Testers are the gatekeepers of any software and application that goes out into the market. They have the highest and the most important responsibility – ensuring the quality of the product.
A tester needs to ensure that the product that is certified pass by them is of the utmost quality and gives a very good user experience to the end-users too.
In today’s fast-paced world where technology and applications are changing at drastic speeds, there is no second chance for any software however good it may be. So we need to make sure to it get it right in the first place itself. That is where you need your unicorn tester.
Most people tend to believe that testing is the simplest part of any SDLC, but this is not true. It actually takes a lot of hard work and understanding of the complete requirement along with being able to see the bigger picture of the product. There are a number of qualities that one must have to become a good tester. Here we take a look at some of the main traits of an exceptional tester: 1. Organize, Co-relate and Understand
A good software testing expert would get involved in the project right from its inception until its production rollout and beyond. He needs to clearly understand the requirements as put forth by the client and he should be the first person to asking clarification when needed. He should be thorough and clear with the requirements because that is what the foundation of a software product is.
He should be an expert in data organization, result from analysis and should be quick to make out inferences based on the data. For e.g. during the development phase, if there is the change in requirement or a bug fix leading to a code change, he should be able to at least theoretically predict the impact of the changes.
Also when it comes to testing result analysis, he should be able to make the go/no go decision with the help of data available to him. Hence being able to understand organize all the data and also co-related is one of the primary qualities of any good tester. 2. Know the Product and its users
Irrespective of the LOC (line of code) or the complexity of the code the final verdict is given by the user based on how well it serves their purpose and how easy the product is to use. So a good tester would always think and use the product like an end user.
A software testing expert should also have a very good knowledge about the complete product along with an exceptional understanding of how the different modules interact with each, how the data flows from one module to another and also where and how the data is stored.
After a BA(business analyst), a tester is the second best person who knows the product inside out.
Different application whether they commercial software or personal use software would be used by a wide category of users some may be very techno-savvy, while some others may still be trying to get a grip on the technology, some might be kids while some might be the not so educated types.
A good software testing expert will ensure the test AUT (Application under test) is tested in a way which replicates these users of different categories. Understanding the customer and the product is thus a very important characteristic a tester should try to develop if he wants to become a successful tester. 3. Always remember the basic principles of testing
However much you know the product. A good software testing expert would always start with the basics. This would include a sanity test to check for the stability of the application and ensure nothing is broken. He would then follow the basic principles of boundary value analysis, 60-20 rule etc. to check that all data validations are in place.
He would also be ready with detailed test cases before the build is ready for testing which would make it easy for anyone to come and execute those test cases. Elaborate and detailed test cases are very important for replication of any issue found during the testing phase. 4. Excellent communication – verbal, written and tactical too
Communication among teams is very important. A good software testing expert needs to be a tactical communicator too. Many times a tester may find himself in a situation where he is torn between sternly sticking to his point of view of application functionality or going with what the developers say.
It is in this situation that he needs to use his words judiciously in a way that benefits both sides and ultimately work towards delivering a better product.
Verbal and written communication is also very important when discussing and reporting issues in the product. Clear and crisp bug reports help the developers to better understand the issue resulting in faster defect fixes.
Also reporting testing issues can be quite a challenge since we all work together as a team and have good personal relationships as well. Here again, a good tester would be able to report the issues with causing any issues within the team or on a personal front. 5. Recognize the importance of Details
A good software testing expert would be exceptionally good in understanding the details. He should be careful as well as mindful of even the smallest details especially in the requirement document, during the testing as well as during the reporting of issues.
Being careful of even the smallest details gives them the upper hand over developers and this way they are also able to steer the product development in the right track. 6. Unrelenting under pressure
The testing team, in general, is put under a lot of pressure be it to complete the testing within a specific time, to give sign off or during discussions with during bug triage.
A good tester will make sure he does not give in to any kind of pressure and should make sure that he is following all processes as per the process.
It is also important while he is stern on the process and guidelines he should also be flexible with the team and try to be available in critical situations on the need basis. He needs to strike a balance between the two situations. 7. Continuous Learner
Testing is one area where you have to keep on learning new things every day. Each day you need to make a fresh start forgetting how you have been doing things in the past.
