Table of Contents
Why Join in Qualcomm as a Test Engineer
Here are the top five reasons why you should consider a career in test engineering:
Get Creative
This might not be the first word that comes to mind when you imagine the role of a test engineer. However, you need to be innovative when testing a software application. A good software tester must think like a customer and understand all the possible problems they may have while using the software. This includes studying the latest trends, analyzing various phases of the software, and then presenting the findings to developers to improve the overall quality of the product.
Constant Learning
No two days are the same in the Test Engineer role. As a buffer between the user and the new product, you have the opportunity to use and test the latest technologies before anyone else. You can test software for websites, mobile apps or content management systems. This presents a constant and ongoing opportunity to learn.
Various Pathways
Almost every sector that uses software needs a test engineer. From banking to retail, testers are deployed in a variety of industries and roles. You can choose from manual testing, performance testing, automated testing which provides multiple path options.
It’s Challenging
If you’re someone who enjoys challenges and solving complex problems, a career as a test engineer might be right for you. Every new software is different and brings different problems. This requires looking at products from different angles and adopting a new approach to testing each time.
High Demand
Companies hire software testers in various industries, so the demand for testers is constant. Software testers play a vital role in the software development lifecycle – ensuring that each new product meets optimal quality standards. So the demand for skill testing is high and ongoing.
Qualcomm Test Engineer Interview Preparation Tips
1: What is software testing?
Here are some tips to prepare for a test engineer interview:
- Understand the basics: Learn about testing basics such as types, methodologies and SDLC.
- Practice: Practice using tools like Selenium and JIRA and learn the basics of SQL.
- Prepare for problem-solving: Practice answering scenario-based questions that will test your problem-solving skills.
- Research the company: Research the company and prepare questions. You can ask about the company’s approach to career development, the team’s testing methodology and the challenges they face.
- Practice with mock interviews: Ask a friend or mentor to conduct mock interviews with you to improve your interviewing skills and boost your confidence.
- Be honest: Admit what you don’t know. It is better to be honest than to try to guess.
- Show your workings: Explain how you arrived at the answer, either verbally or as comments in the code.
- Ask questions: Show you’re a good tester by asking good questions.
- Be conversational: Be conversational in your responses.
Beginners Level Test Engineer Interview Questions and Answers for Freshers
1. What is Test Engineering?
Basically, Test Engineer is a process conducted to view the functionality, performance, and quality of a software application. To do so, run the software under controlled conditions, either trigger or expose defects/bugs hidden in the software and ensure that all its components conform to predefined requirements. Testing verifies the following: whether the software behaves as expected, performs with Btn effectiveness, and is reliable to the end-users.
2. What are the different types of testing?
Tests can be done at different levels to ensure that the software application is of high quality and working on par. Here are few different kinds of Test Engineer along with a brief description of each:
- Unit Testing: Correctness of the individual units or components which make up the software.
- Integration Testing: How the different modules or components interact with one another in the software.
- System Testing: The whole system is tested as an integral whole against the specified requirements.
- Acceptance Testing: Testing to permit relevant stakeholders to decide whether use of a software-developed system shall proceed at a specific point.
- Regression Testing: Testing to ensure earlier developed and tested software still does its function correctly after change.
- Performance Testing: To test speed, scalability, and stability under workload.
- Security Testing: It checks for vulnerabilities so that the software is secure from unauthorized access and damage.
- Usability Testing measures what the software does when viewed from a final-user perspective—whether it’s friendly or instinctive.
- Load Testing: This kind of testing evaluates what the software does under special load conditions, such as processing a large amount of data or experiencing high user traffic.
- Smoke Testing: This is the first rudimentary testing to check if the software’s most critical functions work to specification before sophisticated testing can start in earnest.
3. Explain how a test coverage tool works.
A test coverage tool is a utility that monitors and quantifies the amount of code under test by a software program. Extra code is run to keep tabs on which lines or branches of code are executed. This gives insight into how far their tests exercise the code and points out whether some functionality of the software might not be fit enough for release to production.
4. Can you describe the different types of test coverage techniques?
Among the different types of test coverage techniques are:
- Statement Coverage: It allows ensuring that at least one test case has caused the execution of every line in the code.
