You've used your killer resume to land an interview with a great company. Now how should you go about preparing?
Of the 300+ software engineers I interviewed for Google (and previously Microsoft), some of them really shone, and others seemed ill-prepared. Many of the ill-prepared ones still got offers because they're obviously stars, but it's safer and less stressful to prepare yourself beforehand. Below are some tips that I've gathered over time:
1. Practice using the same medium (e.g. paper and pencil) and time limits (e.g. 30 minutes) as the real interview.
Google and Microsoft both use whiteboard coding questions, yet often candidates practice by coding alone at home on a computer with a compiler. During the actual interview, they stand at the whiteboard and forget how to initialize an array, without their trusty syntax highlighter. Or they are so nervous having another person watch them that they panic and can't think straight.
In real life, if you plan to swim the English Channel, would you limit your practice to laps at the local swimming pool? No, you would go test out the ocean waves, the salt water. Do the same here.
Ask your recruiter the format of the interview and any coding questions. If the company gives the candidates an hour alone in a room with an editor and no compiler, practice that at home. If the company does whiteboard questions with an interviewer watching you, ask an engineer friend to be your mock interviewer. It's fine if the friend is a less experienced engineer than you -- they'll still bring out your nervousness about making mistakes in front of others, so you can practice getting used to that.
If you know me in real life and want me to do a mock interview for you, my going rate is dinner at Fuki Sushi if you're in industry, or at Pizza My Heart if you're a strapped-for-money student.
2. During the interview, don't obsess over little mistakes that happen.
On more than one occasion, when I gave a star candidate a coding question, he zeroed in on the most optimally performant solution, identified the boundary cases, and began writing well-designed code. Midway through the problem, he makes a little error -- getting the order of operations wrong on the first try, or having an off-by-1 error, or forgetting to declare a variable.
When I point it out, the candidate responds with horror and then becomes so nervous that it impacts his performance during the rest of the interview.
The fear is unfounded. An awesome candidate making a little error is like a concert violinist playing a challenging Brahms concerto and hitting two wrong notes. Sure, the audience could tell that he made mistakes, but they don't get confused as to whether he's actually at Twinkle-Twinkle-Little-Star level.
Even if you completely bomb one question, many interviewers ask you multiple questions and will forgive a single mishap. Even bombing an entire interview is recoverable if the other interviews go well.
Recently one of my coworkers (a tech lead for another project) interviewed a candidate and was very curt because he found the candidate's communication style irritating. The candidate proved himself during the interview, and the tech lead ended up being the strongest proponent for this candidate. He advocated harder for that candidate than he has for anyone else in a year.
When things don't go well, just keep at it and don't give up hope.
3. Don't be rude to your interviewer.
This should be obvious, but I have been surprised. One engineering candidate said to me, "Wow, I can't believe you're really my interviewer! You look so young!! I thought you were 18! Once you told me your credentials, I understand now, but at first I thought, 'This person is interviewing me?!?!'"
That wasn't so smart.
Other things that I recommend against saying:
* "Wow, you're really my interviewer? You look so old!"
* "Wow, you're really my interviewer? You look so fat!"
Another time, the candidate's cell phone rang 15 minutes into the interview. She let it go, and we were both distracted by it ringing for the next 20 seconds. 5 minutes later, it happened again. Another 5 minutes later, it rang for a third time.
She finally reached for her purse and fumbled inside it for the phone. "It's about time", I thought, "she should've turned it off before coming in here." She dug the phone out of the purse and then proceeded to take the phone call right there in the middle of the interview.
The only justification is if there is a family emergency, and in that case, warn your interviewer explicitly at the start of the interview.
4. Don't hijack the interview.
I've had a couple of candidates who came into the interview with the mindset that they MUST tell me all about their recent project Zoolander. I start the interview and they break in with, "I want to tell you about Zoolander. 10 years ago, this project started as a side feature..." and then go on for 5 minutes without taking a breath.
Sometimes they decide that they must tell every interviewer about Zoolander, repeating the same description over and over during the day.
Your interviewer has specific questions that they need to get through. If you hijack the interview, they may not have enough data from their own questions to be able to endorse your hiring. They may also think that you would be difficult to work with.
If you really want to talk about a project, ask your interviewer, "I think project Zoolander really shows off my abilities. Can you or another interviewer fit in 10 minutes for me to explain it?" The interviewer can then refit their plan for the interview, instead of suddenly having their schedule be shanghaied.
5. When answering questions expecting a specific answer, give a high-level summary first.
Sometimes I ask a question expecting a short answer, "How many people worked with you on project Zoolander?" The candidate then gives me an audiobook, "Well, there was Jimmy -- he did the UI and I had to mentor him quite a bit on it. Then there was Mary who ran the backend servers. She worked remotely from Pennsylvania. Two years later, we got another backend person David..."
Three minutes later, the candidate is still talking, and I still don't know the answer of how many people worked on the project.
Give an answer first, and then expound. "There were 3 when I joined, and 12 when I left. First there was Jimmy ..."
Better yet, give the answer and offer to expound. "There were 3 when I joined, and 12 when I left. Would you like me to tell you what each one did?"
6. (Not as important) Wear something comfortable to your interview. Business casual is the most typical.
People sometimes wonder how they should dress. The most important thing is that you feel comfortable. If you still want a recommendation, I say a button-down shirt or even a T-shirt. A suit can come off as too formal in some companies (e.g. Google).
This point is not as important, because people won't really care. You should ask your recruiter about what to wear, since this differs by country and East Coast / West Coast. A company like Google is more casual, so if you come in a three-piece suit, your interviewers may raise an eyebrow. If you've got the goods in terms of engineering skills, it's not a dealbreaker though. One candidate came to an interview wearing a gothic mesh shirt with holes through which his nipples were clearly visible. He still got the job. (I don't recommend taking this risk.)
A final story
I'd like to leave you with a story of an unfortunate interview. Draw hope that no matter how your interview goes, you will likely be more lucky than this candidate.
At Microsoft, we always offered drinks to our candidates, and one candidate "Jeff" took a pepsi. We got into my office, and he set it down on the desk. We started discussing his experiences and then launched into the whiteboard coding question, and he didn't get around to opening his pepsi.
We stood at the whiteboard, and Jeff started to write a line of code. He stopped to think about the overall algorithm, and absentmindedly took a step back in order to see the entire whiteboard. In doing so, he inadvertently knocked against the desk, and the pepsi fell off the edge.
This pepsi was still unopened. Thus, when it hit the ground, it exploded on impact.
Pepsi sprayed in foamy gusts in all directions from the can. It was a slow-motion moment as beige spots of soda splashed onto my white walls, my bookshelf, my keyboard. We both stood there frozen, our hands halfway out (too slow to catch the pepsi), looking at the dripping liquid coating the entire inside of my office.
We took a 5-minute break to get paper towels and mop up the mess. (Though my books always stuck together after that day, and my walls were never the same again.)
We then returned to the whiteboard question. Jeff was nervous by this time (do you blame him?). He wrote some code, erased it, wrote more. He erased using his fingers against the board instead of using the eraser. Then sweat formed on his forehead, and he wiped it off using the same hand. By the end of the interview, his face was covered in streaks of red, green, and blue whiteboard marker.
I said, "I think you have some marker on your hands. I'll show you the restroom." and let the bathroom mirror show him the problem.
Tuesday, December 18, 2007
The Guerrilla Guide to Interviewing
Hiring the right people is extremely crucial to Fog Creek Software. In our field, there are three types of people. At one end of the scale, there are the unwashed masses, lacking even the most basic skills for this job. They are easy to ferret out and eliminate, often just by reviewing a resume and asking two or three quick questions. At the other extreme, are the brilliant superstars who write lisp compilers for fun, in a weekend, in Assembler for the Palm Pilot. And in the middle, you have a large number of "maybes" who seem like they might just be able to contribute something. The trick is telling the difference between the superstars and the maybes, because at Fog Creek Software we only hire the superstars. Here are some techniques for doing that.
First of all, the #1 cardinal criteria for getting hired at Fog Creek:
Smart, and
Gets Things Done.
That's it. That's all we're looking for. Memorize that. Recite it to yourself before you go to bed every night. Our goal is to hire people with aptitude, not a particular skill set. Any skill set that people can bring to the job will be technologically obsolete in a couple of years, anyway, so it's better to hire people that are going to be able to learn any new technology rather than people who happen to know SQL programming right this minute.
Smart is hard to define, but as we look at some possible interview questions we'll see how you can ferret it out. Gets Things Done is crucial. People who are Smart but don't Get Things Done often have PhDs and work in big companies where nobody listens to them because they are completely impractical. They would rather mull over something academic about a problem rather than ship on time. These kind of people can be identified because they love to point out the theoretical similarity between two widely divergent concepts. For example, they will say "Spreadsheets are really just a special case of programming language" and then go off for a week and write a thrilling, brilliant white paper about the theoretical computational linguistic attributes of a spreadsheet as a programming language. Smart, but not useful.
Now, people who Get Things Done but are not Smart will do stupid things, seemingly without thinking about them, and somebody else will have to come clean up their mess later. This makes them liabilities to the company because not only don't they contribute, but they soak up good people's time. They are the kind of people who copy big chunks of code around rather than writing a subroutine, because it gets the job done, just not in the smartest way.
The most important rule about interviewing:
Make A Decision
At the conclusion of the interview, you have to be ready to make a sharp decision about the candidate. There are only two possible outcomes to this decision: Hire or No Hire. Turn to your computer and send immediate feedback to the recruiter. The subject line should be the name of the candidate. The first line of the email should be Hire or No Hire. Then you should spend about 2 paragraphs backing up your decision.
There is no other possible answer. Never say, "Hire, but not in my group." This is rude and implies that the candidate is not smart enough to work with you, but maybe he's smart enough for those losers over in that other group. If you find yourself tempted to say "Hire, but not in my group," simply translate that mechanically to "No Hire" and you'll be OK. Even if you have a candidate that would be brilliant at doing 1 particular thing, but wouldn't be very good in another group, that's a No Hire. Things change so often and so rapidly that we need people that can succeed anywhere. If for some reason you find an idiot savant that is really, really, really good at SQL but completely incapable of ever learning any other topic, No Hire. They don't have a future at Fog Creek.
Never say "Maybe, I can't tell." If you can't tell, that means No Hire. It's really easier than you'd think. Can't tell? Just say no! Similarly, if you are on the fence, that means No Hire. Never say, "Well, Hire, I guess, but I'm a little bit concerned about..." That's a No Hire as well.