This is one reason why the job of a tester is so challenging. While in other areas like development having a work in the same product for longer duration would be an advantage, from a testing perspective it could be a disadvantage, as you may not be able to look at it in a new perspective.
So a good tester needs to learn and unlearn quickly and should be able to make a fresh start with a fresh new perspective each day.
It is not that easy a job to be a tester. It takes a lot of time effort and conscious learnings on the part of an individual to become a tester who truly adds value to the product.
But don’t lose heart, even the smallest journeys begin with a single step, so if you want to be a unicorn tester for your organization start today and work towards that one goal.
Keep the above points in mind and relentlessly work on improving your skills and knowledge. You can do it if you think you can.
When you complete your graduation, you’ll be in mayhem to pick our career path.
Numerous individuals are not comfortable with the professional growth prospects that are accessible in the software testing field. A few myths in the industry identified with picking Software Testing as a career are,
They are ridiculous as they sound,
Development is superior to testing career. As anybody can test.
Just the people who can’t code pick software testing as their career path.
Pay rates will be less in software testing in contrast to software development.
There won’t be any future growth in the software testing profession.
But all this isn’t a reality at all!
Somebody who is working in a different industry and needs to switchthe profession in software testing field or students who are about to complete their studies are always eager to know about various roles and level of positions available in software testing before making a decision.
So, today we’ll understand how you can start and grow in the software testing field.
Initial Stage as An Intern
For a few, the initial step on their software testing profession path will be as a software testing intern or trainee. As a novice, they may take the courses offered by the procuring organization and do some practical jobs on the given project.
In another situation, they could begin to work in the company as a Junior QA or Software Testing Specialist and do test case executions, bug check and reporting, and other essential errands under the close direction of the experienced authority.
Sooner or later, when both the team and trainee understand that the close direction is no more required, now you will going to be a step ahead in your software testing career path. It typically implies the intern has turned into a middle software tester authority.
QA Analyst
On executing tests for some time, one accumulates much practice and knowledge of various testing tools and tests. One starts to observe where applications ordinarily fail, recognizing increasingly more about how the product is developed. One likewise grows better communication abilities.
Starting here, one can move to the following stage, which is to be a “mid-level” tester or QA Analyst. Mid-level testers, as a rule, have 2-4 years of expertise in the testing field. The obligations they may have include:
Plan entire test cases
Execute tests
Report bugs
Be increasingly associated with other quality assurance operations
Managerial Path
The managerial path is amongst the most prominent career path you must look forward to.
When you reach this level of software testing career, you may have titles as Test Manager, Test Leader, Project Manager, QA Manager, QC manager, and so forth. It implies that you are presently a boss relying upon the titles. You currently have the authorization and can create an impact on the result of your project.
The managerial position is appropriate for individuals who are exceptionally great at communication and project management. On reaching this level, you would consider things as a huge picture instead of stressing that you have not discovered any bugs from many days.
Senior Software Tester
This position may likewise be called as Senior QA Engineer in a few companies. Each organization has unique criteria with regards to delineating a designation. Most senior positions are chosenlooking over your years of experience. A senior software tester is a job that demands the involvement of around 4 – 5 years.
The Senior Tester is required to be great at one test automation tool for reaching to this level. After a couple of years of knowledge, the senior software tester is assumed to take part in the test planning meeting and participate in the same.
In the test planning meeting high-level test scenarios, risks, challenges, resources and much more are talked about,and the Senior Tester can give his/her sources of info.
Likewise, the Senior Tester can without much difficulty measure how much time a specific errand may take, thinking about every important factor.Furthermore, as a senior tester, you are assumed to get a solution to the problems or loopholes you are witnessing in current methods.
Other Roles in a Software Testing Career Path
Freelance Tester
In case that a 9-5 job routine does not intrigue you and you are searching for freedom, being a freelance tester is definitely not an awful choice by any means. As a freelance software tester, you can test whenever and anytime you prefer. You can basically be your own boss.
But one of the issues on working as a freelance software tester is that revenue may not as steady as a regular job.
Then and again you have the projects for testing; on the other hand, sometimes you don’t. So, you can choose this path as a part-time jobwhen you’re new in the software testing field.
It will assist you in making great credibility and connection which will help a lot in getting a full-time and reliable job.
And if your projects are steady, you may then consider going on this path as full-time work.
