DEV Community: taniazhydkova

The Ultimate List of QA Interview Questions to Secure Your Dream Job

taniazhydkova — Tue, 04 Apr 2023 13:07:42 +0000

Do you want to give yourself an edge in an upcoming job interview? Then it’s a good idea to prepare for some tricky questions that might come your way. What follows are some interview questions that are likely to be asked:

1. Walk me through the process you would follow to create and implement a test plan for a complex software system.

I thought it would be more helpful to illustrate it visually, so I came up with an infographic:

2. Define exploratory testing and explain in what situations you would utilise this approach.

Exploratory testing is a different approach to the traditional testing process. Instead of having a predefined plan, a tester explores the application to identify issues and potential defects throughout the test.

There are several instances where exploratory testing would be helpful:

There are new testers in the project
You need to minimise test script writing
New features should be tested
The user experience should be tested

3. How do you test a complex API involving multiple endpoints and integrations?

Understand its requirements and specifications
Plan performance, security, and scalability tests you would normally use when testing an API
Create test cases that cover endpoints and integrations, including positive and negative scenarios
Design tests to validate API functionality
Use advanced QA testing tools to automate the API testing process

4. How would you measure the effectiveness of your testing efforts?

The defect detection rate is an important metric as it measures the number of defects identified during testing in comparison to those discovered during production. A higher detection rate signifies a more thorough and comprehensive testing process.
Test coverage refers to the proportion of code or functionality that has been tested. A higher test coverage rate reduces the risk of encountering costly unexpected bugs during production.
Test case efficiency focuses on the ratio of successful tests to the total runs. High efficiency means you have well-designed and well-executed test cases.
Customer satisfaction is crucial when measuring your effectiveness; testing processes are no exception. Higher customer satisfaction shows that the software’s performance is good. That certainly means good QA.

You can find 8 more metrics for QA process measuring via the link.

5. Describe your approach to testing a mobile application that must function on various platforms and devices.

Choose a framework that supports testing on multiple devices and platforms
Set up the testing environment
Create a test plan
Develop and execute test scripts
Analyse the results

6. How would you identify and mitigate possible vulnerabilities in security testing?
1)Conduct a thorough security assessment of the application

2) Use automated and manual techniques to identify possible vulnerabilities

3) Prioritise potentially the most impactful vulnerabilities

4) Develop a plan to tackle each one of these vulnerabilities

5) Test the results of the mitigation measures, see if they addressed the vulnerabilities well

6) Run security tests regularly to be aware of the possible security issues you might have in the future

7. How do you decide if a bug is severe enough to block the release?
The release should include the following factors:

The impact of the bug on the functionality
The bug’s occurrence frequency
The bug’s effect on the end user’s experience
Reproducibility of the bug
Data loss or security vulnerabilities caused by the bug
Brand impact of the bug
If the bug appears too often and affects the critical aspects mentioned above, you can consider delaying the release.

8. Have you ever faced a situation where QA was not given enough time to test a product properly? If so, how did you handle it?

When planning a testing schedule, it’s essential to consider all risks associated with inadequate test coverage. If a risk is realised during testing, you can negotiate with stakeholders for more time or resources to complete the testing process and to explain the dangers of limited testing.

9. How do you ensure efficient testing in a large-scale enterprise environment?

Using an enterprise testing tool can help in this case. It allows for:

Centralised management of testing processes
Automated test execution
Comprehensive reporting abilities
A better streamlining of testing efforts
Consistent and high-quality results

10. How do you make sure that the test cases you write are thorough?

I am sure I am following these crucial steps:

Review the requirements and specifications of the software
Identify various scenarios (both positive and negative) and create test cases for each requirement
Prioritise the test cases based on their importance
Review the cases and their prioritisation with the QA lead/PO to ensure that the test coverage is complete

Find out more, for example, what kind of strategy should be implemented to develop and execute a test plan for a complex software system in the blog post.

If you want to follow my testing learning journey, follow the “

Software Testing Talks” groups I created on Reddit and Linkedin. I share the most interesting QA discussions I find on the web and insights I get during testing work and studies there.

I am also happy to hear your feedback, suggestions, or ideas about what you would like me to write more about. Don’t hesitate to text me if you want to say hi or discuss something.