- Branch Coverage: Ensures that the possible outcomes conditional for respective branches would likely be tested.
- Path Coverage: Ensures the execution paths for all potential sequences might have been tested.
- Function Coverage: A test should ensure that all the functions or subroutines have been called within them.
- Condition Coverage: All Boolean conditions in the code are exercised for true and false.
- Loop Coverage: Generates tests that exercise looping constructs with zero, one, and multiple passes.
5. Explain black-box testing, white-box testing and gray-box testing.
Black-box testing is testing that is focused on the logic behind a software application’s functionality. It is based on the requirement specifications, which identify how the inputs are handled and translated into outputs.
White-box Testing involves knowledge of the internal logic, structure, and code of the software to be tested to ensure all possible line/ branch executions have been exercised.
Gray-box testing: This is a kind of mixture that incorporates both the black- and white-box testing methods mentioned herein. The testers know the inner mechanisms only partially, but such knowledge can help them set up more complete test cases, which are usually oriented toward integration and system behavior.
6. What are the phases involved in Test Engineer Life Cycle?
The different phases involved in the Test Engineer life cycle are:
| Requirement Analysis | Here, the QA team understands the requirements and identify the testable requirements. |
| Requirement Analysis | Here, the QA team understands the requirements and identify the testable requirements. |
| Test Planning | In this phase, the test strategy is defined. |
| Test Case Development | Here, detailed test cases are defined and developed. |
| Environment Setup | It is a setup of software and hardware for the testing teams to execute test cases. |
| Test Execution | It is the process of executing the code and comparing the expected and actual results. |
| Test Cycle Closure | It involves calling out the testing team member meeting & evaluating cycle completion criteria based on test coverage, quality, cost, time, critical business objectives, and software. |
7. What are the different methods of testing?
There are three methods of Test Engineer and they are as follows:
- Black-box testing: It is a testing strategy based solely on requirements and specifications. In this strategy, it requires no knowledge of internal paths, structures, or implementation of the software being tested.
- White box testing: It is a testing strategy based on internal paths, code structures, and implementation of the software being tested. White box testing generally requires detailed programming skills.
- Gray box testing: It is a strategy for software debugging in which the tester has limited knowledge of the internal details of the program.
8. What are the different levels of testing?
There are mainly four testing levels and they are:
9. What are the principles of Test Engineer?
Test Engineer is governed by seven principles:
- Absence of errors fallacy: Even if the software is 99% bug-free, it is unusable if it does not conform to the user’s requirements. Software needs to be bug-free 99% of the time, and it must also meet all customer requirements.
- Testing shows the presence of errors: Testing can verify the presence of defects in software, but it cannot guarantee that the software is defect-free. Testing can minimize the number of defects, but it can’t remove them all.
- Exhaustive testing is not possible: The software cannot be tested exhaustively, which means all possible test cases cannot be covered. Testing can only be done with a select few test cases, and it’s assumed that the software will produce the right output in all cases. Taking the software through every test case will cost more, take more effort, etc., which makes it impractical.
- Defect clustering: The majority of defects are typically found in a small number of modules in a project. According to the Pareto Principle, 80% of software defects arise from 20% of modules.
- Pesticide Paradox: It is impossible to find new bugs by re-running the same test cases over and over again. Thus, updating or adding new test cases is necessary in order to find new bugs.
- Early testing: Early testing is crucial to finding the defect in the software. In the early stages of SDLC, defects will be detected more easily and at a lower cost.
- Testing is context-dependent: The testing approach varies depending on the software development context. Software needs to be tested differently depending on its type. For instance, an ed-tech site is tested differently than an Android app.
10. What is a test case?
A test case is nothing but a set of conditions or variables under which a tester will determine whether a system under test satisfies requirements or works correctly.
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11. What is the difference between functional and non-functional testing?
| Functional Testing | Non Functional Testing |
| Performed before non-functional testing | Performed after functional testing |
| Based on customer requirements | Based on customers expectations |
| Describes what the product does | Describes how the product works |
12. What is Verification and Validation in Test Engineer?
Verification is a static analysis technique. Here, testing is done without executing the code. Examples include Reviews, Inspections, and walkthroughs.