Test Automator or Technical Tester
As you truly make your mark in the testing world, you will begin to look past test case execution and also, to a degree, ahead of the testing strategy. You’ll begin to consider the organization, your team, and productivity.
You have to figure out how might we test that more rapidly and in a savvy way? When you enter the test automation position, you must know the tools that enhance test suite management and devices which automate the execution of tests.
There are a lot of systems and methodologies, some of which require the more programming aptitudes like Java and Selenium, while others can be utilized even by non-programmers, for example, Cucumber.
Automation testing is a case of a technical job by and large, and this professional path can be a decent option for those not attracted to the management roles.
Business Analyst
A noteworthy perk software tester has over software developers is that they have comprehensive business knowledge. So, an apparent profession growth for QAs is to end up as a Business Analyst.
As a Business Analyst, you will be in charge of analyzing and inspecting your organization’s plan of action and workflows which you will integrate with technology.
DevOps Job
QAs have an all-encompassing perspective of the software development procedure and delivery that guarantees that code gets to users more frequently, quicker, and at a higher quality.
It can make them great product stability managers, release engineers or managers, or automation engineers in organizations that seek after a DevOps strategy to deal with development.
So as QA leads upstream, they can partake more effectively in the DevOps journey and practice, and inevitably, it is truly sensible to, state, they take control over the DevOps job.
QA Consultant
Individuals with experience in the software testing field can also go into specific services. It is the place consultants become possibly the most important factor, which fundamentally adds value with their insight and experience by distinguishing issues and proposing upgrades to team members, instructing them about the tools to utilize and how to adapt to procedures and techniques.
What Skills Do You Require for a Successful Software Tester Career Path?
Academic Background
Academic background of a software tester must be in Computer Science. A B.E./BTech, BCA, MCA, BSc- Computers, will get you a job as a software tester.
Domain-specific Familiarity
Domain-specific familiarity increases the value of your testing career. There are independent certification courses for every domain to give significant verification and boost to your career ahead.
Stay Updated
As per professionals, skill-based learning is getting the force in the testing business. You simply need to keep yourself updated according to current tech advancements and trends.
Hands-on Experience in Various Tools
Defect Tracking is a primary aspect of software testing so learn tools like QC, Bugzilla, Jira, etc. Also, if you want to be an Automation Tester, then you should know automated tools. Further, knowledge of any scripting language like JavaScript, VBScript, C# is also helpful.
Final words….
Each profession path is interesting; we can’t deny it. The road to the software testing career has experienced enormous changes.
As the demand for software on the planet is stunning, thus, Software Testing profession has turned into a masterpiece for numerous product executions.
The market has understood the significance of planned testing of products before the launch.
Testing has made many types, levels, and specialization in the software development field which has expanded the inherent value of a career in software testing. From being a tedious test case executor, a few vocation alternatives have developed for the testing community.
Great learning in the relevant sector of the industry such as Telecom, Healthcare, Manufacturing, etc. improves the testing professionals’ career path.As you go with your software testing career, you’ll start to see what domains you do and do not prefer and will get a solid impression for the opportunities which are available for you.
QA interview questions! In order to triumph your oral interview and skill test, you might be asked many QA-related interview questions and that’s the reason why we have compiled the most probable Quality Assurance interview question and answers just for you.
How can I prepare to rightly answer QA interview questions
Make sure that you are well aware of the project you have been a part of. Not just the quality aspect of it. From design to release you need to have a clear idea about what went on with the project. To make things easier, pen down the project details that contain all the details in bullet points regarding the project and company you were a part of.
The project sheet must have, Name of the company, project details such as the name of the software, database, client base, time period, your role, team information, SDLC, tools used, and task performed
A personal retrospective about the project, tasks performed, your professional and personal gain, hurdles that came up, and how you tacked it
Perform mock interview by referring to most probable Q and A
Be confident about what you know and be upfront about what you don’t
Ensure interaction by asking your doubts
Do not imitate anyone. Be yourself!
Top 75 QA Interview Questions and Answers
1. What is the difference between QA and software testing?
Quality Assurance refers to the activity of monitoring the process of developing software in order to assure customers that the requirements for quality will be met. Through QA, we can identify the inconsistencies and flaws present in the development process.