Which tool using GPT-4 API do you think is the best?

taniazhydkova — Thu, 23 Mar 2023 12:19:03 +0000

Since ChatGPT-4 went live, the tech world has been buzzing with a new wave of innovation. My AI bot by Snapchat, GrammarlyGO, Bing by Microsoft, Roleplay by Duolingo and more new tools or features have been released by different companies.

Which one do you think is the most prominent?

Follow these 10 QA influencers to boost your testing career

taniazhydkova — Mon, 20 Mar 2023 12:52:36 +0000

Twitter has proven to be a powerful tool for sharing ideas, prompting action, and facilitating professional conversations. Following quality assurance leaders will let you stay connected to the broader tech community, which can help them identify new opportunities for collaboration and innovation.

Here are the 10 influencers for you to check out.

Martin Fowler @martinfowler
Martin Fowler is the Chief Scientist at ThoughtWorks and the author of Patterns of Enterprise Application Architecture and Refactoring: Improving the Design of Existing Code. His writing has been instrumental in shaping the field of software engineering, and he continues to teach through his blog with the latest QA thoughts and experiences.
Angie Jones @techgirl1908
Angie is a prominent senior automation engineer with over 20 patents on her CV. She’s a vocal advocate for women in tech and has spent the last decade challenging gender stereotypes in the workplace and at home.
James Bach @jamesmarcusbach
James is the Co-Founder of Rapid Software Testing methodology and author of Secrets of a Buccaneer-Scholar, known for his contributions to the software testing community and advocacy for critical thinking and scepticism.
Lisa Crispin @lisacrispin
Lisa Crispin is an Agile testing coach and author of Agile Testing. As an experienced coach, facilitator, public speaker and trainer, she focuses on helping teams become more effective by learning new skills and improving their practices.
Richard Bradshaw @friendlytester
Richard is a software-testing thought leader and community builder. He founded Ministry of Testing, an online community dedicated to raising software testing quality worldwide with in-depth talks, workshops and conferences.
Maaret Pyhäjärvi @maaretp
Maaret Pyhäjärvi is a well-known software testing expert and trainer with over two decades of experience in the field. A consultant at her own company F-Secure, where she specialises in exploratory testing, test automation and continuous testing, Maaret’s expertise has been recognised with several industry awards.
Myke Talks @TestSheepNZ
The best people know how to sound smart while holding onto their beliefs and values. These are the words of Myke, a test automation consultant and trainer known for his practical and actionable advice on tooling.
Ash Coleman @AshColeman30
Ash is a test automation engineer who advocates for diversity and inclusion in tech. A first-class citizen in software development, she calls for better inclusivity in tech and makes it happen.
Alan Page @alanpage
Alan is the Vice President for Engineering Services at Unity and author of The Art of Unit Testing. He is passionate about improving testing practices, and helping teams deliver high-quality software.
Michael Bolton @michaelbolton
Michael is the Co-Founder of Rapid Software Testing who has written many articles and books on software testing. He is also a regular speaker at international software testing conferences.

Following QA influencers is essential for staying updated and informed about the latest trends, best practices, and tools in software testing. While Twitter is an excellent platform for quick updates and insights, it’s just one of the many platforms where these experts share their knowledge and experiences.

Discover 17 more QA leaders in my blog post.

If you want to follow my testing learning journey, follow the “Software Testing Talks” groups I created on Reddit and Linkedin. I share the most interesting QA discussions I find on the web and insights I get during testing work and studies there.

I am also happy to hear your feedback, suggestions, or ideas about what you would like me to write more about. Don’t hesitate to text me if you want to say hi or discuss something.

Meme time

taniazhydkova — Tue, 14 Mar 2023 12:38:42 +0000

Just try not to think about it

Automate your testing with new aqua AI

taniazhydkova — Mon, 13 Mar 2023 15:13:46 +0000

Hey, community!

My team and I have been working on something important for all the testers out there, and I am happy to announce this.