An important thing to remember about interviewing is this: it is much better to reject a good candidate than to accept a bad candidate. A bad candidate will cost a lot of money and effort and waste other people's time fixing all their bugs. If you have any doubts whatsoever, No Hire.
While you are conducting the interview, don't worry that if you reject a lot of people, Fog Creek won't be able to find anyone to hire. That's not your problem. It's the recruiter's problem, it's H.R.'s problem, it's Joel's problem, but it's not your problem. Keep asking yourself which is worse - that we grow into a big, lousy software company with lots of coconuts, or that we stay small but high quality? Of course, it's important to seek out good candidates and everybody should see it as a part of their mission to find and recruit smart people who get things done. But once you're actually interviewing someone, pretend that Fog Creek has plenty of great candidates. Never lower your standards no matter how hard it seems to find great candidates.
But how do you make this difficult decision? You just have to keep asking yourself during the interview: is this person smart? Does this person get things done? In order to be able to tell, you're going to have to ask the right questions.
Just for fun, here is the worst interview question on Earth: "What's the difference between varchar and varchar2 in Oracle 8i?" This is a terrible question. There is no possible, imaginable correlation between people that know that particular piece of useless trivia and people that Fog Creek wants to hire. Who cares what the difference is? You can find out online in about 15 seconds!
Actually, there are some even worse questions. I'll get to that later.
So now we get to the fun part: interview questions. My list of interview questions comes from my first job at Microsoft. There are actually hundreds of famous Microsoft interview questions. Everybody has a set of questions that they really like. You, too, will develop a particular set of questions and a personal interviewing style which helps you make the Hire/No Hire decision. Here are some techniques that I have used that have been successful.
Before the interview, I read over the candidates resume and jot down an interview plan on a scrap of paper. That's just a list of questions that I want to ask. Here's a typical plan for interviewing a programmer:
1. Introduction
2. Question about recent project candidate worked on
3. Impossible Question
4. C Function
5. Are you satisfied?
6. Design Question
7. The Challenge
8. Do you have any questions?
Before the interview, I am very, very careful to avoid anything that might give me some preconceived notions about the candidate. If you think that someone is smart before they even walk into the room, just because they have a Ph.D. from MIT, then nothing they can say in 1 hour is going to overcome that initial prejudice. If you think they are a bozo, nothing they can say will overcome that initial impression. An interview is like a very, very delicate scale -- it's very hard to judge someone based on a 1 hour interview and it may seem like a very close call. But if you know a little bit about the candidate beforehand, it's like a big weight on one side of the scale, and the interview is useless. Once, right before an interview, a recruiter came into my office. "You're going to love this guy," she said. BOY did this make me mad. What I should have said was, "well, if you're so sure I'm going to love him, why don't you just hire him instead of wasting my time going through this interview." But I was young and naïve, so I interviewed him. When he said not-so-smart things, I thought to myself, "gee, must be the exception that proves the rule." I looked at everything he said through rose-colored glasses. I wound up saying Hire even though he was a crappy candidate. You know what? Everybody else who interviewed him said No Hire. So: don't listen to recruiters; don't ask around about the person before you interview them; and never, ever talk to the other interviewers about the candidate until you've both made your decisions independently. It's the scientific method!
The Introduction phase of the interview is intended to put the candidate at ease. I spend about 30 seconds telling the person who I am and how the interview will work. I always reassure the candidate that we are interested in how he goes about solving problems, not the actual answer. By the way, in doing the interview, you should make sure that you are not sitting across a desk from the candidate. This creates a formal barrier which will not place the candidate at ease. It is better to move the desk against a wall, or to go around and sit on the other side of the desk with the candidate; this does help put the candidate at ease. This results in a better interview because it is less distorted by nervousness.
Part 2 is a question about some recent project that the candidate worked on. For interviewing college kids, ask them about their senior thesis, if they had one, or about a course they took that involved a long project that they really enjoyed. For example, sometimes I will ask, "what class did you take last semester that you liked the most? It doesn't have to be computer-related." Actually I am usually pretty happy if they choose a non-computer related course. Sometimes you look at their schedule, and it looks like they are taking the bare minimum number of Comp Sci courses, but every elective is something related to Music. Then they will tell you that their favorite course was Object Oriented Databases. Yeah, right. I'd be happier if they admitted that they just liked music more than computers, instead of sucking up.
When interviewing experienced candidates, you can talk about their previous job.
In this question, I'm looking for one thing: passion. When you find a project that the person worked on recently, these are all good signs:
* They get very excited talking about it; they tend to talk more quickly and get animated. This shows that when they are interesting in something, they will be passionate about it. There are far too many people around that can work on something and not really care one way or the other. Even if they are passionately negative, this can be just as good a sign. "I was working on installing Foo Bar Mark II for my previous employer, but he was such a dope!" These are good candidates that we want to hire. Bad candidates just don't care and will not get enthusiastic at all during the interview. A really good sign that a candidate is passionate about something is that when they are talking about it, they will forget for a moment that they are in an interview. Sometimes a candidate comes in who is very nervous about being in an interview situation -- this is normal so I always overlook that. But then when you get them talking about Computational Monochromatic Art they will get extremely excited and lose all signs of nervousness. Good. I like passionate people who really care. (To see an example of Computational Monochromatic Art try unplugging your monitor.)
* They are careful to explain things. I have rejected candidates because when they talked about their previous project, they couldn't explain it in terms that a normal person could understand. Often engineering majors will just assume that everyone knows what Bates Theorem is or what Peano's Axioms are. If they start doing this, stop them for a minute and say, "could you do me a favor, just for the sake of the exercise, could you please explain this in terms my grandmother could understand." At this point many people will still continue to use jargon and will completely fail to make themselves understood. GONG!
* If the project was a team project, look for signs that they took a leadership role. A candidate might say: "we were working on X, but the boss said Y and the client said Z." I'll ask, "so what did you do?" A good answer to this might be "I got together with the other members of the team and wrote a proposal..." A bad answer might be, "Well, there was nothing I could do. It was an impossible situation." Remember, Smart and Gets Things Done. A good way to tell if somebody Gets Things Done is to see if historically they have tended to get things done in the past. In fact, you can even ask them directly to give you an example from their recent past when they took a leadership role and got something done -- overcame some institutional inertia, for example.
OK, the third thing on that list is the impossible question. This is fun. The idea is to ask a question that they have no possible way of answering, just to see how they handle it. "How many optometrists are there in Seattle?" "How many tons does the Washington Monument weigh?" "How many gas stations are in Los Angeles?" "How many piano tuners are there in New York?"
* Smart candidates will realize that you are not quizzing them on their knowledge, and they will enthusiastically leap into trying to figure out some back-of-the-envelope answer. "Well, lets see, the population of LA is about 7 million; each person in LA has about 2.5 cars..." Of course it's OK if they are radically wrong. The important thing is that they leapt into the question enthusiastically. They may try to figure out the capacity of a gas station. "Gee, it takes 4 minutes to tank up, gas stations have about 10 pumps and are open about 18 hours a day..." They may try to figure it out by area. Sometimes they will surprise you with their creativity or ask for a Los Angeles yellow pages. All good signs.
* Not-so-smart candidates will get flustered and upset. They will just stare at you like you landed from Mars. You have to coach them. "Well, if you were building a new city the size of Los Angeles, how many gas stations would you put in it?" You can give them little hints. "How long does it take to fill up a tank of gas?" Still, with not-smart candidates, you will have to drag them along while they sit there stupidly and wait for you to rescue them. These people are not problem solvers and we don't want them working for us.
For programming questions, I ask candidates to write a small function in C. Here are some typical problems I would ask:
1. Reverse a string in place
2. Reverse a linked list
3. Count all the bits that are on in a byte
4. Binary search
5. Find the longest run in a string
6. atoi
7. itoa (great, because they have to use a stack or strrev)
You don't want to give them any problems that take more than about 5 lines of code; you won't have time for that.
Let's look at a couple of these in detail. #1: reverse a string in place. Every candidate I've ever interviewed in my life has done this wrong the first time. Without exception, they try to allocate another buffer and reverse the string into that buffer. The trouble is, who allocates the buffer? Who frees the buffer? In giving this question to dozens of candidates I found out an interesting fact. Most people who think that they know C really do not understand memory or pointers. They just don't get it. It's amazing that these people are working as programmers, but they are. With this question, here are some ways to judge the candidate:
* Is their function fast? Look at how many times they call strlen. I've seen O(n^2) algorithms for strrev when it should be O(n), because they are calling strlen again and again in a loop.
* Do they use pointer arithmetic? This is a good sign. Many "C programmers" just don't know how to make pointer arithmetic work. Now, ordinarily, I wouldn't reject a candidate just because he lacked a particular skill. However, I've discovered that understanding pointers in C is not a skill, it's an aptitude. In Freshman year CompSci, there are always about 200 kids at the beginning of the semester, all of whom wrote complex adventure games in BASIC for their Atari 800s when they were 4 years old. They are having a good ol'; time learning Pascal in college, until one day their professor introduces pointers, and suddenly, they don't get it. They just don't understand anything any more. 90% of the class goes off and becomes PoliSci majors, then they tell their friends that there weren't enough good looking members of the appropriate sex in their CompSci classes, that's why they switched. For some reason most people seem to be born without the part of the brain that understands pointers. This is an aptitude thing, not a skill thing – it requires a complex form of doubly-indirected thinking that some people just can't do.
For #3, you can see how well they learned the bitwise operators in C.... but this is a skill, not an aptitude, so you can help them with these. The interesting thing is to watch them write a subroutine that counts all the bits in a byte, then ask them to make it much, much faster. Really smart candidates will create a lookup table (after all, it's only got 256 entries) that they only have to create once. With good candidates, you can have a really interesting conversation about the different space/speed tradeoffs. Press them further: tell them you don't want to spend any time building the lookup table during initialization. Brilliant candidates might even suggest a caching scheme where bits are counted the first time they are used, and then stored in a lookup table so they don't have to be counted if they are used again. Really, really brilliant candidates will try to devise a way to compute the table using some kind of a shortcut taking advantage of the patterns that occur.
When you watch somebody write code, here are some techniques that may be helpful:
* Always reassure them that you understand that it's hard to write code without an editor, and you will forgive them if their paper gets really messy. Also you understand that it's hard to write bug-free code without a compiler, and you will take that into account.