2. What does Quality mean?
The quality of a product or service is determined by how well they meet the expectations and the requirements set by the customers. A good quality product must be error-free, does not have any lacking areas or any present inconsistencies. Therefore, there are some quality standards that need to be met for a product to be considered to have good quality.
3. Why is checking for quality so important in business?
The following factors are the reasons why quality is very important in business:
Dependency- The success of every business depends on the quality of its products and services.
Business Reputation- If a business provides quality services to its clients and customers, only then will it gain a good reputation in the market.
More Transactions- If customers are satisfied with the quality of services and products that the business provides them, they will keep making transactions with them in the future.
Automatic Advertisement- When the business guarantees and provides quality, the customers remain satisfied, which translates into them referring your business to other people as well
QA is the process of creating, documentation, and agreeing on the guidelines that assure quality. This means that at the end of QA, we get the quality standards for the software that need to be met.
QC on the other hand is a process that focuses on identifying defects in the quality of the developed product. This means that the software is tested at various stages of its development cycle against the various requirements set by the customer.
5. What is the meaning of Testware?
Testware entails all the artifacts or materials that are used while performing tests. This includes test cases, test plans, test scripts, etc.
6. What is the difference between release and build?
The build is the software developed for the customers which is handed over to the testing team by the development team.
A release is an installable application that is officially released for the customer after it is completely tested and certified by the testing team.
A build turns into a release after is removed of any prevalent bugs and errors in it.
What are QA roles and responsibilities?
7. At what point should the QA activities start?
The process of quality assurance must start as soon as the development of software starts. The sooner the QA activities start, the better. This is because QA can help avoid risks that have already been specified in the specification phase.
If QA activities are delayed, they can prove to be very costly, efforts and time-consuming.
8. What is a cause-effect graph?
A graph that represents all possible input domains and the outputs associated with them is called a cause-effect graph. This graph comes into use during the process of test case designing.
9. What is bug leakage and bug release?
When software is handed over to the team of testers knowing that a particular set of errors exist in the release, it is called a bug release. The severity and priority of these errors are known to be very low, as they can be resolved before the final release of the software.
When errors or bugs which went unnoticed by the testing team, are detected by the customers or the end-users after the software’s release, then it is known as a bug leakage.
Bug Triage is the process of prioritizing every bug on the basis of its frequency, severity, risks, etc. It helps to evaluate and then assign the solution to these bugs in a very efficient manner.
A test plan can be considered as a document that defines the objective, scope, approach, and emphasis that will go into the software testing efforts. Test plans can include the features that are to be tested, testing techniques to use, pass and fail criteria, etc.
A test strategy on the other hand can be defined as a set of guidelines that define the test designs in detail and provide instructions on how to conduct the testing process. It includes documentation formats, scope, and objectives, testing processes, test deliverables, etc.
It is a testing methodology where test scripts are created which read test data, such as input and output values, directly from data files. The data sources can be of any type such as CSV files, ODBC files, ADO files, data pools, etc.
Plan- Businesses first need to plan the processes that are related to the goals and objectives and determine what is required to be done to develop a good quality product.
Do- Here the development of the software and its testing is conducted.
Check- An important aspect of QA is to monitor the processes and methodologies that are used to check whether they meet the previously determined objectives or not.
Act- Finding out inconsistencies and flaws in the process and acting accordingly to improve them.
A test case contains conditions and specifications according to which a particular software must be tested for bugs. It includes details of the acceptable inputs, conditions for execution, procedures for testing, ideal outputs, etc.
15. What constitutes a good test case?
A test case can be considered as good if it is capable of finding defects and errors. Therefore, a test case that exhibits the following characteristics can be considered as a good one:
Accuracy- It must exact its purpose
Economic- It must not include unnecessary words or steps
Traceable- It should be traceable to the requirements
Repeatable- The test case must be usable again and again
What are High-level and Low-level test cases?
High-level: The cases which cover all the core functionalities of a product are considered high-level test cases.
Low-level: The cases which are related to the UI of the application are considered low-level test cases.
Which are the most important functions of QA?
The important functions of QA include validation, creation of improvement plans, documentation, and technology transfers.