AI test creation features are live and available for all aqua users (including free trials)!🔥

And now, with the help of AI tech, it will be possible to:

Auto-create test descriptions
Auto-create test steps
Create a whole test case from a requirement

I believe it is a game-changer for manual testing that will allow us to work faster and more efficiently.🙌

You can try it for free by starting a 30-day trial at aqua 👉 https://aqua-cloud.io/ai-in-aqua/

If you are going to try it, please contact me afterwards. We worked hard to make this technology happen, and it would be great to hear your feedback!

New aqua AI

taniazhydkova — Mon, 13 Mar 2023 15:11:45 +0000

Hey, community!

My team and I have been working on something important for all the testers out there, and I am happy to announce this.

AI test creation features are live and available for all aqua users (including free trials)!🔥

And now, with the help of AI tech, it will be possible to:

Auto-create test descriptions
Auto-create test steps
Create a whole test case from a requirement

I believe it is a game-changer for manual testing that will allow us to work faster and more efficiently.🙌

You can try it for free by starting a 30-day trial at aqua 👉 https://aqua-cloud.io/ai-in-aqua/

If you are going to try it, please contact me afterwards. We worked hard to make this technology happen, and it would be great to hear your feedback!

9 trends changing continuous delivery and release automation

taniazhydkova — Fri, 10 Mar 2023 14:05:58 +0000

The continuous delivery model is a continuous delivery model of software development that makes it possible to release new functionality or bug fixes on the internet at any time. In the past, releases were planned, set in stone, and could not respond to customer needs at an acceptable speed.

Check out some continuous delivery trends to tweak your entire development for the best:

1. Cyber shield
Cyber shield is a critical component of any continuous delivery pipeline. It ensures that the software delivered to customers is free from security vulnerabilities and complies with industry standards. A robust cyber shield is essential for maintaining the integrity and trust of the continuous delivery pipeline and protecting the organisation and its customers from potential security threats.

Unlock better security testing with aqua.

2. CI/CD principles
Continuous Delivery differs from traditional software development by optimizing the entire delivery process. It requires you to think about automation, testability and continuous integration. And that’s just for starters. Here are the key components:

Modularising your code means building and deploying microservices independently without worrying about disrupting the entire system.
**Focus on APIs **enhances efficiency by providing a simpler way to integrate tools, making it much easier to automate the delivery process.
Version control allows collaboration between different developers and helps with rollbacks, fixes, and the ability to revert to a previous version in case of problems.

3. Dynamic pipelines
In today’s fast-moving world, developers want to make changes quickly and without restrictions. Unfortunately, this only sometimes works in the right way. That’s why it’s essential to create a safety net that can be used to test and deploy changes safely. Dynamic pipelines can be implemented in various ways, such as through conditional statements, programmatic control of pipeline stages, or data-driven pipeline configuration.

4. Self-serve developer environments
Self-serve developer environments are quickly becoming a critical component of Continuous Delivery. They make environment creation and management faster but also help reduce the risk of early errors affecting the end product. Auto-deploying these environments enables developers to focus on writing code rather than setting up a dev environment for testing.

5. Everything as code
“Everything as Code” is about automating everything and configuring it with the same tools used to build the application. All aspects of coding are managed through version control systems: configs, tests and infrastructure. This enables operations engineers to get more visibility into code and test failures to resolve issues quickly, thus reducing the number of manual errors and increasing software delivery speed.

The future of software development is one of continuous delivery, where developers can continuously deploy code and make changes to their applications in real-time.

Read about 4 other trends in continuous delivery and release automation via: https://aqua-cloud.io/continous-delivery-release-automation-trends/

I am also happy to hear your feedback, suggestions, or ideas about what you would like me to write more about. Don’t hesitate to text me if you want to say hi or discuss something.

What part of your job would you give to AI to test faster?

taniazhydkova — Wed, 01 Mar 2023 14:28:21 +0000

Release management: How to not get it wrong

taniazhydkova — Wed, 01 Mar 2023 13:51:05 +0000

Release management is more than just a process. It’s a way of streamlining the entire product lifecycle — from development to deployment. It’s about managing the whole process of updating and maintaining software on multiple environments.

So how can you get started?
Release management is an essential aspect of software development and delivery. It involves managing code handover from devs to QA (and back if needed), testing, potential DevOps release management activities, and actual deployment.

Here are some reasons to formalise your release management lifecycle.

