Quality Assurance Interview Questions and Answers

Documentation is an essential part of quality assurance or any other technical process, for that matter! Having information in the document form with you will help track the tasks. Moreover, it will make the follow-ups easier. The documents that are essential in the QA process are as listed below.

Requirement Sheet

Quality assurance starts from gathering the user requirements and creating a document that the entire team can use for reference. This document is popularly known as SRS, a software requirement sheet having all the information about what the client seeks in the end product.

Test Metrics

This document includes quantitative measures to ensure that the testing process is of the utmost quality. These measures also assure the effectiveness of the testing process. 

Test Plan 

The process for testing an application must follow a plan of action that the project team decides. After analyzing everything, the project team comes up with a test plan that gets documented for the entire team to refer to and use while working on the project.

Test Cases

It is an elaborate document containing a set of steps and phases that the team will use or follow during the software testing. Test cases help ensure that each activity for the project process works well and is nearing a successful delivery. These test cases are of multiple types. Namely, logical, error, negative, functional, and more!

Traceability Matrix

This document has a table that maps the requirements of a user for the final product. It covers all test cases to ensure nothing gets missed while the testing process is on. Following this matrix table, the value of the software testing process can improve.

Test Scenario

It includes all the possible scenarios of a test case, whether positive or negative. Using them, the test team can determine where the project is heading and whether there is any need for amendments.

It is a table, more like a worksheet containing all the information about the test cases to be used during the development phase. This document is significant in the entire software development process as the developers can refer to it from top to bottom to check the requirements and provide the relevant product. At the same time, the testing team can use it bottom to up to verify if the product meets all the requirements given by the client.
It is the first step of every project as it is essential to get the requirement document for the entire team to refer to and follow. It is also popularly known as RTM (requirement traceability matrix. This document covers test cases for every condition. The process for using this document is simple; the test engineer curates this worksheet and hands it over to the test lead. The test lead goes to the repository to verify the presence of a test case for every condition and consolidates and prepares another RTM document at the end.
Every requirement converts into a test case based on resource availability and business needs. If a test case is unavailable, either the specific was initially missing, or the team missed writing a test case. So, you know there can be a potential bug in that part, and there is room for improvements to meet the client's requirements.
Note: You can mention that the traceability matrix includes a test case against each requirement and not all possible test cases that verify them.

The idea behind your interviewer asking this question is to understand how well-versed you are with the responsibilities and the challenges. Let us give you the apt answer to such QA engineer interview questions.
There are many significant responsibilities that the QA team must fulfil. They must ensure that the end product is bug-free, meets all the technical and business requirements of the client, and a lot more. Thus, they require a thorough understanding of the project, processes that can lead to successful delivery and clarity of scenarios that can go wrong. Some of the challenges the quality assurance team can face are listed below.
Change in Requirements
One of the most common scenarios is the client changing the requirements while the project is already in development phase. While it is possible for the client to change needs when you work under agile methodology, it puts pressure on the test team. They would have to redo the entire test case sheet to accommodate the slightest change in the code, which is like added work and effort.
Inadequate or ambiguous requirements
If the requirement sheet is not clear and crisp, it will be a challenge for the team. The ambiguity creates confusion, and the team will never be sure about designing the apt test cases. It happens because even the user does not have clarity about what they want, and they leave it entirely to the project team to sort and understand their vision.
Lack of Experience
An inexperienced person working on the test cases or the test process is another challenge the quality assurance team faces. A lack of specific domain knowledge will lead to flaws in the requirement-gathering sheet, which eventually goes to poor or inappropriate test cases. This way, the entire project goes for a toss.
Miscommunication in Team
For a project to turn successful, the entire team must work collaboratively. The developers and the testers need efficient communication to find and rectify the bugs, ensuring that the final product is what the user intends. Thus, miscommunication within the team is another challenge that can mess things up.
These are the fundamental challenges that experts working in the QA domain might face. Field Understanding, thorough professionalism, relevant experience, and better communication skills can help cope with them conveniently.

 As the name indicates, it is an elaborate document related to objectives, strategies, scheduling, estimation, and more. Everybody on the team can use this document as a reference to do their part of the job and validate the software product under test. It is a blueprint monitored and controlled by the test managers where they put the information about the defined process that the test team would follow.