There are many types of software testing approaches, among which the commonly used ones are:
Unit Testing
Integration Testing
Systems Testing
Functional testing
Non-Functional Testing
Black and White box testing
Regression Testing
Exploratory testing
Agile Testing
Ad-Hoc Testing
Smoke Testing
Alpha and Beta Testing
18. What are the stages in a Bug Life Cycle?
The bug life cycle includes all the stages through which a bug goes, throughout its lifetime. The different stages in a bug lifecycle ate as follows:
The bug is detected and identified, its state is ‘new’
A tester approves the bug as genuine and its state becomes ‘assigned’
It is checked whether the bug is in the scope or not. If it is not, then the bug is postponed for later
Its state becomes ‘in-progress once a tester starts working on it
When the bug is fixed, its state changes to ‘fixed’
If it passes the final testing process, the state is set as ‘closed’
22. What does Bug Control mean in product development?
It is an approach that aims at developing software products that are free from bugs and errors. In this approach, efforts are made to detect and avoid errors only in the testing phase, and not after that.
Functional tests are those which check the functional aspects of the software to validate their efficiency. Smoke testing, unit testing, integration testing, user acceptance, regression testing, etc. come under functional testing.
Non-functional tests are those which check the non-functional aspects of the software to validate its performance. Performance testing, load testing, stress testing, scalability, volume testing, etc. come under non-functional testing.
Agile testing is a software testing approach where continuous iteration of developing and testing the software takes place throughout the SDLC. In this approach, the requirements are gradually developed during the development lifecycle by the customers and the testers. This means, in agile testing, the coding and the testing processes are conducted simultaneously.
25. When a bug is found in production, how can you make sure that the same bug doesn’t occur again?
Whenever a bug is detected in production, the best practice is to create a test case immediately for it and to include it in the regression suite. We can also create alternate or similar test cases to include them in the suite. This way, we can prevent the occurrence of that same bug again in production.
The following kind of bugs can be categorized as un-reproducible bugs:
Defects that surface due to issues of low memory.
Errors or bugs that arise due to addresses pointing to memory locations that do not exist.
Race conditions are error scenarios that occur when the time of execution of one event impacts another even executing in a sequence.
27. How can you handle unreproducible bugs?
To handle un-reproducible bugs, a tester can follow these steps:
Executing test steps that are as close to the bug description as possible.
Evaluating the environment of that test.
Examining and evaluating the results produced by the test execution.
Keeping the time and resource constraints under check
28. What is the difference between a Test Driver and Stub?
A test driver is that piece of code that calls the software component that needs to go under test. Test drivers prove to be very useful when following the bottom-up testing approach.
A test stub is a dummy piece of code or program which is integrated with an application to complete the application’s functionality. Test stubs come into use when following the top-down testing approach.
29. What is meant by Entry and Exit criteria?
Entry Criteria- The process which needs to be run when the testing begins. It includes:
Software Requirement Specification (SRS)
Functional Requirement Specification (FRS)
Test cases
Use cases
Test plans
Exit Criteria- It tells when a product is completely testing and when it should be formally released. It includes:
Metrics
Test Summary Reports
Defect Analysis Report
30. What are the roles of White and Black box testing?
The black box testing approach does not require the tester to have knowledge of the internal code and structure of the software. The tests in this approach are based on the software’s functionalities and requirements.
White box testing on the other hand requires the testers to test the internal designs, implementation, and structure of the software. Therefore, in this approach, the tests are concentrated on path coverage, statement coverage, and branch coverage.
Smoke testing is done to confirm the basic functionalities of a product. Through smoke testing, you can identify the most basic test cases to execute.
32. Why is sanity testing used?
Through sanity testing, you can ensure whether the software runs without the occurrences of any logical errors or not. It helps to avoid the wastage of cost and time involved in testing when the entire build fails.
In negative testing, the software is validated by evaluating how it behaves when invalid inputs are provided to it. Therefore, it is conducted by keeping a negative point of view to check whether the software behaves as expected when negative inputs are provided.
In positive testing, however, the software is tested by providing positive inputs to it and checking how whether the results match with the expected results or not.
Verification is the process of thoroughly evaluating the software in the development phase to check whether it meets the specified requirements or not. It is done to make sure that the software is capable of meeting the requirements. Activities like meetings, reviews, and inspections are involved in verification.
Validation is the process of thoroughly evaluating the software after it has been developed completely to make sure that it meets the customer’s requirements and expectations. Activities such as black and white box testing are involved in validation.