Validation is a dynamic analysis technique in which testing is done by executing the code. Examples include functional and non-functional testing techniques.
In the V model, the development and QA activities are done simultaneously. There is no discrete testing phase; testing starts right from the requirement phase. The verification and validation activities go hand in hand.
13. What is exploratory testing?
Exploratory testing means testers explore a computer program like an adventurer. They don’t follow a strict plan but try different things, like a curious detective looking for problems. This helps find mistakes that regular testing might miss, especially in tricky or new parts of the program. Testers take notes while they explore to remember what they did and what they found. It’s like exploring a new place without a map to find interesting things you wouldn’t expect! It also provides a high-level overview of the system that helps evaluate and quickly learn the software.
14. What is end-to-end testing?
End-to-end testing is the process of testing a software system from start to finish. The tester tests the software just like an end-user would. For example, to test desktop software, the tester would install the software as the user would, open it, use the application as intended, and verify the behavior. The same is true for a web application.
There is an important difference between end-to-end testing vs. other forms of testing that are more isolated, such as unit testing. In end-to-end testing, the software is tested along with all its dependencies and integrations, such as databases, networks, file systems, and other external services.
15. What is unit testing?
Unit testing is the process of testing a single unit of code in an isolated manner. The unit of code can be a method, a class, or a module. Unit testing aims to focus on the smallest building blocks of code to build confidence in combining them later to produce fully functioning software.
A unit test invokes the code and verifies the result with the expected result. If the expected and actual outcomes match, then the unit test passes. Otherwise, it fails.
16. What is an API?
API stands for Application Programming Interface. It is a means of communication between two software components. An API abstracts the internal workings and complexity of a software program and allows the user of that API to focus solely on the inputs and outputs required to use it.
17. What is a test environment?
A test environment consists of a server or computer on which testers run their tests. It is different from a development machine and tries to represent the actual hardware on which the software will run once it’s in production.
Whenever a new build of the software is released, the tester updates the test environment with the latest build and runs the regression tests suite. Once it passes, the tester moves on to testing new functionality.
18. Explain test scenarios, test scripts, and test cases in Test Engineer
- Test Case: Test Cases are a series of actions executed during software development to verify a particular feature or function. They consist of test steps, test data, preconditions, and postconditions designed to verify a specific requirement.
- Test Scenario: Usually, a test scenario consists of a set of test cases covering the end-to-end functionality of a software application. It provides a high-level overview of what needs to be tested.
- Test Scripts: In Test Engineer, a test script refers to the set of instructions that will be followed to verify that the system under test performs as expected. The document outlines each step to be taken and the expected results.
19. What is a bug in Test Engineer?
A bug in Test Engineer is like a mistake in a computer program. It’s something that the program does that it’s not supposed to do, or it doesn’t do something that it should do. Just like a spelling mistake in a book, bugs can cause the program to act weird or not work correctly. Testers find these bugs so that the programmers can fix them and make the program better.
20. State the difference between bugs and errors
Bugs and errors differ in the following ways:
| Bugs | Erors |
| A bug is a problem in a computer program that causes it to behave in an unintended way. | An error is a mistake made by a human, such as a programmer, while writing the code. |
| It’s a flaw or a mistake in the code that leads to incorrect behavior, unexpected results, or crashes. | It’s the root cause of a bug. If a programmer makes a mistake when writing code, it can lead to a bug in the software. |
| Bugs can be the result of coding mistakes, logic errors, or design flaws. | Errors can include syntax mistakes, logic errors, incorrect calculations, and more. |
21. What is a Test Plan? What does it include?
A test plan is basically a dynamic document monitored and controlled by the testing manager. The success of a testing project totally depends upon a well-written test plan document that describes Test Engineer scope and activities. It basically serves as a blueprint that outlines the what, when, how, and more of the entire test process
22. What is a Test Report? What does it include?
Test report is basically a document that includes a total summary of testing objectives, activities, and results. It is very much required to reflect testing results and gives an opportunity to estimate testing results quickly. It helps us to decide whether the product is ready for release or not. It also helps us determine the current status of the project and the quality of the product. A test report must include the following details:
- Test Objective
- Project Information
- Defect
- Test Summary
23. What do you mean by Test Deliverables?
Test deliverables, also known as test artifacts, are basically a list of all of the documents, tools, and other components that are given to the stakeholders of a software project during the SDLC. Test deliverables are maintained and developed in support of the test. At every phase of SDLC, there are different deliverables as given below:
Before Testing Phase
● Test plans document.