There is multiple test plan type based on the part of the project. Some of the common types are:

1. Production test plan: This test plan finds its use in the development or manufacturing phase. It includes information about how to put the product into the assembly, ensure its fitness and verify its quality.
2. Regression test plan: this document is for the already released products. This test plan help determines that no feature has got added or no bugs got identified after the final product delivery. It also serves in a similar way in case of upgraded products or after a software update.
3. Compliance test plan: It is a prototype to ensure that the end product complies with the set standards. It assures the success of the project once no further improvements possible.
4. Acceptance test plan: This test plan is for the phase after the end product gets delivered to the client. The idea is to ensure that it works the way the user wants, confirming the project's success.

Creating a test plan

It is also a task that requires utmost dedication, knowledge and experience. The simple steps one must follow to create a test plan are as follows:

• Analyzing the product carefully
• Designing a strategy
• Define the objectives behind each test
• Elaborate on the criteria for a test
• Plan the resources
• Elaborate on the required test environment
• Schedule the process
• Get a budget and time estimation
• Decide the deliverability

These steps make it convenient to design a plan for the tests for any phase of the process.

A test case is a set of constraints or conditions a software tester uses to ensure that the application works according to the user's requirements. It typically contains test names, conditions, expected results, and other relevant information. All possible scenarios (both positive and negative) get considered while designing a test case so the test team can get the expected results by merely following them.

Designing test cases

Designing a test case is a one-time process, but you can use it throughout the product development phase. The process begins after the client share detailed requirements about the end product they expect. The test engineers start creating a document including test cases for the testing process. Once they are ready with the essential papers, they share them with the team lead for review. After it gets handed over to the test team, they do not check the requirement sheet and only keep these test cases as a reference. The basic test case template looks like this:

• Header Section: The section includes test case Id, name, status, version, pre-conditions, summary and other things except for the actual steps and the reviews.
• Body Section: The body of a test case includes the step number, the description related to it, the expected result and the actual outcome. The table looks something like the one here:

Footer Section: The footer only includes the information related to the reviews, like who reviewed it and when.

Once you know what a test case includes, it gets convenient to design one. After that, you can follow the step-by-step process listed below to get on for your project.

Step1: System Study

You need to understand the system well and get clarity about expectations of end-users from the end product. Refer to the requirement sheet and the resource availability and ensure that you know the system thoroughly to write test cases for it.

Step2: Identify test scenarios

The next step is to identify all the positive and negative scenarios that the team must come across during the process. Understanding will move you closer to bug fixing and getting the desired product.

Step3: Write relevant test cases

Based on this information, design the relevant test cases that the team can use to approve the product.

Step4: Review your test cases

Once you have the test cases with you, the next thing is to get them reviews by the test lead and get the feedback for them.

Step5: Work on the reviews

Use this feedback to upgrade your test cases and keep doing the same until you get a perfect test case document.

Step6: Approval

Get the final approval from the lead and circulate the test case to the entire team for reference.

Test cases are the documents that include the procedures you should use to ensure every user requirement gets met in the end product. Each requirement in the SRS turns into a test case which the project team uses in the testing phase. The testing team puts in a lot of effort to write these test cases following a step-by-step process that includes:

• Understanding the requirements and the product under question
• Analyzing the test environment and keeping the constraints in mind
• Getting the test cases reviewed by the test lead

However, a few test cases may yield better results than others. It happens due to the effectiveness of the strategies, and a few tricks that can work are listed below.

• Keep things Simple

Keep the document simple and ensure your tone is directive. You should ensure that the instructions are straightforward, as multiple team members will use this document. It might also happen that the person designing the test case never uses it. So, it is essential to write it in the most uncomplicated manner.

• Focus on End-User

Keep your end user as your primary focus as the test case eventually has to reach their level of satisfaction. It is wise to focus on the secondary requirements that your end user stated.

• Avoid Repetition

The most common mistake that test engineers make is repetition! They write multiple test cases that eventually give the same results. It is nothing but a waste of time and resources. So, it is advisable you avoid repetition of any sort.

• Cover it All

It is wise to cover every requirement the user puts in front of the test cases. Check the SRS thoroughly to ensure that there is no requirement that you may not have turned into a test case.