35. What is the cause-effect graph?
A cause-effect graph is the graphical representation of all the inputs and their respective output effects that can be used while designing test cases.
36. What is meant by Quality Audit?
It is a process where systematic examination of software is conducted by an audit team or by a quality auditor. Here, tests related to the effectiveness of procedures adopted in quality control are performed. It is done after all tasks related to the software are completed.
37. Which Two Levels commonly come under Quality Certification?
Optimization
Repeatable sequences
38. Which factors must be given higher importance in the development of a product in QA?
Testers must first concentrate on planning before starting to work on any software. Adopting and integrating the latest technologies in processes is also very important. Attention must also be focused on identifying the factors on which the software is heavily dependent.
Sometimes quality can be assured simply by paying close attention to the development process of the software. Testing also plays an important role in assuring the efficiency and quality of software.
39. Why is Quality Assurance a ‘proactive approach?
QA testing takes place during the development process and starts as soon as the software goes into development. This is why quality assurance is considered as a proactive approach.
Know More: Top 50 Selenium Interview Question that will help you land a Job
40. How is QA defined in the ISO 9000, Clause 3.2.11?
Quality assurance is defined as that aspect of quality management that deals with assuring the customers that their set requirements for the software’s quality will be fulfilled.
41. How to know if software specifications have been met or not?
By using the traceability matrix tool, we can map requirements to test cases. When all test cases in the matrix are executed successfully, it will mean that the code meets all software specifications.
It is a document that captures all the requirements proposed by the client and the traceability.
A traceability matrix is a document that traces and maps the test cases and the user requirements.
43. Which QA practices can be considered the best?
There are many good practices for QA, among which the best are:
Thoroughly evaluating the selected release criteria
Automating testing for highly sensitive areas
Creating a testing environment that is robust
Simulating final outcomes for evaluation
44. What is Recovery Testing?
Recovery testing is conducted to recover the software from any unexpected or expected events so as to prevent loss of functionalities and data. Events can include unexpected communication loss, shortage in the disk space, etc.
It is the process of automating as many parts of the testing process as possible so as to make QA testing more accurate, efficient, and quick.QA automation can be done by using various automation tools.
Name a few QA automation tools.
Selenium- It is an open-source automation tool that is the most widely used tool for QA.
UTF (Unified Functional testing) – It is an automation tool by SmartBear Software. A few significant features of this tool include Scripted Testing, Test Visualizers, and GUI Testing.
TestingWhiz- It is a QA automation tool by Cygnet Infotech that provides code-less scripting. Some of its features include Integration with Test Management Tools, record and Playback test frameworks, and Keyword Driven Testing.
Retesting is conducted to check whether the errors have been successfully removed or not, while regression testing is conducted to check the impact that error fixes have on other software functionalities.
48. What is meant by MR?
MR or Modification Request can also be called as a Defect report. It is a document that is created to report all the errors and defects in the software and any suggestions which can be taken into account.
49. How are validation activities conducted?
Following techniques are used to conduct validation activities:
Hiring third-party independent people for validation
Assigning team members who are not involved in the verification activities
Getting the software independently evaluated
50. Which types of documents are created during software QA?
The following documents are created during the software quality assurance process:
Requirement document
Test cases and Test plans
Test Metrics
User profiles
Test log
Transaction Mix
Task distribution flow chart
Test incident report
Test summary report
51: What is BVA? Name any other testing technique.
BVA stands for Boundary Value Analysis. This technique is used for doing field-level testing for numerical fields. This test is performed by entering a number +1 and -1 from the extreme values that the input box can take. E.g., if a field can take values from 0 to 100, then by applying the BVA technique, we will try to enter the values -1, 1, 99, and 101. Of these, -1 and 101 should not be accepted by the system.
Equivalence Class, Decision Table, Error Guessing are some other software testing techniques that are used frequently.
52: What is the difference between the severity and priority of a bug?
The severity of a bug is determined by the tester, based on the expected impact of the bug on the application from the perspective of a tester. The highest severity bugs are related to a crash in the application or a functional issue with the most business-critical functionality. The least severe bugs are cosmetic bugs like alignment, spelling mistakes, or color variations.