* Some signs of a good programmer: good programmers have a habit of writing their { and then skipping down to the bottom of the page and writing their }s right away, then filling in the blank later. They also tend to have some kind of a variable naming convention, primitive though it may be... Good programmers tend to use really short variable names for loop indices. If they name their loop index CurrentPagePositionLoopCounter it is sure sign that they have not written a lot of code in their life. Occasionally, you will see a C programmer write something like if (0==strlen(x)), putting the constant on the left hand side of the == . This is a really good sign. It means that they were stung once too many times by confusing = and == and have forced themselves to learn a new habit to avoid that trap.
* Good programmers plan before they write code, especially when there are pointers involved. For example, if you ask them to reverse a linked list, good candidates will always make a little drawing on the side and draw all the pointers and where they go. They have to. It is humanly impossible to write code to reverse a linked list without drawing little boxes with arrows between them. Bad programmers will start writing code right away.
Inevitably, you will see a bug in their function. So we come to question 5: Are you satisfied with that code? You may want to ask, "OK, so where's the bug?" The quintessential Open Ended Question From Hell. All programmers make mistakes, there's nothing wrong with that, they just have to be able to find them. With the string functions, they'll almost always forget to null-terminate the new string. With almost any function, they are likely to have off-by-one errors. They will forget semicolons sometimes. Their function won't work correctly on 0 length strings, or it will GPF if malloc fails... Very, very rarely, you will find a candidate that doesn't have any bugs the first time. In this case, this question is even more fun. When you say, "There's a bug in that code," they will review their code carefully, and then you get to see if they can be diplomatic yet firm in asserting that the code is perfect... In general, it's always a good idea to ask the candidate if they are satisfied with their answer before moving on. Be Regis.
Part 6: the design question. Ask the candidate to design something. Jabe Blumenthal, the original designer of Excel, liked to ask candidates to design a house. According to Jabe, he's had candidates who would go up to the whiteboard and immediately draw a square. A square! These were immediate No Hires. In design questions, what are you looking for?
* Good candidates will try to get more information out of you about the problem. Who is the house for? As a policy, I will not hire someone who leaps into the design without asking more about who it's for. Often I am so annoyed that I will give them a hard time by interrupting them in the middle and saying, "actually, you forgot to ask this, but this is a house for a family of 48-foot tall blind giraffes."
* Not-so-smart candidates think that design is like painting: you get a blank slate, and you can do whatever you want. Smart candidates understand that design is a difficult series of trade-offs. A great design question: design a trash can for a city street corner. Think of all the trade offs! It has to be easy to empty, but impossible to steal; it has to be easy to put things into, but hard for things to fly out of on a windy day; it has to be solid, yet inexpensive; in some cities, it has to be specially designed so that terrorists can't hide a bomb in it.
* Creative candidates will often surprise you with an interesting, non-obvious answer. One of my favorite questions is Design a Spice Rack for Blind People. Inevitably, candidates will put Braille somewhere on the spice bottles, and it usually winds up being on top of the lid for various reasons which you'll discover after you've asked this question 100 times. I had one candidate who decided that it would be better to put the spices in a drawer, because it is more comfortable to scan Braille with your fingertips horizontal than vertical. (Try it!) This was so creative it surprised me -- in dozens of interviews, I had never heard that answer. And it really took a major creative "leap" outside of the bounds of the problem. On the strength of that answer alone, and no negatives, I hired the candidate, who went on to be one of the best program managers on the Excel team.
* Look for closure. This is part of Get Things Done. Sometimes candidates will drift back and forth, unable to make a decision, or they will try to avoid hard questions. Sometimes they will leave difficult decisions unanswered and try to move on. Not good. Good candidates have a tendency to try to naturally keep things moving forward, even when you try to hold them back. If the conversation ever starts going around in circles, and the candidate says something like "well, we can talk about this all day, but we've got to do something, so let's go with decision X" that's a really good sign.
Which brings us to #7, The Challenge. This is fun. Throughout the interview, you look for the candidate to say something that is absolutely, positively, unarguably correct. Then you say, "wait a minute, wait a minute," and spend about 2 minutes playing devil's advocate. Argue with them when you are sure they are right.
* Weak candidates will give in. No Hire.
* Strong candidates will find a way to persuade you. They will have a whole laundry list of Dale Carnegie techniques to win you over. "Perhaps I'm misunderstanding you," they will say. But they will stand their ground. Hire.
Admittedly, in an interview situation, you are not equal parties. Thus there is a risk that the candidate will be afraid to argue with you because you are in a position of power over him. BUT, good candidates will tend to get fairly passionate about the argument, and they may momentarily forget that they are in an interview, and they will get very involved in trying to convince you. These are the people we want to hire.
Finally, you should ask the candidate if they have any questions. Some people like to look to see if the candidate will ask intelligent questions, which is a standard technique in the interviewing books. Personally, I don't care what questions they ask; by this point I've already made my decision. The trouble is, candidates have to see about 5-6 people in one day, and it's hard for them to ask 5-6 people different, brilliant questions, so if they don't have any questions, fine.
I always, always leave about 5 minutes a the end of the interview to sell Fog Creek. This is very important even if you are not going to hire them. If you've been lucky enough to find a really good candidate, you want to do everything you can at this point to make sure that they want to come to Fog Creek. Even if they are a bad candidate, you want to get them excited about Fog Creek Software so that they go away with a positive impression of the company. Think of it this way: these people are not just potential hires; they are also customers. They are also salesmen for our recruiting effort: if they think that Fog Creek is a great place to work, they will encourage their friends to apply.
Ah, I just remembered that I promised to give you some more examples of really bad questions to avoid.
First of all, avoid the illegal questions. Anything related to race, religion, gender, national origin, age, military service eligibility, veteran status, sexual orientation, or physical handicap is just illegal. If their resume says they were in the Army in 1990, don't ask them, even to make pleasant conversation, if they were in the Gulf war. It's against the law. If their resume says that they attended the Technion in Haifa, don't ask them, even conversationally, if they are Israeli. It's against the law. There's a pretty good discussion of what's illegal here. (But the rest of the interview questions at that site are pretty stupid).
Next, avoid any questions which might make it seem like we care about, or are discriminating based on, things which we don't actually care about or discriminate based on. The best example of this I can think of is asking someone if they have kids or if they are married. This might give the false impression that we think that people with kids aren't going to devote enough time to their work or that they are going to run off and take maternity leave.
Finally, avoid brain teaser questions like the one where you have to arrange 6 equal length matches to make exactly 4 identical perfect triangles. If it's an "aha!" question, you don't get any information about "smart/get things done" by figuring out if they happen to make the mental leap or not.
Interviewing is more of an art than a science, but if you remember the Smart/Gets Thing Done principle you will be in good shape. When you get a chance, ask some of your co-workers what their favorite questions are and what kinds of answers they look for. In the Building 16 cafeteria in Redmond this is a perennial favorite topic of lunchtime conversation.
Discuss at joel.reddit.com
Students: Fog Creek Software has awesome summer internships in New York City. You get free housing, free lunches, lots of free New York activities, and a chance to write great code with great developers. And a competitive salary. Apply today: we only have four open positions and usually get hundreds of applications, which will be considered on a first-come, first-served basis.
About the Author: I'm your host, Joel Spolsky, a software developer in New York City. Since 2000, I've been writing about software development, management, business, and the Internet on this site. For my day job, I run Fog Creek Software, makers of FogBugz - the smart bug tracking software with the stupid name, and Fog Creek Copilot - the easiest way to provide remote tech support over the Internet, with nothing to install or configure.
Enter your email address to receive a (very occasional) email whenever I write a major new article. You can unsubscribe at any time, of course.
First of all, the #1 cardinal criteria for getting hired at Fog Creek:
Smart, and
Gets Things Done.
That's it. That's all we're looking for. Memorize that. Recite it to yourself before you go to bed every night. Our goal is to hire people with aptitude, not a particular skill set. Any skill set that people can bring to the job will be technologically obsolete in a couple of years, anyway, so it's better to hire people that are going to be able to learn any new technology rather than people who happen to know SQL programming right this minute.
Smart is hard to define, but as we look at some possible interview questions we'll see how you can ferret it out. Gets Things Done is crucial. People who are Smart but don't Get Things Done often have PhDs and work in big companies where nobody listens to them because they are completely impractical. They would rather mull over something academic about a problem rather than ship on time. These kind of people can be identified because they love to point out the theoretical similarity between two widely divergent concepts. For example, they will say "Spreadsheets are really just a special case of programming language" and then go off for a week and write a thrilling, brilliant white paper about the theoretical computational linguistic attributes of a spreadsheet as a programming language. Smart, but not useful.
Now, people who Get Things Done but are not Smart will do stupid things, seemingly without thinking about them, and somebody else will have to come clean up their mess later. This makes them liabilities to the company because not only don't they contribute, but they soak up good people's time. They are the kind of people who copy big chunks of code around rather than writing a subroutine, because it gets the job done, just not in the smartest way.
The most important rule about interviewing:
Make A Decision
At the conclusion of the interview, you have to be ready to make a sharp decision about the candidate. There are only two possible outcomes to this decision: Hire or No Hire. Turn to your computer and send immediate feedback to the recruiter. The subject line should be the name of the candidate. The first line of the email should be Hire or No Hire. Then you should spend about 2 paragraphs backing up your decision.
There is no other possible answer. Never say, "Hire, but not in my group." This is rude and implies that the candidate is not smart enough to work with you, but maybe he's smart enough for those losers over in that other group. If you find yourself tempted to say "Hire, but not in my group," simply translate that mechanically to "No Hire" and you'll be OK. Even if you have a candidate that would be brilliant at doing 1 particular thing, but wouldn't be very good in another group, that's a No Hire. Things change so often and so rapidly that we need people that can succeed anywhere. If for some reason you find an idiot savant that is really, really, really good at SQL but completely incapable of ever learning any other topic, No Hire. They don't have a future at Fog Creek.
Never say "Maybe, I can't tell." If you can't tell, that means No Hire. It's really easier than you'd think. Can't tell? Just say no! Similarly, if you are on the fence, that means No Hire. Never say, "Well, Hire, I guess, but I'm a little bit concerned about..." That's a No Hire as well.
An important thing to remember about interviewing is this: it is much better to reject a good candidate than to accept a bad candidate. A bad candidate will cost a lot of money and effort and waste other people's time fixing all their bugs. If you have any doubts whatsoever, No Hire.
