG POINT AND WEAK POINT? ALMOST
INTERVIEWER WILL ASK THIS QUESTION AND 80% INTERVIEWEE DON’T KNOW HOW TO ANSWER THIS. IF WE DON’T KNOW ANSWER, WE SHOULD
PREPARE AT HOME WITH SOME ANSWERS. BELOW IS GOOD SAMPLE:
Weak Point: Try to give positive answer
‣ When there’s anything which I don’t understand, I always to raise questions to other members
and request email conﬁrmation as evidence. When working with some global customer, they’re
very happy with this, but when working with internal team, some members do not happy with
this.
‣ I always request members come meeting room before 10 mins to prepare documents/
environment/microphone before starting meeting with customers. However, some members
don’t want to do that. They said that’s waste time, and they only come in room on time (not early).
‣ I often try to handle many tasks without sharing to other members. Sometimes, I must do it
overtime to complete all tasks.

4. WHY DO YOU WANT TO CHANGE JOB? THIS IS ALSO DIFFICULT QUESTION. THERE’S DIFFERENT ANSWER FOR THIS QUESTION.
DO NOT ANSWER: I HATE JOB, HATE COMPANY, OR NEED HIGHER SALARY.
‣ Below is good sample:
Sample Answer: I would like to change job because I would like to have chance to do
multiple tasks and learn different knowledge to improve my skills. Current project is good
but that’s stability project, I must following routine tasks, do not have more opportunities to
do other tasks.
If interviewer asked: If we don’t pay with your expectation, do you want to join our
company? You should be careful when answer this question. Some interviewer don’t happy
if you say “No” although we know salary is very important. You can answer as below:
I understand this question. If offer is not meet my expectation, I also consider this salary
with job title, challenges, responsibilities of this job, working location, and other beneﬁts
of company.

5.WHEN DO YOU KNOW TESTING IS ENOUGH? (THIS IS DIFFICULT QUESTIONS FOR SOME NEW MEMBERS. ALMOST
SOME NEW TESTER JUST RECEIVED TASK FROM LEADER AND COMPLETE ALL TASKS. HOWEVER, WE CAN TRY TO GIVE ANSWER
AS BELOW)
‣ In SCRUM: QC created test cases for function based on acceptance criteria of each user story and created
regression test cases based on impact analyst (provided by developer when changing code). That’s enough
testing for new changes.
‣ Do Regression Test: Complete all test scenarios and there’s no critical bugs (P1, P2)
‣ Do E2E testing at the end of sprint before deploying new build on UAT environment.
‣ If do not enough testing time:
‣ Execute all test scenarios of top priority feature areas
‣ Do shakedown testing to test main function of system
‣ Verify all bugs and make sure all critical bugs are ﬁxed
‣ Execute test random some areas which related new changes to make sure there’s no impact or blocking

6. WHEN SOFTWARE TESTING IS STOPPED?
‣ Beta and Alpha testing is passed
‣ The bugs found is meet exit criteria of test plan
‣ Complete all test scenarios which covered all feature without finding any
critical issues/blocking issues
‣ Project budget is not enough for continue testing
‣ Manager confident application is working fine

7. HOW TO ESTIMATE TESTING TIME / HOW TO ESTIMATE TESTING TIME OF ONE USER STORY?
‣ First step: Request requirement from customer or product owner. Make sure requirement is
enough for estimate (at least 80% is completed).
‣ Second step: Request acceptance criteria for one user story (if that user story is very complex)
‣ Third step: Based on requirement and acceptance criteria, we should do estimate as below
Break down total function to small feature
Divide feature to 3 level: difﬁcult, medium, and easy
Estimate testing time of each feature based on different level. (If difﬁcult level, it will take for
long time than medium and easy level).
We can calculate average of total testing time (3 levels)
We buffer 10% for impediments as networking, test environment is slow, prepare data…

8. WHAT IS THE MOST DIFFICULT SITUATION / CHALLENGES YOU FACED AT WORK? THINKING ABOUT
DIFFICULT WHICH YOU FACED FROM PREVIOUS WORK AND YOU PASSED WELL.
‣ From previous company, I’m assigning as QA Leader when old QA Leader leaving job. I don’t
understand application deeper than other members, but manager trust me and assign me leader
role. That’s really challenge for me.
‣ At ﬁrst two months, I must take long time to learn application, project process. Sometime, I also
work overtime because I need to catchup and understand system deeply.
‣ I try to run all test cases as soon as possible to learn system. Read the latest document of project
to understand the project process.
‣ Asking old members of team if there’s some misunderstand related system. Asking support from
manager if don’t know project management process.
‣ After two months, I familiar with project and application. Although I don’t understand clearly as
previous leader but I can do it independently and continue improve day by day.

9. WHAT HAVE BEEN YOUR ACHIEVEMENTS? TRY TO GIVE 2 ACHIEVEMENTS FROM
PREVIOUS PROJECTS
‣ First achievement: I joined one project as QA member of one mobile testing
project. I must do all tasks of one QC as writing/executing test cases, ad-hoc
testing to ﬁnd bug of application, do regression test to make sure application
free bug on production. The result is the application is released successful on
Google Play and Apple Store without UAT bugs, and that application is able to
work ﬁnd on more than 200 mobile devices. And I got the Top Award Tester
from company, which only 10/500 testers receive that award.
‣ Second achievement: As working as QA Leader, I supported and mentor new
members when they join my team. Now, they’re become senior testers and can
work independently in other projects.

10. HOW DO WORK UNDER HIGH PRESSURE?
‣ Working with outsourcing projects, I often faced tight deadline and must
complete all testing without bugs and meet deadline. That’s really high
pressure. However, I’m experienced to work under high pressure because I
always do tasks, track result, and review result everyday.
‣ Everyday, I always list out all tasks which I need to do in a day in OneNote
application. I know priority task which I need to do in a day and able to
complete or not. So that I can make a plan to do list. If there’s any urgent
case, I will remove some not important task, and complete urgent case ﬁrst.
This way will help me to complete all high priority tasks and handle working
time without pressure.

REFERENCE: THIS IS EDITED AND
DESIGNED BASED ON RESEARCH ON
INTERNET
Author: Khoa Bui
Linkedin

Software Testing Interview Q&A – part 1

More Related Content

What's hot (20)

Viewers also liked (16)

Similar to Software Testing Interview Q&A – part 1 (20)

Recently uploaded (20)

Software Testing Interview Q&A – part 1