The priority on the other hand is determined by the developers, based on when they plan to fix the reported issue. Priority 1 issues are of the highest priority and need to be fixed at the earliest. The lowest priority is generally given to cosmetic bugs or those bugs that are likely to be moved to the next iteration or project cycle.
Exploratory testing is an informal testing technique where the tester randomly navigates through the application without any defined steps followed. The testers just check for the overall look and feel smooth page transitions, and expected messages to ensure the application is not crashing at any point.
54: What is UAT? How is it different from functional testing?
UAT or User Acceptance Testing is a form of function done by a subset of the users. For eg, if the software is developed for a departmental store, the UAT should be performed by somebody from the store to see how easily they can adapt to the new software, if they can perform their daily operations, and also understand if any improvements need to be done before handing over the application to the client.
55: What are the test cases you can prepare for a login screen?
There are several test cases that we can write for a login screen, some of them are:
Correct login and password should allow the user to log in.
Incorrect credentials should block the user
For incorrect input, an appropriate error message should be displayed.
The combination of blank login and/or password needs to be checked for appropriate error messages.
For the login edit box, check the maximum character limit along with all field level validations.
For the password edit box, check the maximum character limit along with all field level validations.
Forgot password link should be available.
The register or create account button should be available as per business or requirements.
The alignment of the screen and the spellings should be checked.
The company or product logo should be available as per business or requirement.
56: What is defect density?
Defect density is defined as the number of accepted defects per 1000 lines of code (LOC). It helps the development team to understand more problematic areas in the code and if needed do a restructuring of the code as well.
57: What is the 80-20 rule?
The 80-20 rule is also called the Pareto Principle and in software testing, it means that 80% of the defects come from 20% of the code. This principle helps us to identify the areas of the code or the functionalities that need more rigorous testing to ensure the best quality.
58: Explain the different test coverage techniques.
There are 3 main types of test coverage techniques:
Statement Coverage: here testing aims to cover every line of code. This is the most exhaustive testing and most often the testing team would not have the bandwidth for this type of coverage.
Decision Coverage: As the name suggests, in this testing each decision flow in the code is tested. In this where ever there is a decision box, each flow of the code is tested.
Path Coverage: Path coverage ensures, all the paths leading to a code or functionality are covered as part of the testing.
59: What is DRE?
DRE, Defect Removal Efficiency is a metric used to measure the effectiveness of the testing activity. It is a ratio of the number of defects found by the testing team vs the defects found in production. Higher DRE means more effective testing.
DRE = No. of defects found during testing / (No. of defects found in testing + No. of defects in Prod)
60: What is big bang testing?
After the completion of testing of individual modules, all the modules are combined or integrated and tested. This type of end-to-end testing is called the big bang testing and it is carried out towards the end of the testing life cycle.
61: What is the top-down approach?
In top-down testing, the highest-level modules are tested first. Type of testing uses stubs and drivers to simulate data if any modules are not available for testing. The testing is done downwards, after the highest-level modules, the next highest is testing till the unit level code.
62: What is the bottom-up approach?
In a bottom-up approach to testing, the lowest modules are tested first followed up by the modules above them. The sequence continues till the highest modules are integrated and tested together. The bottom-up approach is very useful in finding code-level and module-level defects at the early stage itself.
Alpha testing is similar to user acceptance testing and is done by either the developers, testers, or the clients at the tester or developer location. It is done right before shipping the product to the clients. This is done to ensure that there are no last-minute missing functionalities or defects and the client can use the product as expected.
Beta testing is carried out by the client at their location with their infrastructure before the product is deployed for wider use. The purpose of this testing is to find out issues that are related to the infrastructure and set up at the deployment location that could not be replicated during the testing phase.
65: What is user experience testing? How is it different from functional testing?
User experience (UX) testing is a form of performance testing where the performance of the UI of the application is measured. For eg the time taken for the results to be displayed, time taken for the page transitions, etc.
UX testing and functional testing are similar in the way the testing procedures and steps are defined. But they differ in the expected results. Let us take a login scenario. The user enters the login credentials and password and hits the login button. For a functional test, the expectation would be that the user is logged into the application and an appropriate application page is displayed. Whereas for a UX test, the expected result would be to achieve this login within a specific time say 5-7 seconds. If the login happens successfully after 7 seconds, it would be considered a failure for the UX test.
