Introduction to QA Interview Questions and Answers
Quality assurance (QA) is defined as the process of verifying or determining whether a product or service meets the required requirements and specifications of the customer or user. QA defines a set of rules or requirements for developing a product or service; they need to meet those requirements, leading to an increase in production efficiency, thereby improving customer confidence about the product. QA’s primary goal is to resolve and track the issues before releasing a product to the customer. QA is a process-driven approach that defines goals and rules for product design, development, and production, which leads to improving the work process and efficiency of a team and ultimately enables a company to compete with other companies in the industry. QA rules or standards will change frequently and need to meet ISO standards. QA plays an important role in reaching a product from design to deployment, and there are many hot job openings for the QA positions. So we will discuss different types of topics and scenarios one can face during an interview for a Quality assurance role with real-time examples.
In this article, we will discuss the top QA Interview Questions.
If you are looking for a job related to QA, you need to prepare for the 2021 QA Interview Questions. Every interview is indeed different as per the different job profiles. Here, we have prepared the important QA Interview Questions and Answers, which will help you succeed in your interview.
In this 2021 QA Interview Questions article, we shall present the 10 most important and frequently asked QA Interview questions. These questions are divided into two parts are as follows:
Part 1 – QA Interview Questions (Basic)
This first part covers basic QA Interview Questions and Answers.
Q1. What is the difference between Build and release?
Answer:
The difference between build and release can be described as Build. It is defined as the number given to the installable software or executable software that is ready to use given to the development team’s testing team. At the same time, a release is defined as the number given to the installable software or executable software which is given to the customer by the developer or tester.
Q2. Explain the life cycle of a Bug or Bug cycle?
Answer:
The steps of a Bug cycle are defined as below:
- The user creates a bug with all the details and is assigned to the corresponding team or person with status as open.
- The corresponding team or person will verify the bug and change the status as accepted if it is a valid bug; otherwise, change it as not valid and close the bug with an appropriate message.
- Based on the bug’s priority, developers will decide whether to fix the bug in this release or the next release.
- If the bug already exists then, the developer closes the bug with status as a duplicate.
- When the developer starts working on the bug and changes the status of the bug as in progress.
- When the developer fixes the bug, he/she will change the status as fixed and assigned it to a tester to verify the bug.
- The tester verifies the fix; if it is fixed, then change the bug status as closed; otherwise, update the bug with observations.
Let us move to the next QA Interview Questions.
Q3. What are all the software quality practices through the software development cycle?
Answer:
The software quality practices which are being used or followed in the process of the software development cycle is

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- Reviewing the requirements of the project before the development phase.
- Once the development phase is done, then code reviews.
- Developing test cases to validate the developed code.
- Perform different types of testing, such as session bases testing, Risk-based testing, etc.
- Prioritize the bugs based on the requirement.
- Form a dedicated team for security-related testing and performance testing of a product.
- Perform regression cycle of all test cases and run sanity test cases on a production environment.
- Simulate the customer environment in the production, run sanity checks, and generate the software QA reports or analysis.
Q4. What is test-driven development rule?
Answer:
This is the basic QA Interview Question asked in an interview. The basic rule of the test-driven development is we need to have a test plan and test cases ready before the development of the product or writing the code. We will develop test cases before the corresponding module is developed.
Q5. When to choose automation testing over manual testing?
Answer:
The choice between automation testing and manual testing will be based on different factors such as
- the frequency of use of a particular test case
- How much time it is taking to run manually and running by a script
- Reusability of the automation script
- The adaptability of the test cases for automation
- Exploitation of the automation tool and how much effort is involving in developing the automation script.
Part 2 – QA Interview Questions (Advanced)
Let us now have a look at the advanced QA Interview Questions.
Q6. What is the difference between QA, QC, and software testing?
Answer:
Quality assurance is defined as the planned and systematic way of monitoring the quality of the process which we need to follow to produce a quality product or service. QA enables us to track the progress and outcomes and enables us to adjust the process to meet the expectation.
Quality control enables to find the bugs or defects and suggest the quality control implements the improvements and process whichever is defined.
Software testing is defined as the process of ensuring whether the product meets the customer requirements, and the main aim is to find the bugs and fix them before release.
Q7. What is a test harness?
Answer:
The test harness is defined as the collection of software and test data required to verify the application by running in different conditions and environments like stress, load, data-driven, and monitoring the results. Test harness has two parts test execution engine and test script repository.
Let us move to the next QA Interview Questions.
Q8. Define test stub and test driver?
Answer:
The test stub will be a call from the software component to be tested and works in a top-down approach.
The test driver will call a component to be tested and works in a bottom-up approach.
Q9. How should validation activities be conducted?
Answer:
This is the most asked QA Interview Question in an interview. Validation activities can be conducted by hiring third-party validation engineers for verification and validation, internal team members who are not involved in validation activities, and Independent evaluation of a product like customers.
Q10. What are the different testing levels while testing any product?
Answer:
There are four types of testing levels while testing any product as follows:
- Component level testing
- System-level testing
- Integration testing: checks the interaction between the modules
- Acceptance testing: Here, the customer or user expects the desired output for the given input.
Conclusion
I hope you will have a good understanding of these concepts, and I suggest you go through your projects, what are your role in the project, and the testing process followed in your company. It will be helpful for the QA interview, and I wish you all good luck with your Interview.
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