• Avoid Assumptions

Never assume the requirements or misinterpret things. It may turn your test cases futile. Thus, get clarity from the client and then work on designing the test cases to inch closer to successful project delivery.

These tricks work for everyone wanting to write the best test cases to ensure project success. 

Quality Assurance is an elaborate process to ensure that the final product meets all the user requirements. The process starts when the user shares the requirements with the project team. It continues till the product gets delivered and up for use.

Quality Control, on the other hand, is a strategic approach to validating the quality of the end product. It is more like a remedial technique wherein; the team intends to find flaws and rectify them until they believe no bug is left.

The table below gives interesting differences between Quality Assurance and Quality Control.

It is a testing practice that uses data stored in tabular or spreadsheet format. The scripts are available in readable data files rather than complex codes. It enables testers to carry out multiple tests for all the test data inputs in the table and expect results in the same table. It makes things uncomplicated and less time-consuming.

Example of data-driven testing

Assume that you must check the login system that has more than one input field for over 100 data sets. You can do it in multiple ways, like creating 100 scripts. Create one for each data set and run the test one by one for all of them. Secondly, you can manually change the test script values and run the test several times. However, data-driven testing can ease things for you. All you need to do is import the data from excel worksheets, fetch the information one by one and execute the script.

This way, you save yourself a lot of time and effort. Hence, it is wise to say that data-driven testing is a better approach in multiple ways. Let us discuss some of the advantages of this technique for better clarity.

Advantages of data-driven testing

• It enables you to design test scripts at an early development stage.
• You get rid of the redundancy or unnecessary duplication of the test scripts
• Less amount of code that uncomplicated things a lot.
• Provide application maintenance flexibility.

All the information required to get stored in the seamlessly managed text records that are easily accessible.

 Bug identification is a significant aspect of the software development cycle. The bugs often get identified by the testers or the end user, but who identifies them makes a big difference. Depending on who encountered the bug and at which level decides which attribute gets associated with it. The two attributes used to signify these bugs are severity and priority.

Severity is the impact a bug has on the development or operational phase of a component. The testing lead decides the severity or degree of the bug's impact after checking how it can affect the product functionalities and operations. Bug severity gets categorized into the following types:

Critical

It is the bug due to which the software has stopped working abruptly. Whether the tester has reached a level where he cannot execute any test operation or the user cannot use any product functionality. These bugs are critical as they need to get fixed immediately for the product to operate well.

Minor

It is a level where functionality is fine, but the desired standards do not get met. For example, the software operations are working fine, but the user interface needs a change. There is enough time to deal with these bugs, as there is no urgency.

Major

It is when some parts of a few functionalities are not up to the mark, but the software has not stopped working. It is a critical issue but not significant enough to be dealt with immediately.

Low

The valid yet harmless defects like spelling mistakes fall under the low severity category. You can fix them as and when without any urgency.

If you face a severe bug, it is urgent to fix it before it damages the product or earns a poor reputation for the organization. That is where the concept of priority comes into existence.

Priority defines how urgently or how soon you need to fix the bug. It can vary for different products, depending on the bug you identify. Hence, it is a subjective aspect, and it gets categorized as follows:

High

These bugs are urgent and need to get fixed on priority. High priority means the time you have for resolving them is low, and the designated team should act upon it at once.

Medium

The defects that have no direct impact on the business fall under the medium priority. The team need to fix them soon, but not as soon as the high-priority defects.

Low

These are the defects that are of the least priority. It means you can take as much time as you want to fix them as they do not cause any significant damage to the software or the user.

These are the bug priority categories, and a tester decides in which category the defect falls to find a solution for it. For better clarity, refer to the differences mentioned in the table below.

 These two testing types fall under performance testing and software testing. One is to check if the software or the product is working fine under various circumstances, while the other help verifies the reliability and stability factor of a system.

Load Testing falls under the performance testing category, where the system’s performance gets assessed under real-life circumstances. For example, the testers check how the software under question would behave under high network traffic and under real-life scenarios.

The table below states the fundamental differences between the two.

The life cycle is a journey, and so is the bug life cycle. It is the journey of a defect from getting identified to getting fixed at the end. The process following which an organization finds a flaw and rectifies it may vary. It varies for different projects as no two bugs are identical, and their rectifying procedures are also different.