While you are conducting the interview, don't worry that if you reject a lot of people, Fog Creek won't be able to find anyone to hire. That's not your problem. It's the recruiter's problem, it's H.R.'s problem, it's Joel's problem, but it's not your problem. Keep asking yourself which is worse - that we grow into a big, lousy software company with lots of coconuts, or that we stay small but high quality? Of course, it's important to seek out good candidates and everybody should see it as a part of their mission to find and recruit smart people who get things done. But once you're actually interviewing someone, pretend that Fog Creek has plenty of great candidates. Never lower your standards no matter how hard it seems to find great candidates.
But how do you make this difficult decision? You just have to keep asking yourself during the interview: is this person smart? Does this person get things done? In order to be able to tell, you're going to have to ask the right questions.
Just for fun, here is the worst interview question on Earth: "What's the difference between varchar and varchar2 in Oracle 8i?" This is a terrible question. There is no possible, imaginable correlation between people that know that particular piece of useless trivia and people that Fog Creek wants to hire. Who cares what the difference is? You can find out online in about 15 seconds!
Actually, there are some even worse questions. I'll get to that later.
So now we get to the fun part: interview questions. My list of interview questions comes from my first job at Microsoft. There are actually hundreds of famous Microsoft interview questions. Everybody has a set of questions that they really like. You, too, will develop a particular set of questions and a personal interviewing style which helps you make the Hire/No Hire decision. Here are some techniques that I have used that have been successful.
Before the interview, I read over the candidates resume and jot down an interview plan on a scrap of paper. That's just a list of questions that I want to ask. Here's a typical plan for interviewing a programmer:
1. Introduction
2. Question about recent project candidate worked on
3. Impossible Question
4. C Function
5. Are you satisfied?
6. Design Question
7. The Challenge
8. Do you have any questions?
Before the interview, I am very, very careful to avoid anything that might give me some preconceived notions about the candidate. If you think that someone is smart before they even walk into the room, just because they have a Ph.D. from MIT, then nothing they can say in 1 hour is going to overcome that initial prejudice. If you think they are a bozo, nothing they can say will overcome that initial impression. An interview is like a very, very delicate scale -- it's very hard to judge someone based on a 1 hour interview and it may seem like a very close call. But if you know a little bit about the candidate beforehand, it's like a big weight on one side of the scale, and the interview is useless. Once, right before an interview, a recruiter came into my office. "You're going to love this guy," she said. BOY did this make me mad. What I should have said was, "well, if you're so sure I'm going to love him, why don't you just hire him instead of wasting my time going through this interview." But I was young and naïve, so I interviewed him. When he said not-so-smart things, I thought to myself, "gee, must be the exception that proves the rule." I looked at everything he said through rose-colored glasses. I wound up saying Hire even though he was a crappy candidate. You know what? Everybody else who interviewed him said No Hire. So: don't listen to recruiters; don't ask around about the person before you interview them; and never, ever talk to the other interviewers about the candidate until you've both made your decisions independently. It's the scientific method!
The Introduction phase of the interview is intended to put the candidate at ease. I spend about 30 seconds telling the person who I am and how the interview will work. I always reassure the candidate that we are interested in how he goes about solving problems, not the actual answer. By the way, in doing the interview, you should make sure that you are not sitting across a desk from the candidate. This creates a formal barrier which will not place the candidate at ease. It is better to move the desk against a wall, or to go around and sit on the other side of the desk with the candidate; this does help put the candidate at ease. This results in a better interview because it is less distorted by nervousness.
Part 2 is a question about some recent project that the candidate worked on. For interviewing college kids, ask them about their senior thesis, if they had one, or about a course they took that involved a long project that they really enjoyed. For example, sometimes I will ask, "what class did you take last semester that you liked the most? It doesn't have to be computer-related." Actually I am usually pretty happy if they choose a non-computer related course. Sometimes you look at their schedule, and it looks like they are taking the bare minimum number of Comp Sci courses, but every elective is something related to Music. Then they will tell you that their favorite course was Object Oriented Databases. Yeah, right. I'd be happier if they admitted that they just liked music more than computers, instead of sucking up.
When interviewing experienced candidates, you can talk about their previous job.
In this question, I'm looking for one thing: passion. When you find a project that the person worked on recently, these are all good signs:
* They get very excited talking about it; they tend to talk more quickly and get animated. This shows that when they are interesting in something, they will be passionate about it. There are far too many people around that can work on something and not really care one way or the other. Even if they are passionately negative, this can be just as good a sign. "I was working on installing Foo Bar Mark II for my previous employer, but he was such a dope!" These are good candidates that we want to hire. Bad candidates just don't care and will not get enthusiastic at all during the interview. A really good sign that a candidate is passionate about something is that when they are talking about it, they will forget for a moment that they are in an interview. Sometimes a candidate comes in who is very nervous about being in an interview situation -- this is normal so I always overlook that. But then when you get them talking about Computational Monochromatic Art they will get extremely excited and lose all signs of nervousness. Good. I like passionate people who really care. (To see an example of Computational Monochromatic Art try unplugging your monitor.)
* They are careful to explain things. I have rejected candidates because when they talked about their previous project, they couldn't explain it in terms that a normal person could understand. Often engineering majors will just assume that everyone knows what Bates Theorem is or what Peano's Axioms are. If they start doing this, stop them for a minute and say, "could you do me a favor, just for the sake of the exercise, could you please explain this in terms my grandmother could understand." At this point many people will still continue to use jargon and will completely fail to make themselves understood. GONG!
* If the project was a team project, look for signs that they took a leadership role. A candidate might say: "we were working on X, but the boss said Y and the client said Z." I'll ask, "so what did you do?" A good answer to this might be "I got together with the other members of the team and wrote a proposal..." A bad answer might be, "Well, there was nothing I could do. It was an impossible situation." Remember, Smart and Gets Things Done. A good way to tell if somebody Gets Things Done is to see if historically they have tended to get things done in the past. In fact, you can even ask them directly to give you an example from their recent past when they took a leadership role and got something done -- overcame some institutional inertia, for example.
OK, the third thing on that list is the impossible question. This is fun. The idea is to ask a question that they have no possible way of answering, just to see how they handle it. "How many optometrists are there in Seattle?" "How many tons does the Washington Monument weigh?" "How many gas stations are in Los Angeles?" "How many piano tuners are there in New York?"
* Smart candidates will realize that you are not quizzing them on their knowledge, and they will enthusiastically leap into trying to figure out some back-of-the-envelope answer. "Well, lets see, the population of LA is about 7 million; each person in LA has about 2.5 cars..." Of course it's OK if they are radically wrong. The important thing is that they leapt into the question enthusiastically. They may try to figure out the capacity of a gas station. "Gee, it takes 4 minutes to tank up, gas stations have about 10 pumps and are open about 18 hours a day..." They may try to figure it out by area. Sometimes they will surprise you with their creativity or ask for a Los Angeles yellow pages. All good signs.
* Not-so-smart candidates will get flustered and upset. They will just stare at you like you landed from Mars. You have to coach them. "Well, if you were building a new city the size of Los Angeles, how many gas stations would you put in it?" You can give them little hints. "How long does it take to fill up a tank of gas?" Still, with not-smart candidates, you will have to drag them along while they sit there stupidly and wait for you to rescue them. These people are not problem solvers and we don't want them working for us.
For programming questions, I ask candidates to write a small function in C. Here are some typical problems I would ask:
1. Reverse a string in place
2. Reverse a linked list
3. Count all the bits that are on in a byte
4. Binary search
5. Find the longest run in a string
6. atoi
7. itoa (great, because they have to use a stack or strrev)
You don't want to give them any problems that take more than about 5 lines of code; you won't have time for that.
Let's look at a couple of these in detail. #1: reverse a string in place. Every candidate I've ever interviewed in my life has done this wrong the first time. Without exception, they try to allocate another buffer and reverse the string into that buffer. The trouble is, who allocates the buffer? Who frees the buffer? In giving this question to dozens of candidates I found out an interesting fact. Most people who think that they know C really do not understand memory or pointers. They just don't get it. It's amazing that these people are working as programmers, but they are. With this question, here are some ways to judge the candidate:
* Is their function fast? Look at how many times they call strlen. I've seen O(n^2) algorithms for strrev when it should be O(n), because they are calling strlen again and again in a loop.
* Do they use pointer arithmetic? This is a good sign. Many "C programmers" just don't know how to make pointer arithmetic work. Now, ordinarily, I wouldn't reject a candidate just because he lacked a particular skill. However, I've discovered that understanding pointers in C is not a skill, it's an aptitude. In Freshman year CompSci, there are always about 200 kids at the beginning of the semester, all of whom wrote complex adventure games in BASIC for their Atari 800s when they were 4 years old. They are having a good ol'; time learning Pascal in college, until one day their professor introduces pointers, and suddenly, they don't get it. They just don't understand anything any more. 90% of the class goes off and becomes PoliSci majors, then they tell their friends that there weren't enough good looking members of the appropriate sex in their CompSci classes, that's why they switched. For some reason most people seem to be born without the part of the brain that understands pointers. This is an aptitude thing, not a skill thing – it requires a complex form of doubly-indirected thinking that some people just can't do.
For #3, you can see how well they learned the bitwise operators in C.... but this is a skill, not an aptitude, so you can help them with these. The interesting thing is to watch them write a subroutine that counts all the bits in a byte, then ask them to make it much, much faster. Really smart candidates will create a lookup table (after all, it's only got 256 entries) that they only have to create once. With good candidates, you can have a really interesting conversation about the different space/speed tradeoffs. Press them further: tell them you don't want to spend any time building the lookup table during initialization. Brilliant candidates might even suggest a caching scheme where bits are counted the first time they are used, and then stored in a lookup table so they don't have to be counted if they are used again. Really, really brilliant candidates will try to devise a way to compute the table using some kind of a shortcut taking advantage of the patterns that occur.
When you watch somebody write code, here are some techniques that may be helpful:
* Always reassure them that you understand that it's hard to write code without an editor, and you will forgive them if their paper gets really messy. Also you understand that it's hard to write bug-free code without a compiler, and you will take that into account.
* Some signs of a good programmer: good programmers have a habit of writing their { and then skipping down to the bottom of the page and writing their }s right away, then filling in the blank later. They also tend to have some kind of a variable naming convention, primitive though it may be... Good programmers tend to use really short variable names for loop indices. If they name their loop index CurrentPagePositionLoopCounter it is sure sign that they have not written a lot of code in their life. Occasionally, you will see a C programmer write something like if (0==strlen(x)), putting the constant on the left hand side of the == . This is a really good sign. It means that they were stung once too many times by confusing = and == and have forced themselves to learn a new habit to avoid that trap.
