Software tester roles are excellent opportunities for people who are technically-minded and have an appreciation for software development, but may not be pro coders themselves. To help you land your ideal job as a software tester, we’ve put together this list of sample interview questions that you can use to prep. See how many of these you can get through and, if you get stuck, there’s still time for an extra study session before the real thing!
To learn more about what software testers do and what skills are required in this career, check out our 5 Steps to Become a Software Tester.
The questions below are commonly asked in software tester job interviews. There’s no guarantee that you’ll be asked the exact same questions in an upcoming interview, but it’s a good idea to practice with a variety of potential questions. Try answering them out loud to get practice speaking clearly and professionally!
Sample Questions
1. Have you used Waterfall or Agile Methodology? Can you explain one of both of these?
2. Which of the following do you have experience with? Can you describe how these methods work?
- Unit Testing
- Integration Testing
- Regression Testing
- Stress Testing
- Usability Testing
- Security Testing
3. When designing a test plan – what elements should you include?
4. What is a test environment?
5. What elements should be included in a bug report?
6. What testing metrics do you think are important?
7. Which testing tools have you used? Do you have a preferred tool?
8. Give some examples of high severity bugs.
9. Give some examples of low severity bugs.
10. Describe best practices for exploratory testing.
11. Can you describe the difference between static and dynamic testing?
12. What is a latent defect?
13. Describe the Software Testing Life Cycle.
14. What is the difference between negative testing and positive testing?
15. What is boundary value analysis? Can you give an example?
16. How does an API work?
17. What is A/B testing? Can you give an example?
18. What kinds of files might be required to use a testing framework?
19. Can you explain white box testing and black box testing?
20. What is the difference between manual testing and automation testing? Can you explain the pros and cons of each?
More Prep
The following sites are excellent resources to use to continue prepping for a Software Tester interview.
InterviewBit has a robust collection of practice questions for software testing and other subjects. They also have useful guides to the interview processes at prominent tech companies like Google, Adobe, and Amazon. One of their coolest features is a peer-matching mock interview page. They’ll connect you with someone else with a similar experience level and have you interview each other for practice.
This site has a huge variety of sample questions covering specific software testing tools and topics. If you’re interviewing for an advanced role or one that specializes in a certain tool, be sure to browse their sample questions.
Interview Cake sells an interview prep course for $100 to $200. However, they also offer an abbreviated free course as well as free interview tips and review materials.
You can also check out our Guide to Acing the Technical Interview for more preparation tips and resources. For an extra boost to your software testing skills, consider a coding bootcamp – we have a full Guide to Choosing a Bootcamp on our site, along with a list of popular bootcamps. Or, if you’re confident in your skills but don’t quite know how to showcase them to employers, review our Guide to Writing a Technical Resume.
Best of luck on the job hunt!