● Test cases documents
● Test Design specifications.
During Testing Phase
● Test Scripts
● Simulators.
● Test Data
● Test Traceability Matrix
● Error logs and execution logs
After testing Phase
● Test Results/reports
● Defect Report
● Installation/ Test procedures guidelines
● Release notes
24. What are different categories of debugging?
Different categories of debugging include:
● Brute force debugging
● Backtracking
● Cause elimination
● Program slicing
● Fault tree analysis
25. Write some common mistakes that lead to major issues.
Some common mistakes include:
● Poor Scheduling
● Underestimating
● Ignoring small issues
● Not following the exact process
● Improper resource allocation
Advanced Level Test Engineer Interview Questions for Experienced Professionals
This section helps you practice with the advanced level and scenario-based interview questions
26. What is Test-Driven-Development?
Test-driven development (TDD) is a popular software development technique. Kent Beck first introduced it in his 1999 book of the same name.
In TDD, a developer working on a feature first writes a failing test and then just enough code to make that test pass. Once they have a passing test, they add another failing test and then write just enough code to pass the failing test. This cycle repeats until the developer has the fully working feature. If the code under the test has external dependencies such as a database, files, or network, you can mock them to isolate the code.
Benefits of TDD:
● Writing tests first forces you to think about the feature you are trying to build, helping you produce better code.
● As you always have a working set of tests at hand, a failing test indicates that the problem is with the code you just added, reducing the time spent in debugging.
● Writing tests help the developer to clarify the requirements and specifications. It’s challenging to write good tests for a poor set of requirements.
● It’s tough to produce high-quality software unless you can test the software after each new change. You can never be sure that your new code didn’t break the working software. TDD gives you the confidence to add new code, as you already have a test in place.
27. What is cross-browser testing?
All web applications run in browsers such as Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Internet Explorer, Safari, etc. Though they all work primarily the same in implementing the web standards, there are subtle differences in all of them. When building the software, it’s not always possible for the software developer to meticulously test the feature on multiple browsers, noticing the subtle inconsistencies.
In cross-browser testing, a software tester launches the web application in all the supported browsers and tries to test the same functionality on all of them. They note any unexpected behavior in a browser that doesn’t work as expected or looks different; note the behavior and the browser name and version in the test report. This helps the programmer to fix the behavior in all the browsers where it doesn’t work as intended.
28. What are the different types of severity you can assign to a bug?
Though it varies depending on the size and structure of the software development teams, typically, a bug can be assigned the following types of severities, going from low to high:
Low
- User Interface bugs.
- Accessibility issues.
Medium
- Leaky abstractions.
- Software hangs.
- Users unable to perform a specific action.
- Boundary conditions.
High
- Crashing under high load.
- Business logic and/or calculation errors.
- Any user action that causes the software to crash.
- Exposing sensitive user data.
- Security problems.
- Loss of data.
29. What is alpha testing?
Before you ship the software to the customers, the internal testing team performs alpha testing. Alpha testing is part of user acceptance testing and aims to identify bugs before the customers start using the software.
30. What is beta testing?
Once you ship the software to the customers after alpha testing, the software’s actual users perform beta testing in a real production environment. Beta testing is one of the final components of user acceptance testing. It is helpful to get feedback from real people using your software in real environments.
31. What is meant by browser automation?
It’s a process of automatically testing a web application’s functionality in a browser. A program launches the browser, navigates to the application, and interacts with the user interface by clicking buttons or links, just like an average user would.
The only difference is that browser automation can test this very quickly and often, whereas a human tester would take a long time. This is part of automated testing. Some essential tools for browser testing include Selenium, protractor.js, and Cypress.
32. What do you mean by Test Matrix and Traceability Matrix?
Test Matrix: This is a testing tool used to capture the actual quality, effort, resources, plan, and time required to cover all the phases of software testing. It only covers the testing phase of the life cycle.