* Good programmers plan before they write code, especially when there are pointers involved. For example, if you ask them to reverse a linked list, good candidates will always make a little drawing on the side and draw all the pointers and where they go. They have to. It is humanly impossible to write code to reverse a linked list without drawing little boxes with arrows between them. Bad programmers will start writing code right away.
Inevitably, you will see a bug in their function. So we come to question 5: Are you satisfied with that code? You may want to ask, "OK, so where's the bug?" The quintessential Open Ended Question From Hell. All programmers make mistakes, there's nothing wrong with that, they just have to be able to find them. With the string functions, they'll almost always forget to null-terminate the new string. With almost any function, they are likely to have off-by-one errors. They will forget semicolons sometimes. Their function won't work correctly on 0 length strings, or it will GPF if malloc fails... Very, very rarely, you will find a candidate that doesn't have any bugs the first time. In this case, this question is even more fun. When you say, "There's a bug in that code," they will review their code carefully, and then you get to see if they can be diplomatic yet firm in asserting that the code is perfect... In general, it's always a good idea to ask the candidate if they are satisfied with their answer before moving on. Be Regis.
Part 6: the design question. Ask the candidate to design something. Jabe Blumenthal, the original designer of Excel, liked to ask candidates to design a house. According to Jabe, he's had candidates who would go up to the whiteboard and immediately draw a square. A square! These were immediate No Hires. In design questions, what are you looking for?
* Good candidates will try to get more information out of you about the problem. Who is the house for? As a policy, I will not hire someone who leaps into the design without asking more about who it's for. Often I am so annoyed that I will give them a hard time by interrupting them in the middle and saying, "actually, you forgot to ask this, but this is a house for a family of 48-foot tall blind giraffes."
* Not-so-smart candidates think that design is like painting: you get a blank slate, and you can do whatever you want. Smart candidates understand that design is a difficult series of trade-offs. A great design question: design a trash can for a city street corner. Think of all the trade offs! It has to be easy to empty, but impossible to steal; it has to be easy to put things into, but hard for things to fly out of on a windy day; it has to be solid, yet inexpensive; in some cities, it has to be specially designed so that terrorists can't hide a bomb in it.
* Creative candidates will often surprise you with an interesting, non-obvious answer. One of my favorite questions is Design a Spice Rack for Blind People. Inevitably, candidates will put Braille somewhere on the spice bottles, and it usually winds up being on top of the lid for various reasons which you'll discover after you've asked this question 100 times. I had one candidate who decided that it would be better to put the spices in a drawer, because it is more comfortable to scan Braille with your fingertips horizontal than vertical. (Try it!) This was so creative it surprised me -- in dozens of interviews, I had never heard that answer. And it really took a major creative "leap" outside of the bounds of the problem. On the strength of that answer alone, and no negatives, I hired the candidate, who went on to be one of the best program managers on the Excel team.
* Look for closure. This is part of Get Things Done. Sometimes candidates will drift back and forth, unable to make a decision, or they will try to avoid hard questions. Sometimes they will leave difficult decisions unanswered and try to move on. Not good. Good candidates have a tendency to try to naturally keep things moving forward, even when you try to hold them back. If the conversation ever starts going around in circles, and the candidate says something like "well, we can talk about this all day, but we've got to do something, so let's go with decision X" that's a really good sign.
Which brings us to #7, The Challenge. This is fun. Throughout the interview, you look for the candidate to say something that is absolutely, positively, unarguably correct. Then you say, "wait a minute, wait a minute," and spend about 2 minutes playing devil's advocate. Argue with them when you are sure they are right.
* Weak candidates will give in. No Hire.
* Strong candidates will find a way to persuade you. They will have a whole laundry list of Dale Carnegie techniques to win you over. "Perhaps I'm misunderstanding you," they will say. But they will stand their ground. Hire.
Admittedly, in an interview situation, you are not equal parties. Thus there is a risk that the candidate will be afraid to argue with you because you are in a position of power over him. BUT, good candidates will tend to get fairly passionate about the argument, and they may momentarily forget that they are in an interview, and they will get very involved in trying to convince you. These are the people we want to hire.
Finally, you should ask the candidate if they have any questions. Some people like to look to see if the candidate will ask intelligent questions, which is a standard technique in the interviewing books. Personally, I don't care what questions they ask; by this point I've already made my decision. The trouble is, candidates have to see about 5-6 people in one day, and it's hard for them to ask 5-6 people different, brilliant questions, so if they don't have any questions, fine.
I always, always leave about 5 minutes a the end of the interview to sell Fog Creek. This is very important even if you are not going to hire them. If you've been lucky enough to find a really good candidate, you want to do everything you can at this point to make sure that they want to come to Fog Creek. Even if they are a bad candidate, you want to get them excited about Fog Creek Software so that they go away with a positive impression of the company. Think of it this way: these people are not just potential hires; they are also customers. They are also salesmen for our recruiting effort: if they think that Fog Creek is a great place to work, they will encourage their friends to apply.
Ah, I just remembered that I promised to give you some more examples of really bad questions to avoid.
First of all, avoid the illegal questions. Anything related to race, religion, gender, national origin, age, military service eligibility, veteran status, sexual orientation, or physical handicap is just illegal. If their resume says they were in the Army in 1990, don't ask them, even to make pleasant conversation, if they were in the Gulf war. It's against the law. If their resume says that they attended the Technion in Haifa, don't ask them, even conversationally, if they are Israeli. It's against the law. There's a pretty good discussion of what's illegal here. (But the rest of the interview questions at that site are pretty stupid).
Next, avoid any questions which might make it seem like we care about, or are discriminating based on, things which we don't actually care about or discriminate based on. The best example of this I can think of is asking someone if they have kids or if they are married. This might give the false impression that we think that people with kids aren't going to devote enough time to their work or that they are going to run off and take maternity leave.
Finally, avoid brain teaser questions like the one where you have to arrange 6 equal length matches to make exactly 4 identical perfect triangles. If it's an "aha!" question, you don't get any information about "smart/get things done" by figuring out if they happen to make the mental leap or not.
Interviewing is more of an art than a science, but if you remember the Smart/Gets Thing Done principle you will be in good shape. When you get a chance, ask some of your co-workers what their favorite questions are and what kinds of answers they look for. In the Building 16 cafeteria in Redmond this is a perennial favorite topic of lunchtime conversation.
Discuss at joel.reddit.com
Students: Fog Creek Software has awesome summer internships in New York City. You get free housing, free lunches, lots of free New York activities, and a chance to write great code with great developers. And a competitive salary. Apply today: we only have four open positions and usually get hundreds of applications, which will be considered on a first-come, first-served basis.
About the Author: I'm your host, Joel Spolsky, a software developer in New York City. Since 2000, I've been writing about software development, management, business, and the Internet on this site. For my day job, I run Fog Creek Software, makers of FogBugz - the smart bug tracking software with the stupid name, and Fog Creek Copilot - the easiest way to provide remote tech support over the Internet, with nothing to install or configure.
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Tuesday, December 11, 2007
Interview Tips & Job Search Strategies
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Monday, December 10, 2007
Software Testing Interview Questions Part 3 »
16. What is bug life cycle?
A: — New: when tester reports a defect
Open: when developer accepts that it is a bug or if the developer rejects the defect, then the status is turned into “Rejected”
Fixed: when developer make changes to the code to rectify the bug…
Closed/Reopen: when tester tests it again. If the expected result shown up, it is turned into “Closed” and if the problem resists again, it’s “Reopen
17. What is deferred status in defect life cycle?
A: — Deferred status means the developer accepted the bus, but it is scheduled to rectify in the next build
18. What is smoke test?
A; — Testing the application whether it’s performing its basic functionality properly or not, so that the test team can go ahead with the application
19. Do you use any automation tool for smoke testing?
A: - Definitely can use.
20. What is Verification and validation?
A: — Verification is static. No code is executed. Say, analysis of requirements etc. Validation is dynamic. Code is executed with scenarios present in test cases.
21. What is test plan and explain its contents?
A: — Test plan is a document which contains the scope for testing the application and what to be tested, when to be tested and who to test.
22. Advantages of automation over manual testing?
A: — Time, resource and Money
23. What is ADhoc testing?
A: — AdHoc means doing something which is not planned.
24. What is mean by release notes?
A: — It’s a document released along with the product which explains about the product. It also contains about the bugs that are in deferred status.
25. Scalability testing comes under in which tool?
A: — Scalability testing comes under performance testing. Load testing, scalability testing both r same.
26. What is the difference between Bug and Defect?
A: — Bug: Deviation from the expected result. Defect: Problem in algorithm leads to failure.
A Mistake in code is called Error.
Due to Error in coding, test engineers are getting mismatches in application is called defect.
If defect accepted by development team to solve is called Bug.
27. What is hot fix?
A: — A hot fix is a single, cumulative package that includes one or more files that are used to address a problem in a software product. Typically, hot fixes are made to address a specific customer situation and may not be distributed outside the customer organization.
Bug found at the customer place which has high priority.
28. What is the difference between functional test cases and compatability testcases?
A: — There are no Test Cases for Compatibility Testing; in Compatibility Testing we are Testing an application in different Hardware and software. If it is wrong plz let me know.
29. What is Acid Testing??
A: — ACID Means:
ACID testing is related to testing a transaction.
A-Atomicity
C-Consistent
I-Isolation
D-Durable
Mostly this will be done database testing.
30. What is the main use of preparing a traceability matrix?
A: — To Cross verify the prepared test cases and test scripts with user requirements.
To monitor the changes, enhance occurred during the development of the project.
Traceability matrix is prepared in order to cross check the test cases designed against each requirement, hence giving an opportunity to verify that all the requirements are covered in testing the application.
A: — New: when tester reports a defect
Open: when developer accepts that it is a bug or if the developer rejects the defect, then the status is turned into “Rejected”
Fixed: when developer make changes to the code to rectify the bug…
Closed/Reopen: when tester tests it again. If the expected result shown up, it is turned into “Closed” and if the problem resists again, it’s “Reopen
17. What is deferred status in defect life cycle?
A: — Deferred status means the developer accepted the bus, but it is scheduled to rectify in the next build
18. What is smoke test?
A; — Testing the application whether it’s performing its basic functionality properly or not, so that the test team can go ahead with the application
19. Do you use any automation tool for smoke testing?
A: - Definitely can use.