Any bug detected by the team goes through a series of phases before it gets fixed. The process that the bug goes through includes the following steps.

1. New

It is when a bug gets identified during the testing phase or by the end user. This newly identified bug gets assigned the status NEW.

2. Assigned

It is the phase of bug identification by the tester and gets assigned as a task to an expert. The experts in the developer team with relevant experienced get the job.

3. Open

In the open phase, the bug gets opened, and the developers start working towards fixing them.

4. Fixed

Once the developer feels like he has found and fixed the issue, it travels to a fixed state and goes to the testing team again.

5.Re-Test

Once the testing team runs different software tests to verify whether the bug has got fixed or not, it is the re-test phase.

6. Verified/closed

If the tests run successfully, it gets verified that the bug doesn’t exist, and the task gets closed. However, if the tester needs more information, he can ask for it before closing the bug project.

7. Re-opened Phase

If even a few of the tests are unsuccessful, the testing team sends it back to the developer, and they reopen the bug to fix it. This process continues until the bug gets fixed and the product is good to go into the market again.

Every bug goes through this same phase before it gets fixed, and the system is good to use for the end user.

Software testing is an essential part of the development phase, and it has to be successful to ensure the efficiency of the software. The team designs the test plans they will run through to ensure the end product meets all user requirements. They make sure to do enough test runs to leave no stone unturned in verifying the efficiency of the software. Tips to ensure you have done enough tests.
Ensure that every requirement turns into a test case and you have a test run for every feature. If you miss out on any, it may lead to an unidentified bug.
Avoid falling into the kitchen trap! Do not focus on running multiple tests for the same feature. It may take up a lot of time, and the team may miss out on the crucial ones to save time. So, set priorities and focus on quality tests.
Keep your test budget and deadlines in mind while planning the tests and stick to them religiously.
Make sure you go through the list of potential bugs and scenarios that can go wrong and run a test to verify them before passing the software with a green tick.
The fundamental idea is to know what ‘enough’ is for a particular project and decide the test runs accordingly. An experienced tester would always know about it, and there are negligible chances of them messing with the testing part.

 Testing, like every other phase of the entire product development and delivery process, requires some elements to be successful. These elements have specific utilities in the software testing process, and all of them are super crucial. Two such elements are Stubs and Drivers. Let us dig deeper and discuss them in detail.

1. Stubs

These are the elements that developers design to use in place of the modules. They come in handy if the modules are unavailable or not designed during development stage. The stubs will have all the information about modules missing and often get used when the lower-level modules are unavailable.

Stubs get divided into four categories in the top-down approach of incremental. These are as listed below.

One that elaborates the trace message

Category that exhibits the parameter value

One that returns the consistent values which the module handles

Category that returns specific values of the parameters utilized by the testing components.

2. Drivers

These elements work like the stubs but have a bottom-up approach in the integration testing. They help when the specific module during the testing procedure is unavailable. Other than this, the drivers come in handy when there are two interdependent modules, out of which one is partially ready. Now, if you want to test the component that is ready, the drivers can help in place of the other module, which is only partially available.

For Example: assume that you have a website with multiple modules like login, the home page, product page and more. Now a few modules are ready while the others are not. However, each module is dependent on the other. So, if you want to test one module, say the homepage, the driver for the product page can help until the other one is ready. Some of the common differences between the drivers are the stubs listed below in the table.

It often happens that there is a large software suite, but you have no time left to check or test each module as thoroughly as you want. Even if you have your test cases ready, it might get challenging to put them all to the test for unavoidable reasons. In such cases, the right thing to do would be to prioritise the tasks. You can create a priority list rating the tests from highly significant to least important. It will solve time or budget constraints, and you can only run the most vital tests.
Moreover, you can also ask your client to share a list of priorities with you based on the tasks they consider significant to test. So, you can run a test for those, ensuring the features and functionalities that are vital for your client get tested thoroughly. Moreover, you can decide to deliver the software after selective testing and do the rest of the software testing afterwards. This way, you can save some time and ensure timely software delivery without compromising its quality. Furthermore, you can test the rest of the functionalities late during the process to ensure you even verify the lesser significant features.

software testing is to check and ensure that the software works as expected and matches all the requirements mentioned in the SRS. However, there can be invalid inputs or unexpected user behaviours. For example, what happens if somebody puts the wrong password or inputs the wrong values? The site has to notify it and only accept the inputs when they are valid. It comes under negative testing. It helps identify all the possible scenarios where the user puts invalid information without the website crashing.