Requirement Traceability Matrix (RTM): This is a document, usually present in the form of a table, that is used to trace and demonstrate the relationship between the requirements and other artifacts of the project from start to end. In simple words, it maps between test cases and customer requirements.
33. What is static software testing?
Static testing is a technique in which software is tested without actually executing it. It involves code walkthroughs, code reviews, peer reviews, or using sophisticated tools such as Eslint and StyleCop to perform static analysis of the source code. Static testing is typically performed during software development.
34. What is dynamic software testing?
In contrast to static testing, dynamic software testing tests the software when it’s executing. The tester runs the software in a test environment and goes through all the steps involved, entering the inputs and verifying the actual output with the expected result.
35. What is meant by Defect Cascading?
Defect cascading is a defect caused by another defect. One defect triggers the other. When a defect is present in any stage but is not identified, it hides in other phases without getting noticed. This will increase the number of defects.
Let us understand this by an example.
You are designing the Login Module of a web page:
In phase 1, you are designing the Register User Module for Login. The mobile number is mandatory, but you can leave it blank due to a bug that goes unnoticed.
In Phase 2, you will design the login form with a username and password. The password is OTP, which will be sent to the User’s registered mobile number.
Now, the Register module has a bug that the mobile number can be left blank, so this may lead to Login failure or maybe some system error or crash if a null mobile number is not handled. This is known as defect cascading.
36. What are the different strategies for rollout to end users?
The strategies to be followed for rollout are as follows:
- Pilot
- Gradual Implementation
- Phased Implementation
- Parallel Implementation
37. Explain how you can find broken links in a page using Selenium WebDriver
This is a tricky question that the interviewer might present to you. He can provide a situation wherein there are 20 links in a web page, and we have to verify which of those 20 links are working and how many are not working (broken).
As you have to verify the working of every link, the workaround is to send HTTP requests to all of the links on the web page and analyze the response. Whenever you use the driver.get() method to navigate to a URL, it will respond with a status of 200 – OK. This indicates that the link is working and has been obtained, whereas any other status indicates that the link is broken.
Let’s now understand how to do that.
First, we have to use the anchor tags <a> to determine the different hyperlinks on the web page. For every <a> tag, we can use the attribute ‘href’ value to obtain the hyperlinks and then analyze the response received when used in driver.get() method.
38. Which technique should be considered in the script “if there is neither frame id nor frame name”?
If frame name and frame ID are not available, we can use frame by index. For example, if there are 3 frames in a web page and none of them have a frame name and frame ID, we can still select those frames by using the frame (zero-based) index attribute. All frames will have an index number, like the first frame at index “0,” the second at index “1,” and the third at index “2.”
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driver.switchTo().frame(int arg0); |
39. How to take screenshots in Selenium WebDriver?
You can take a screenshot using the TakeScreenshot function. With the help of getScreenshotAs() method, you can simply save that screenshot. Example: File scrFile = ((TakeScreenshot)driver).getScreenshotAs(outputType.FILE);
40. Explain how you will log in to any site if it shows an authentication popup for username and password.
If a pop-up for logging in appears, we need to use the explicit command and verify if the alert is actually present. The code below helps you understand the use of the explicit wait command.
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WebDriverWait wait = new WebDriverWait(driver, 10);Alert alert = wait.until(ExpectedConditions.alertIsPresent());alert.authenticateUsing(new UserAndPassword(**username**, **password**)); |
41. How to skip a method or a code block in TestNG?
To skip a particular test method or code, you can set the ‘enabled’ parameter in the test annotation to false.
@Test(enabled = false)
42. Briefly explain what the below code snippet indicates.
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WebElement sample = driver.findElement(By.xpath("//*[contains(text(), 'data')]")); |
It defines a variable sample of type WebElement and uses an XPath search to initialize it with reference to an element that contains the text value “data.”
Learn Software Testing from QA Experts! Get Free Demo Classes Here!
Prepare for software testing interview by immersing yourself in basic concepts of software testing and related tools, practice problem solving through test scenarios, understand SDLC/STLC processes, domain knowledge if required, continue polishing, practice questions on with behavior, you explore the company, ask worthy questions and mock interviews.