20. What is Verification and validation?
A: — Verification is static. No code is executed. Say, analysis of requirements etc. Validation is dynamic. Code is executed with scenarios present in test cases.
21. What is test plan and explain its contents?
A: — Test plan is a document which contains the scope for testing the application and what to be tested, when to be tested and who to test.
22. Advantages of automation over manual testing?
A: — Time, resource and Money
23. What is ADhoc testing?
A: — AdHoc means doing something which is not planned.
24. What is mean by release notes?
A: — It’s a document released along with the product which explains about the product. It also contains about the bugs that are in deferred status.
25. Scalability testing comes under in which tool?
A: — Scalability testing comes under performance testing. Load testing, scalability testing both r same.
26. What is the difference between Bug and Defect?
A: — Bug: Deviation from the expected result. Defect: Problem in algorithm leads to failure.
A Mistake in code is called Error.
Due to Error in coding, test engineers are getting mismatches in application is called defect.
If defect accepted by development team to solve is called Bug.
27. What is hot fix?
A: — A hot fix is a single, cumulative package that includes one or more files that are used to address a problem in a software product. Typically, hot fixes are made to address a specific customer situation and may not be distributed outside the customer organization.
Bug found at the customer place which has high priority.
28. What is the difference between functional test cases and compatability testcases?
A: — There are no Test Cases for Compatibility Testing; in Compatibility Testing we are Testing an application in different Hardware and software. If it is wrong plz let me know.
29. What is Acid Testing??
A: — ACID Means:
ACID testing is related to testing a transaction.
A-Atomicity
C-Consistent
I-Isolation
D-Durable
Mostly this will be done database testing.
30. What is the main use of preparing a traceability matrix?
A: — To Cross verify the prepared test cases and test scripts with user requirements.
To monitor the changes, enhance occurred during the development of the project.
Traceability matrix is prepared in order to cross check the test cases designed against each requirement, hence giving an opportunity to verify that all the requirements are covered in testing the application.
Software Testing Interview Questions Part 4 »
31. If we have no SRS, BRS but we have test cases does u execute the test cases blindly or do u follow any other process?
A: — Test case would have detail steps of what the application is supposed to do. SO
1) Functionality of application is known.
2) In addition you can refer to Backend, I mean look into the Database. To gain more knowledge of the application
32. How to execute test case?
A: — There are two ways:
1. Manual Runner Tool for manual execution and updating of test status.
2. Automated test case execution by specifying Host name and other automation pertaining details.
33. Difference between re testing and regression testing?
A: — Retesting: –
Re-execution of test cases on same application build with different input values is retesting.
Regression Testing:
Re-execution of test cases on modifies form of build is called regression testing…
34. What is the difference between bug log and defect tracking?
A; — Bug log is a document which maintains the information of the bug where as bug tracking is the process.
35. Who will change the Bug Status as Differed?
A: — Bug will be in open status while developer is working on it Fixed after developer completes his work if it is not fixed properly the tester puts it in reopen After fixing the bug properly it is in closed state.
Developer
36. wht is smoke testing and user interface testing ?
A: — ST:
Smoke testing is non-exhaustive software testing, as pertaining that the most crucial functions of a program work, but not bothering with finer details. The term comes to software testing from a similarly basic type of hardware testing.
UIT:
I did a bit or R n D on this…. some says it’s nothing but Usability testing. Testing to determine the ease with which a user can learn to operate, input, and interpret outputs of a system or component.
Smoke testing is nothing but to check whether basic functionality of the build is stable or not?
I.e. if it possesses 70% of the functionality we say build is stable.
User interface testing: We check all the fields whether they are existing or not as per the format we check spelling graphic font sizes everything in the window present or not|
37. what is bug, deffect, issue, error?
A: — Bug: — Bug is identified by the tester.
Defect:– Whenever the project is received for the analysis phase ,may be some requirement miss to get or understand most of the time Defect itself come with the project (when it comes).
Issue: — Client site error most of the time.
Error: — When anything is happened wrong in the project from the development side i.e. called as the error, most of the time this knows by the developer.
Bug: a fault or defect in a system or machine
Defect: an imperfection in a device or machine;
Issue: An issue is a major problem that will impede the progress of the project and cannot be resolved by the project manager and project team without outside help
Error:
Error is the deviation of a measurement, observation, or calculation from the truth
38. What is the diff b/w functional testing and integration testing?
A: — functional testing is testing the whole functionality of the system or the application whether it is meeting the functional specifications
Integration testing means testing the functionality of integrated module when two individual modules are integrated for this we use top-down approach and bottom up approach
39. what type of testing u perform in organization while u do System Testing, give clearly?
A: — Functional testing
User interface testing
Usability testing
Compatibility testing
Model based testing
Error exit testing
User help testing
Security testing
Capacity testing
Performance testing
Sanity testing
Regression testing
Reliability testing
Recovery testing
Installation testing
Maintenance testing
Accessibility testing, including compliance with:
Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990
Section 508 Amendment to the Rehabilitation Act of 1973
Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) of the World Wide Web
Consortium (W3C)
40. What is the main use of preparing Traceability matrix and explain the real time usage?
A: — A traceability matrix is created by associating requirements with the work products that satisfy them. Tests are associated with the requirements on which they are based and the product tested to meet the requirement.
A traceability matrix is a report from the requirements database or repository.
41. How can u do the following 1) Usability testing 2) scalability Testing
A:–
UT:
Testing the ease with which users can learn and use a product.
ST:
It’s a Web Testing defn.allows web site capability improvement.
PT:
Testing to determine whether the system/software meets the specified portability requirements.
42. What does u mean by Positive and Negative testing & what is the diff’s between them. Can anyone explain with an example?
A: — Positive Testing: Testing the application functionality with valid inputs and verifying that output is correct
Negative testing: Testing the application functionality with invalid inputs and verifying the output.
Difference is nothing but how the application behaves when we enter some invalid inputs suppose if it accepts invalid input the application
Functionality is wrong
Positive test: testing aimed to show that s/w work i.e. with valid inputs. This is also called as “test to pass’
Negative testing: testing aimed at showing s/w doesn’t work. Which is also know as ‘test to fail” BVA is the best example of -ve testing.
43. what is change request, how u use it?
A: — Change Request is a attribute or part of Defect Life Cycle.
Now when u as a tester finds a defect n report to ur DL…he in turn informs the Development Team.
The DT says it’s not a defect it’s an extra implementation or says not part of req’ment. Its newscast has to pay.
Here the status in ur defect report would be Change Request
I think change request controlled by change request control board (CCB). If any changes required by client after we start the project, it has to come thru that CCB and they have to approve it. CCB got full rights to accept or reject based on the project schedule and cost.
44. What is risk analysis, what type of risk analysis u did in u r project?
A: — Risk Analysis:
A systematic use of available information to determine how often specified events and unspecified events may occur and the magnitude of their likely consequences
OR
procedure to identify threats & vulnerabilities, analyze them to ascertain the exposures, and highlight how the impact can be eliminated or reduced
Types :
1.QUANTITATIVE RISK ANALYSIS
2.QUALITATIVE RISK ANALYSIS
45. What is API ?
A:– Application program interface
A: — Test case would have detail steps of what the application is supposed to do. SO
1) Functionality of application is known.
2) In addition you can refer to Backend, I mean look into the Database. To gain more knowledge of the application
32. How to execute test case?
A: — There are two ways:
1. Manual Runner Tool for manual execution and updating of test status.
2. Automated test case execution by specifying Host name and other automation pertaining details.
33. Difference between re testing and regression testing?
A: — Retesting: –
Re-execution of test cases on same application build with different input values is retesting.
Regression Testing:
Re-execution of test cases on modifies form of build is called regression testing…
34. What is the difference between bug log and defect tracking?
A; — Bug log is a document which maintains the information of the bug where as bug tracking is the process.
35. Who will change the Bug Status as Differed?
A: — Bug will be in open status while developer is working on it Fixed after developer completes his work if it is not fixed properly the tester puts it in reopen After fixing the bug properly it is in closed state.
Developer
36. wht is smoke testing and user interface testing ?
A: — ST:
Smoke testing is non-exhaustive software testing, as pertaining that the most crucial functions of a program work, but not bothering with finer details. The term comes to software testing from a similarly basic type of hardware testing.
UIT:
I did a bit or R n D on this…. some says it’s nothing but Usability testing. Testing to determine the ease with which a user can learn to operate, input, and interpret outputs of a system or component.
Smoke testing is nothing but to check whether basic functionality of the build is stable or not?
I.e. if it possesses 70% of the functionality we say build is stable.
User interface testing: We check all the fields whether they are existing or not as per the format we check spelling graphic font sizes everything in the window present or not|
37. what is bug, deffect, issue, error?
A: — Bug: — Bug is identified by the tester.
Defect:– Whenever the project is received for the analysis phase ,may be some requirement miss to get or understand most of the time Defect itself come with the project (when it comes).
Issue: — Client site error most of the time.
Error: — When anything is happened wrong in the project from the development side i.e. called as the error, most of the time this knows by the developer.
Bug: a fault or defect in a system or machine
Defect: an imperfection in a device or machine;
Issue: An issue is a major problem that will impede the progress of the project and cannot be resolved by the project manager and project team without outside help
Error:
Error is the deviation of a measurement, observation, or calculation from the truth
38. What is the diff b/w functional testing and integration testing?
A: — functional testing is testing the whole functionality of the system or the application whether it is meeting the functional specifications
Integration testing means testing the functionality of integrated module when two individual modules are integrated for this we use top-down approach and bottom up approach
39. what type of testing u perform in organization while u do System Testing, give clearly?
A: — Functional testing
User interface testing
Usability testing
Compatibility testing
Model based testing
Error exit testing
User help testing
Security testing
Capacity testing
Performance testing
Sanity testing
Regression testing
Reliability testing
Recovery testing
Installation testing
Maintenance testing
Accessibility testing, including compliance with:
Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990
Section 508 Amendment to the Rehabilitation Act of 1973
Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) of the World Wide Web
Consortium (W3C)
40. What is the main use of preparing Traceability matrix and explain the real time usage?
A: — A traceability matrix is created by associating requirements with the work products that satisfy them. Tests are associated with the requirements on which they are based and the product tested to meet the requirement.
A traceability matrix is a report from the requirements database or repository.
41. How can u do the following 1) Usability testing 2) scalability Testing
A:–
UT:
Testing the ease with which users can learn and use a product.
ST:
It’s a Web Testing defn.allows web site capability improvement.
PT:
Testing to determine whether the system/software meets the specified portability requirements.