There are different types of negative testing scenarios. These are:

• Checking the website response when the user doesn’t fill in the required data fields. The test run ensures that the website doesn’t move forward unless these fields get filled with valid inputs.
• Tests to ensure that the user puts in the allowed number of characters. You must have seen that the password requires a minimum of 8 letters. The website doesn’t move forward until you input the required number of letters in the columns.
• Test to confirm that the web session behaves in an expected manner. For example, if you need to log in before accessing a particular page, the test helps verify that nobody can move forward without proper login.
• The data you put needs to be reasonable. For example, you cannot put the number zero in the column that asks you to enter your age! It also gets confirmed through negative testing.

Basically, all these tests that execute to confirm and condemn all the negative inputs the user might put come under negative testing.

There are various categories in software testing based on the techniques used and the software under test. Some of the types are as listed below.

1. Unit Testing

As the name suggests, it is a technique that you use to test the smallest piece of code. The test experts isolate the logical code unit and check it individually. The test unit you isolate can be anything, from class or method to any line of the code. As the units are smaller, your test speed increases and you are able to run multiple tests in a shorter time span. Once every chunk of code verifies, the entire project either gets accepted or moves to another testing process.

2. Integration and Regression testing

Once the test team gets assurance that every unit you isolated is working fine, the technique they use is integration and regression testing. Integration tests get performed on the entire process rather than the individual units. On the other hand, the regression testing mechanism comes to play after every change in the software product. Whenever there is a change or an upgrade in the software system, the test team performs the regression test to confirm that everything goes well.

3. FunctionalTesting

This software testing mechanism assures that the functions or operations of the end product meet the requirements mentioned in the SRS. The test team performs a test for its functionality and verifies it only if the process completes successfully. It only focuses on checking the functions. There are no tests to check the user interface, database, APIs or other aspects associated with the software.

4.Smoke Testing

It is a quick and rapid regression test that gets performed only to confirm to the quality assurance team that they can continue with the further steps. The team gets notified if the deployed software shows any flaws or errors during the smoke testing. They follow these alerts and immediately plan to fix the flaws. If you follow a hierarchy, smoke testing comes right before functional testing.

5. Performance Testing

As the name suggests, this testing technique is to verify the performance of the software delivered. The team checks the speed, reliability, response time, usage of resources and other factors related to the end product performance. They need to ensure that the system responds on time and with the expected outputs to consider it flawless and proceed towards the end of the testing process.

These are the five categories in software testing, and other than this, you have load testing, stress testing, system testing and shakeout testing. One has to know every detail about all these options to understand which testing type would be apt for their goals.

Note: It is one of the most frequently asked QA engineer interview questions that almost every interviewer would ask. You would have to answer the question and back it with facts that prove your point.
There are many test metrics involved in the software testing process, including defect recognition, leakage, removal and re-test. Which test metric is significant for you to depend on your testing goals; it can be the bug finding rate or the efficiency at which the testing technique performs. To answer this question, you can say that test efficiency is the most vital metric.
The efficiency of any testing method is the most vital factor as it will decide whether the end product is ready as per the requirements or not. Moreover, if the test is inefficient, many errors may go unnoticed, and you may deliver a substandard product to the end user. It will not only affect their experience but will earn a poor reputation for your company. Hence, it is vital that the test technique you choose offers the best results and leave no bug unnoticed or unattended.
For some people, test cases can also be a significant metric as it ensures that every requirement gets verified through a test. If there is a missing test case, you may miss out on checking that particular functionality and approve the end product with the errors. Thus, it will affect the software quality and consume a lot of time as the user will identify the flaw and ask you to work on it again and fix the flaws.
Similarly, the significant test metric for a test engineer can vary for various reasons. Hence, an appropriate answer for this question would vary. It is based on the project you are working on and the primary objectives of the test.