Release control is a fundamental process that improves stability and reliability. It’s good for your business and employees to get it right. A formal checklist that you can tick off keeps everyone focused on the most important tasks, helps to know where risks are and asks probing questions about every detail.
Without proper release management, you may want to see what the first 10% off users think of new functionality before going through with it. Controlled feature rollout is a beautiful way to bring a new feature to market in a controlled environment. When you can’t build and maintain multiple releases, you create a controlled user experience by rolling out features slowly according to specific criteria.
Release history is a great asset, even if your company is not required to have one. It simplifies potential internal audits, provides the data to improve your software development, and gives the means to quickly identify malicious or negligent updates. The release history helps an organisation track previously implemented functionality to improve it by identifying possible issues before releasing updates.
Security is a significant consideration for implementing release control. It’s important to note that most sabotage attempts happen within big software companies, not smaller ones. The reason is simple: someone catches potentially hazardous code. While those in the industry are familiar with this, many companies don’t have a process.
A release management system helps you meet the timeline of your project. It ensures that the product development process is collaborative and well-planned so that you can create great releases on time. An Agile methodology demands that a new build be released on time, so setting up release control using the Kanban board is easy. Try aqua — an ALM solution for Agile release management.

Learn more about the advantages of releasing on demand, its best practices and approaches in our blog post.

I am also happy to hear your feedback, suggestions, or ideas about what you would like me to write more about. Don’t hesitate to text me if you want to say hi or discuss something.

New aqua AI features

taniazhydkova — Fri, 24 Feb 2023 14:56:19 +0000

aqua, a test management tool, is releasing something fascinating this March - aqua's new AI features.

Dig deeper and find out how AI will streamline the testing process and reduce the manual efforts for QA via: https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7034892280805105664

Become our client and be the first to experience aqua AI👉 https://aqua-cloud.io/

5 best practices for establishing a performance testing strategy

taniazhydkova — Fri, 17 Feb 2023 12:40:23 +0000

Your testing strategy may look great on paper. But how can you be sure it will provide accurate real-life results? In this article, I’ll share the most important aspects to consider when designing your performance test strategy.

Start testing early
If you are working on a live service product, you probably won’t have the resources to simultaneously add features and rewrite a flawed solution. Good quality assurance always starts early. The primary reason is the cost of late testing.

Your QA team may identify serious flaws that are near- or outright architecture-level problems. Such issues will be complex, if not impossible, to fix, requiring awkward workarounds or even a project reboot.

Pick your metrics
It’s easy to tell whether your app is good or not. If it loads things fast and doesn’t crash, it’s great. A software performance testing strategy, however, has nuances and thus needs to be more detailed especially for SaaS applications.

Stability metrics are important to include even if you aren’t expecting a lot of traffic. Parameters such as Peak Response Time, Throughput and Bandwidth should also be included — all of which indicate the health of your application. And naturally, Uptime is the most important metric — even if you’re running an online flower shop with 10 daily visitors

Build a testing software suite
The only way to make sure that your app is as excellent as it can be is to push it to its limits. It should perform flawlessly, even under high loads, and be free from bugs. Performance testing helps you achieve this, but it’s not easy.

You need a powerful platform capable of running tests 24/7 and collecting data about performance. This information will enable you to optimize your application’s user experience, functionality and security before the launch date.

Organise your tests
It might be time to change if you’re struggling to have a clear overview of all your tests. Your testing strategy should be more than just a list of random test cases each team member throws together on a whim. You can establish a sustainable process that allows you and your team to grow and thrive.

Establishing a good test management routine is just one half of the equation: you must follow it. Use test management software with workflow functionality to streamline your testing process, or look into service desk–style solutions and build a structure based on clear roles and responsibilities.

Ask your users
It is amazing that your users can quickly pick the size of the shoes they are about to order, but they had most likely filtered by size in the first place.

When working with limited resources, it may be better to drive the performance testing effort and developer’s time for optimisation elsewhere.

I am also happy to hear your feedback, suggestions, or ideas about what you would like me to write more about. Don’t hesitate to text me if you want to say hi or discuss something.

What will be the next QA trend?

taniazhydkova — Wed, 15 Feb 2023 15:29:56 +0000