42. What does u mean by Positive and Negative testing & what is the diff’s between them. Can anyone explain with an example?
A: — Positive Testing: Testing the application functionality with valid inputs and verifying that output is correct
Negative testing: Testing the application functionality with invalid inputs and verifying the output.
Difference is nothing but how the application behaves when we enter some invalid inputs suppose if it accepts invalid input the application
Functionality is wrong
Positive test: testing aimed to show that s/w work i.e. with valid inputs. This is also called as “test to pass’
Negative testing: testing aimed at showing s/w doesn’t work. Which is also know as ‘test to fail” BVA is the best example of -ve testing.
43. what is change request, how u use it?
A: — Change Request is a attribute or part of Defect Life Cycle.
Now when u as a tester finds a defect n report to ur DL…he in turn informs the Development Team.
The DT says it’s not a defect it’s an extra implementation or says not part of req’ment. Its newscast has to pay.
Here the status in ur defect report would be Change Request
I think change request controlled by change request control board (CCB). If any changes required by client after we start the project, it has to come thru that CCB and they have to approve it. CCB got full rights to accept or reject based on the project schedule and cost.
44. What is risk analysis, what type of risk analysis u did in u r project?
A: — Risk Analysis:
A systematic use of available information to determine how often specified events and unspecified events may occur and the magnitude of their likely consequences
OR
procedure to identify threats & vulnerabilities, analyze them to ascertain the exposures, and highlight how the impact can be eliminated or reduced
Types :
1.QUANTITATIVE RISK ANALYSIS
2.QUALITATIVE RISK ANALYSIS
45. What is API ?
A:– Application program interface
35 QA Testing Interview Questions »
1. What is SQA Activities?
2. How can we perform testing without expected results?
3. Which of the following statements about regression testing are true?
a. Regression Testing must consist of a fixed set of tests to create a baseline
b. Regression Testing should be used to detect defects in new features
c. Regression Testing can be run on every build
d. Regression Testing should be targeted to areas of high risk and known code change
e. Regression Testing, when automated, is highly effective in preventing defects
4. How do you conduct boundary analyst testing for “ok”pushbutton
5. What is an exit and entry criteria in a Test Plan ?
6. To whom you send test deliverables?
7. What is configuration Management?
8. Who writes the Business requirements? What you do when you have the BRD?
9. What we normally check for in the Database Testing?
10. What is walk through and inspection?
11. What are the key elements for creating test plan?
12. How do you ensure the quality of the product?
13. What is the job of Quality assurance engineer? Difference between the testing & Quality Assurance job.
14. Can any one send information regarding manual testing. I know just how to use winrunner load runner tool with sample flight reservation application. can any one send me the information how to test web logic and web sphere.
15. What are the demerits of winrunner?
16. How you used white box and block box technologies in your application?
17. What is the role of QA in a project development?
18. How can u test the white page ?
19. How do you scope, organize, and execute a test project?
20. What is the role of QA in a company that produces software?
21. Describe to me when you would consider employing a failure mode and defect analysis?
22. In general, how do you see automation fitting into the overall process of testing?
23. How do you decide when you have ‘tested enough?’
24. Describe to the basic elements you put in a defect report?
25. What is use case? What is the difference between test cases and use cases?
26. What is the importance of a requirements traceability in a product testing?
27. If the actual result doesn’t match with expected result in this situation what should we do?
28. Explain about Metrics and types of metrics like schedule variance , effort variance?
29. What is the difference between functional testing & black box testing?
30. What is heuristic checklist used in Unit Testing?
31. What is the difference between System Testing,Integration Testing & System Integration Testing?
32. How to calculate the estimate for test case design and review?
33. What is Requirements Traceability ? What is the purpose of it ? Explain types of traceability matrices ?
34. What are the contents of Risk management Plan? Have you ever prepared a Risk Management Plan ?
35. What metrics used to measure the size of the software?
2. How can we perform testing without expected results?
3. Which of the following statements about regression testing are true?
a. Regression Testing must consist of a fixed set of tests to create a baseline
b. Regression Testing should be used to detect defects in new features
c. Regression Testing can be run on every build
d. Regression Testing should be targeted to areas of high risk and known code change
e. Regression Testing, when automated, is highly effective in preventing defects
4. How do you conduct boundary analyst testing for “ok”pushbutton
5. What is an exit and entry criteria in a Test Plan ?
6. To whom you send test deliverables?
7. What is configuration Management?
8. Who writes the Business requirements? What you do when you have the BRD?
9. What we normally check for in the Database Testing?
10. What is walk through and inspection?
11. What are the key elements for creating test plan?
12. How do you ensure the quality of the product?
13. What is the job of Quality assurance engineer? Difference between the testing & Quality Assurance job.
14. Can any one send information regarding manual testing. I know just how to use winrunner load runner tool with sample flight reservation application. can any one send me the information how to test web logic and web sphere.
15. What are the demerits of winrunner?
16. How you used white box and block box technologies in your application?
17. What is the role of QA in a project development?
18. How can u test the white page ?
19. How do you scope, organize, and execute a test project?
20. What is the role of QA in a company that produces software?
21. Describe to me when you would consider employing a failure mode and defect analysis?
22. In general, how do you see automation fitting into the overall process of testing?
23. How do you decide when you have ‘tested enough?’
24. Describe to the basic elements you put in a defect report?
25. What is use case? What is the difference between test cases and use cases?
26. What is the importance of a requirements traceability in a product testing?
27. If the actual result doesn’t match with expected result in this situation what should we do?
28. Explain about Metrics and types of metrics like schedule variance , effort variance?
29. What is the difference between functional testing & black box testing?
30. What is heuristic checklist used in Unit Testing?
31. What is the difference between System Testing,Integration Testing & System Integration Testing?
32. How to calculate the estimate for test case design and review?
33. What is Requirements Traceability ? What is the purpose of it ? Explain types of traceability matrices ?
34. What are the contents of Risk management Plan? Have you ever prepared a Risk Management Plan ?
35. What metrics used to measure the size of the software?
Software Testing Interview Questions Part 5 »
46. High severity, low priority bug?
A: — A page is rarely accessed, or some activity is performed rarely but that thing outputs some important Data incorrectly, or corrupts the data, this will be a bug of H severity L priority
47. If project wants to release in 3months what type of Risk analysis u do in Test plan?
A:– Use risk analysis to determine where testing should be focused. Since it’s rarely possible to test every possible aspect of an application, every possible combination of events, every dependency, or everything that could go wrong, risk analysis is appropriate to most software development projects. This requires judgment skills, common sense, and experience. (If warranted, formal methods are also available.) Considerations can include:
• Which functionality is most important to the project’s intended purpose?
• Which functionality is most visible to the user?
• Which functionality has the largest safety impact?
• Which functionality has the largest financial impact on users?
• Which aspects of the application are most important to the customer?
• Which aspects of the application can be tested early in the development cycle?
• Which parts of the code are most complex, and thus most subject to errors?
• Which parts of the application were developed in rush or panic mode?
• Which aspects of similar/related previous projects caused problems?
• Which aspects of similar/related previous projects had large maintenance expenses?
• Which parts of the requirements and design are unclear or poorly thought out?
• What do the developers think are the highest-risk aspects of the application?
• What kinds of problems would cause the worst publicity?
• What kinds of problems would cause the most customer service complaints?
• What kinds of tests could easily cover multiple functionalities?
• Which tests will have the best high-risk-coverage to time-required ratio
48. Test cases for IE 6.0 ?
A:– Test cases for IE 6.0 i.e Internet Explorer 6.0:—
1)First I go for the Installation side, means that –
+ is it working with all versions of Windows ,Netscape or other softwares in other words we can say that IE must check with all hardware and software parts.
2) Secondly go for the Text Part means that all the Text part appears in frequent and smooth manner.
3) Thirdly go for the Images Part means that all the Images appears in frequent and smooth manner.
4) URL must run in a better way.
5) Suppose Some other language used on it then URL take the Other Characters, Other than Normal Characters.
6)Is it working with Cookies frequently or not.
7) Is it Concerning with different script like JScript and VBScript.
8) HTML Code work on that or not.
9) Troubleshooting works or not.
10) All the Tool bars are work with it or not.
11) If Page has Some Links, than how much is the Max and Min Limit for that.
12) Test for Installing Internet Explorer 6 with Norton Protected Recycle Bin enabled .
13) Is it working with the Uninstallation Process.
14) Last but not the least test for the Security System for the IE 6.0
49. Where you involve in testing life cycle ,what type of test you perform ?
A:– Generally test engineers involved from entire test life cycle i.e, test plan, test case preparation, execution, reporting. Generally system testing, regression testing, adhoc testing
etc.
50. what is Testing environment in your company ,means hwo testing process start ?
A:– testing process is going as follows
quality assurance unit
quality assurance manager
testlead
test engineer
51. who prepares the use cases?
A:– In Any company except the small company Business analyst prepares the use cases
But in small company Business analyst prepares along with team lead
52. What methodologies have you used to develop test cases?
A:– generally test engineers uses 4 types of methodologies
1. Boundary value analysis
2.Equivalence partition
3.Error guessing
4.cause effect graphing
53. Why we call it as a regression test nor retest?
A:– If we test whether defect is closed or not i.e Retesting But here we are checking the impact also regression means repeated times
54. Is automated testing better than manual testing. If so, why?
A:– Automated testing and manual testing have advantages as well as disadvantages
Advantages: It increase the efficiency of testing process speed in process
reliable
Flexible
disadvantage’s
Tools should have compatibility with our development or deployment tools needs lot of time initially If the requirements are changing continuously Automation is not suitable
Manual: If the requirements are changing continuously Manual is suitable Once the build is stable with manual testing then only we go 4 automation
Disadvantages:
It needs lot of time
We can not do some type of testing manually
E.g Performances
55. what is the exact difference between a product and a project.give an example ?
A:– Project Developed for particular client requirements are defined by client Product developed for market Requirements are defined by company itself by conducting market survey
Example
Project: the shirt which we are interested stitching with tailor as per our specifications is project
Product: Example is “Ready made Shirt” where the particular company will imagine particular measurements they made the product
Mainframes is a product
Product has many mo of versions
but project has fewer versions i.e depends upon change request and enhancements
56. Define Brain Stromming and Cause Effect Graphing? With Eg?
A:– BS:
A learning technique involving open group discussion intended to expand the range of available ideas
OR
A meeting to generate creative ideas. At PEPSI Advertising, daily, weekly and bi-monthly brainstorming sessions are held by various work groups within the firm. Our monthly I-
Power brainstorming meeting is attended by the entire agency staff.