The interviewers generally include this in test lead interview questions with an aim to figure out if the person is capable of handling the issues. They do want to know your technical call on this issue but also want to test your interpersonal skills. You should personalize your answer based on your personal ideas and thought process. However, you can refer to the sample answer below.d
Sample Answer: If I face a test issue, I will start by analyzing the error identified and re-run the tests I previously performed. If it still shows that the software is working fine, I may plan new tests with newer test cases to identify the flaw and its root cause. I will also keep the test environment in mind, and if the need persists, I will seek guidance from my supervisor.
Apart from this, I will also work on maintaining my calm and handling the situation without creating undue panic. I will ensure that I look into it as a challenge and solve it strategically rather than building anxieties that do nothing but affect my performance. Moreover, if there is a team I am working in, I would also ensure that everyone else looks into the situation based on facts and do all it takes to fix the issue.

During the testing process, the people involved generate documents and scripts that include every detail of the test process. You will find information about the inputs, expected results, requirements of the end user, test script, databases and other software details. This information is called testware and is also popularly known as a testing tool.
These documents are essential. It is a good practice because the entire team can use them. Anyone joining the project in the middle can refer to the testware and get a hold of the tasks before making a contribution. It might sound like a general software document, but it is entirely different. Factors that make it different are:
Testers develop this document only for a specific purpose.
The metrics in this document differ in quality and are focused on the end-user requirements.
So, in a nutshell, you can call it a document having all the prerequisites to perform the tests on the software under question. Additionally, it has the results or the responses recorded while performing the tests.

The software testing or QA domain has seen drastic changes in the last decade. Organizations are ditching the traditional waterfall model and opting for the agile methodology. The reason for the shift is obvious; it takes less time, offers better efficiency and gives results that are reliable. Moreover, over the period, enormous test tools got introduced into the market, each offering something better. Any test engineer would have to consider multiple factors to choose a tool that would be apt as per his requirements. So, the criteria that these experts can follow are as listed below.

1.  Ease of Use

The primary factor that you should keep in mind is the complexity involved in using the software. It should have a supportive user interface that a test engineer can use conveniently. Moreover, it should be easy to learn so that any engineer can adapt to it without wasting time.

1.  End-to-End Traceability

It should be convenient to trace back the tasks that happened in a test process until the point of checking. Moreover, traceability should be bi-directional as it will increase the project efficiency and confirms the end product quality.

1.  Real-Time Report

A tool is efficient and excellent for use only if it allows you to create real-time reports and provides current graphs on the dashboard. If the interactions depend on manual processes, there are chances of flaws, which will impact the end product quality. At the same time, if you get real-time reports, studying the test efficiency gets easier.

1.  Automation Support

Automation is essential and not only a choice in this fast-moving competitive market. Hence, you need software tools that automate multiple tasks and save time, money and resources. It can be related to capturing the test results or generating scripts or reports automatically that the team working on the testing tasks can use.

1.  Integration and Test Process

The integration between testing and delivery should be seamless to contribute to the business growth. Thus, choose the testing tool with the capability of getting integrated conveniently and working in sync with the other test tools in the entire process to get the best results.

Considering these factors and using them as the selection criteria, you can conveniently find the best testing tool to check and complete the software.

The quality analysis emphasizes maintaining quality at every step throughout the process. From gathering the client requirements to handling the final product, everything has to happen with perfection for it to qualify the QA standards. Let us talk about resource allocation. A quality analyst would ensure that everyone gets what they require to turn the project successful, but there is no wastage at the same time.
Hence, the right time to start the quality analysis is as early in the project as possible. Once you have the requirement sheet and have planned how you would want to proceed with the project, it is the right time to bring the quality analyst into the picture. They can start with resource allocation and ensure quality throughout the process for a successful and timely delivery. Moreover, there are plenty of benefits that you can enjoy if you bring them into action at an early stage in the process.
You wouldn’t have to face requirement mismatches as the analyst will ensure that the team works according to the SRS document.
There will be no resource wastage in the name of quality as the analyst ensures every project step gets as much as needed.
You can save yourself from revising things repeatedly due to the quality flaws as you can take care of it on the go!
Thus, after the plan is ready and you are about to begin execution, the time is right for a quality analyst to jump in and start doing his job!