Tester Questions

Do you have a smartphone, what’s your favorite app? How would you test it?
Tell me about your favorite bug that you found and reported.
What are the benefits of an exploratory approach to software testing? Downsides?
Where do test cases fit into your typical project lifecycle in an agile project in the client services world?
Where does design fit into your test coverage strategy? How do you work with designers?
Do you have any view on QA versus QC versus Test nomenclature?
Oh, you found a bug! What is the ideal lifecycle of a bug you just observed?
Where do your test ideas come from?
What makes a good tester? Are you a good tester? What’s the biggest challenge in being a tester?
When you hire testers, what do you look for? Why?
Why do we test? Why doesn’t Dev just do that? Or the client? What is the value?
How should the development team handle test coverage? How much Unit/etc testing coverage do you expect from the dev team?
How do you know when you are Done testing a feature? A pull request? A project?
Do you prefer more bugs filed or better bugs filed? why?
What is testability? How do you advocate for testability on a project?
If the PM expects you to “test the build” before it goes out to the client every day, what do you do with it?
What kinds of technical debt does a software tester incur? How would you refactor your testing efforts or output?

How do you communicate your testing progress over the course of a project?
Tell me about collaboration with other testers. When/why/how.
You’re filing bugs that aren’t making it into the sprint, at the next sprint planning meeting, they don’t get brought in from the backlog, what do you do?
Does your team/PM/etc know what your role is/what you do? How? Problems?
What kinds of documentation would you produce as a tester?
Your Project manager wants you to create a test plan but it’s not a deliverable, what do you do?
Bugs/enhancements you encounter but know are out of scope, do file them anyway?
How do you assist in managing scope creep? What if your cases get triaged into a sprint but you know they are out of scope?
A dev is asking you to write unit or UI tests, how do you respond?

When there is nothing to test at the beginning of a project, what do you spend your time on?
How do you test your own testing efforts?
Project is overtime and budget, you’ve got 40 resolved cases to validate, your own backlog of things you want to look at, the client is filing about 25 new bugs a day, they want to ship the app friday, it is wednesday, you are asked to test an RC candidate, what do you do? What’s your first move? And then?
Can you tell me about a particularly toxic/buggy/troubled/deathmarch project that you helped turn around in some way?
A majority number of bugs you file come back to you after a fix and you have found the changes to be be mostly insufficient, what do you do? How? Why?
In reviewing mockups/designs they do not include UX/motion/interaction or indications about behavior, how do you figure out the intended behavior?
How do you know when you are in over your head and need assistance? Who would you ask (test dept or manager or dev team or ?)
How would you handle lack of sufficient test devices?
How do you test a mobile app that’s API is in active development also?
How empowered do you feel/are you to change and address problems as they arise?
Your PM says VO support is out of scope but VO is part of the company's internal Quality Standards, what do you do?

When you researched our company, what did you find?
Why are you a tester?
What kinds of goals do you set for yourself as a tester?
You’re told to focus on crashers only, no feature/functional/etc testing, what do you do/test?
How do you handle usability issues that fit requirements but you find troublesome?
How do you know what to test and when?
Have you heard the phrase “break software” how do you feel about that?
What are good test interview questions that I have not asked you but should?

What testing courses, trainings, seminars have you been to?
How do you stay current with development and platform technologies?
How do you share your knowledge with the test community at large?
Are you on any well known beta groups or open source projects contributing in any way?
Do you think you would be more of a leader coaching other team members or more in a learning position seeking perhaps a mentor?
How would you contribute to the test org at large? Is team building important to you?
Many people do testing as a stepping stone elsewhere (PM, design, development, management, etc) is testing that for you? If so, where are you headed. How can you meet your goals while also functioning well in your current role?

How can you ensure your testing meets what a customer would expect? How do you keep the end user in mind?
What do you really think of agile/scrum/kanban? Is it important to you?
Can you speak to your expectations as a tester from the IT/DevOps/Operations dept/people?
How do you manage state modeling in your testing?
Do you have any experience in the build/deploy/release cycles? Interest?
Your PM tells you to go through the backlog and add testing hours to each feature case on file, how do you approach this?
Are you comfortable hopping around Pull Request and feature/fix branches in Git?
How do you contrive test data? How do you manage it/etc. Are you comfortable fiddling with JSON and serving it to the app yourself?
Where does combinatorial testing fit into testing of a mobile web app?
Tell me about security bugs you look for or have found.
In what context would you use Git bisect in your testing efforts?
Does Swift/Kotlin/Node interest you at all? Is there anything in the new Android Studio/Xcode/etc that excites you?
How do you test localization, internationalization?
Do you prefer Native, Web or Hybrid? Have you done desktop testing? Any windows experience?
What is your experience with accessibility testing?

smariapena/tester-questions.md