OR
Brainstorming is a highly structured process to help generate ideas. It is based on the principle that you cannot generate and evaluate ideas at the same time. To use brainstorming, you must first gain agreement from the group to try brainstorming for a fixed interval (eg six minutes).
CEG :
A testing technique that aids in selecting, in a systematic way, a high-yield set of test cases that logically relates causes to effects to produce test cases. It has a beneficial side effect in pointing out incompleteness and ambiguities in specifications.
57. Actually by using severity u should know which one u need to solve so what is the need of priority?
A:– I guess severity reflects the seriousness of the bug where as priority refers to which bug should rectify first. of course if the severity is high the same case is with priority in normal.
severity decided by the tester where as priority decided by developers. which one need to solve first knows through priority not with severity. how serious of the bug knows through
severity.
severity is nothing impact of that bug on the application. Priority is nothing but importance to resolve the bug yeah of course by looking severity we can judge but sometimes high severity bug doesn’t have high priority At the same time High priority bug don’t have high severity
So we need both severity and priority
58. What do u do if the bug that u found is not accepted by the developer and he is saying its not reproducible. Note:The developer is in the on site location ?
A:– once again we will check that condition with all reasons. then we will attach screen shots with strong reasons. then we will explain to the project manager and also explain to the client when they contact us
Sometimes bug is not reproducible it is because of different environment suppose development team using other environment and you are using different environment at this situation there is chance of bug not reproducing. At this situation please check the environment in the base line documents that is functional documents if the environment which we r using is correct we will raise it as defect We will take screen shots and sends them with test procedure also
59. what is the difference between three tier and two tier application?
A:– Client server is a 2-tier application. In this, front end or client is connected to
‘Data base server’ through ‘Data Source Name’,front end is the monitoring level.
Web based architecture is a 3-tier application. In this, browser is connected to web server through TCP/IP and web server is connected to Data base server,browser is the monitoring level. In general, Black box testers are concentrating on monitoring level of any type of application.
All the client server applications are 2 tier architectures.
Here in these architecture, all the “Business Logic” is stored in clients and “Data” is stored in Servers. So if user request anything, business logic will b performed at client, and the data is retrieved from Server(DB Server). Here the problem is, if any business logic changes, then we
need to change the logic at each any every client. The best ex: is take a super market, i have branches in the city. At each branch i have clients, so business logic is stored in clients, but the actual data is store in servers.If assume i want to give some discount on some items, so i
need to change the business logic. For this i need to goto each branch and need to change the business logic at each client. This the disadvantage of Client/Server architecture.
So 3-tier architecture came into picture:
Here Business Logic is stored in one Server, and all the clients are dumb terminals. If user requests anything the request first sent to server, the server will bring the data from DB Sever and send it to clients. This is the flow for 3-tier architecture.
Assume for the above. Ex. if i want to give some discount, all my business logic is there in Server. So i need to change at one place, not at each client. This is the main advantage of 3-tier architecture.
A: — A page is rarely accessed, or some activity is performed rarely but that thing outputs some important Data incorrectly, or corrupts the data, this will be a bug of H severity L priority
47. If project wants to release in 3months what type of Risk analysis u do in Test plan?
A:– Use risk analysis to determine where testing should be focused. Since it’s rarely possible to test every possible aspect of an application, every possible combination of events, every dependency, or everything that could go wrong, risk analysis is appropriate to most software development projects. This requires judgment skills, common sense, and experience. (If warranted, formal methods are also available.) Considerations can include:
• Which functionality is most important to the project’s intended purpose?
• Which functionality is most visible to the user?
• Which functionality has the largest safety impact?
• Which functionality has the largest financial impact on users?
• Which aspects of the application are most important to the customer?
• Which aspects of the application can be tested early in the development cycle?
• Which parts of the code are most complex, and thus most subject to errors?
• Which parts of the application were developed in rush or panic mode?
• Which aspects of similar/related previous projects caused problems?
• Which aspects of similar/related previous projects had large maintenance expenses?
• Which parts of the requirements and design are unclear or poorly thought out?
• What do the developers think are the highest-risk aspects of the application?
• What kinds of problems would cause the worst publicity?
• What kinds of problems would cause the most customer service complaints?
• What kinds of tests could easily cover multiple functionalities?
• Which tests will have the best high-risk-coverage to time-required ratio
48. Test cases for IE 6.0 ?
A:– Test cases for IE 6.0 i.e Internet Explorer 6.0:—
1)First I go for the Installation side, means that –
+ is it working with all versions of Windows ,Netscape or other softwares in other words we can say that IE must check with all hardware and software parts.
2) Secondly go for the Text Part means that all the Text part appears in frequent and smooth manner.
3) Thirdly go for the Images Part means that all the Images appears in frequent and smooth manner.
4) URL must run in a better way.
5) Suppose Some other language used on it then URL take the Other Characters, Other than Normal Characters.
6)Is it working with Cookies frequently or not.
7) Is it Concerning with different script like JScript and VBScript.
8) HTML Code work on that or not.
9) Troubleshooting works or not.
10) All the Tool bars are work with it or not.
11) If Page has Some Links, than how much is the Max and Min Limit for that.
12) Test for Installing Internet Explorer 6 with Norton Protected Recycle Bin enabled .
13) Is it working with the Uninstallation Process.
14) Last but not the least test for the Security System for the IE 6.0
49. Where you involve in testing life cycle ,what type of test you perform ?
A:– Generally test engineers involved from entire test life cycle i.e, test plan, test case preparation, execution, reporting. Generally system testing, regression testing, adhoc testing
etc.
50. what is Testing environment in your company ,means hwo testing process start ?
A:– testing process is going as follows
quality assurance unit
quality assurance manager
testlead
test engineer
51. who prepares the use cases?
A:– In Any company except the small company Business analyst prepares the use cases
But in small company Business analyst prepares along with team lead
52. What methodologies have you used to develop test cases?
A:– generally test engineers uses 4 types of methodologies
1. Boundary value analysis
2.Equivalence partition
3.Error guessing
4.cause effect graphing
53. Why we call it as a regression test nor retest?
A:– If we test whether defect is closed or not i.e Retesting But here we are checking the impact also regression means repeated times
54. Is automated testing better than manual testing. If so, why?
A:– Automated testing and manual testing have advantages as well as disadvantages
Advantages: It increase the efficiency of testing process speed in process
reliable
Flexible
disadvantage’s
Tools should have compatibility with our development or deployment tools needs lot of time initially If the requirements are changing continuously Automation is not suitable
Manual: If the requirements are changing continuously Manual is suitable Once the build is stable with manual testing then only we go 4 automation
Disadvantages:
It needs lot of time
We can not do some type of testing manually
E.g Performances
55. what is the exact difference between a product and a project.give an example ?
A:– Project Developed for particular client requirements are defined by client Product developed for market Requirements are defined by company itself by conducting market survey
Example
Project: the shirt which we are interested stitching with tailor as per our specifications is project
Product: Example is “Ready made Shirt” where the particular company will imagine particular measurements they made the product
Mainframes is a product
Product has many mo of versions
but project has fewer versions i.e depends upon change request and enhancements
56. Define Brain Stromming and Cause Effect Graphing? With Eg?
A:– BS:
A learning technique involving open group discussion intended to expand the range of available ideas
OR
A meeting to generate creative ideas. At PEPSI Advertising, daily, weekly and bi-monthly brainstorming sessions are held by various work groups within the firm. Our monthly I-
Power brainstorming meeting is attended by the entire agency staff.
OR
Brainstorming is a highly structured process to help generate ideas. It is based on the principle that you cannot generate and evaluate ideas at the same time. To use brainstorming, you must first gain agreement from the group to try brainstorming for a fixed interval (eg six minutes).
CEG :
A testing technique that aids in selecting, in a systematic way, a high-yield set of test cases that logically relates causes to effects to produce test cases. It has a beneficial side effect in pointing out incompleteness and ambiguities in specifications.
57. Actually by using severity u should know which one u need to solve so what is the need of priority?
A:– I guess severity reflects the seriousness of the bug where as priority refers to which bug should rectify first. of course if the severity is high the same case is with priority in normal.
severity decided by the tester where as priority decided by developers. which one need to solve first knows through priority not with severity. how serious of the bug knows through
severity.
severity is nothing impact of that bug on the application. Priority is nothing but importance to resolve the bug yeah of course by looking severity we can judge but sometimes high severity bug doesn’t have high priority At the same time High priority bug don’t have high severity
So we need both severity and priority
58. What do u do if the bug that u found is not accepted by the developer and he is saying its not reproducible. Note:The developer is in the on site location ?
A:– once again we will check that condition with all reasons. then we will attach screen shots with strong reasons. then we will explain to the project manager and also explain to the client when they contact us
Sometimes bug is not reproducible it is because of different environment suppose development team using other environment and you are using different environment at this situation there is chance of bug not reproducing. At this situation please check the environment in the base line documents that is functional documents if the environment which we r using is correct we will raise it as defect We will take screen shots and sends them with test procedure also
59. what is the difference between three tier and two tier application?
A:– Client server is a 2-tier application. In this, front end or client is connected to
‘Data base server’ through ‘Data Source Name’,front end is the monitoring level.
Web based architecture is a 3-tier application. In this, browser is connected to web server through TCP/IP and web server is connected to Data base server,browser is the monitoring level. In general, Black box testers are concentrating on monitoring level of any type of application.
All the client server applications are 2 tier architectures.
Here in these architecture, all the “Business Logic” is stored in clients and “Data” is stored in Servers. So if user request anything, business logic will b performed at client, and the data is retrieved from Server(DB Server). Here the problem is, if any business logic changes, then we
need to change the logic at each any every client. The best ex: is take a super market, i have branches in the city. At each branch i have clients, so business logic is stored in clients, but the actual data is store in servers.If assume i want to give some discount on some items, so i
need to change the business logic. For this i need to goto each branch and need to change the business logic at each client. This the disadvantage of Client/Server architecture.
So 3-tier architecture came into picture:
Here Business Logic is stored in one Server, and all the clients are dumb terminals. If user requests anything the request first sent to server, the server will bring the data from DB Sever and send it to clients. This is the flow for 3-tier architecture.
Assume for the above. Ex. if i want to give some discount, all my business logic is there in Server. So i need to change at one place, not at each client. This is the main advantage of 3-tier architecture.
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