Localization testing, also known as location-based testing is used to test functionalities that are specific to the location where it is deployed. These tests can be related to language, location maps, mobile or internet data speed, or any other regional data. The best example for localization testing would be the search functionality in mobile phones. Whatever you search, be it hotels or petrol pumps, the expectation is to get results closest to your current location.
67: What is Soak Testing?
Soak testing is a type of performance testing where the system is subjected to a load over a long period ranging from a day to a week or more. This type of testing is very useful in finding defects and issues that occur only when the system is in use for a long period. Like issues caused by memory leaks.
68: When will use automation for your project and why?
Automation can be used in the projects to cover regression testing of stable functionalities as well as for smoke testing the build before it is accepted for further detailed testing.
The main benefit of automation testing is that it helps the testers to thoroughly test the newly implemented functionalities by letting the already stable functionalities be tested by the tool. This ensures that the new code changes have not impacted the existing functionalities. And at the same time gives more bandwidth to the testers to test new and more business-critical modules.
69: What is CI/CD and how does testing fit into the pipeline?
CI/CD refers to the continuous implementation and continuous deployment of software from code to production. As the name suggests, every time there is a new code check-in, it gets deployed to the production branch as well. All this happens automatically.
Most companies have automated batch processes that check for any code changes. Once a code change is detected, a new build is triggered. This build then triggers an automation suite. This is where the testing comes in. Based on the results of the automated test, the build is deployed to the production of rolled back.
70 What outsourced and crowd-sourced testing?
Many companies would give the testing of their application to a different company or group of people who specialize in testing. This is done to get better test results and hence better quality. Sometimes, when the project timelines are crunched, in that case also the testing work is assigned to another team or company. This is called outsourced testing.
In crowd-sourced testing, the testing work is assigned to a completely unknown pool of people who may or may not be testers. It is like a crowd of people who are given some benefits for testing an application or software. This concept of testing is picking up fast and allows companies to test their application across different regions, devices, and operating systems.
71: What is a showstopper in software testing?
Showstopper is a defect that blocks the testing activities from proceeding. In such cases, the testing is stopped till the issue is resolved or a new build is cut. An example of a showstopper defect would be login failure, app crash, or not database connectivity.
72: What is a hotfix?
A hotfix is a special build that is rolled out to fix a critical issue. The issue would be very urgent and hence it is not possible to wait till the next build. These builds are very critical and need to be rolled out as soon as possible because they directly impact the customers.
73: What are the different models followed in SDLC?
There are several models to choose to streamline the Software Development Life Cycle. These are:
In API testing, we test the API directly with different inputs and verify the response and response time. API testing is also used for integration testing. The most common tools used for API testing are Postman and SoapUI. There are several other free and paid tools as well.
75: What are the different environments in project development?
The different environments in a project are:
DEV: the development environment
QA/STAGE: the testing environment
PERF: the performance testing environment
UAT: the user acceptance testing environment or a pre-prod environment
PROD: the production or client or deployment environment.
Conclusion
With all our heart we hope that the questions that we have compiled are beneficial for you in the next QA interview. All the best
QA interview questions! In order to triumph your oral interview and skill test, you might be asked many QA-related interview questions and that’s the reason why we have compiled the most probable Quality Assurance interview question and answers just for you.
How can I prepare to rightly answer QA interview questions
Make sure that you are well aware of the project you have been a part of. Not just the quality aspect of it. From design to release you need to have a clear idea about what went on with the project. To make things easier, pen down the project details that contain all the details in bullet points regarding the project and company you were a part of.
The project sheet must have, Name of the company, project details such as the name of the software, database, client base, time period, your role, team information, SDLC, tools used, and task performed
A personal retrospective about the project, tasks performed, your professional and personal gain, hurdles that came up, and how you tacked it
Perform mock interview by referring to most probable Q and A
Be confident about what you know and be upfront about what you don’t
Ensure interaction by asking your doubts
Do not imitate anyone. Be yourself!
Top 75 QA Interview Questions and Answers
1. What is the difference between QA and software testing?
Quality Assurance refers to the activity of monitoring the process of developing software in order to assure customers that the requirements for quality will be met. Through QA, we can identify the inconsistencies and flaws present in the development process.
2. What does Quality mean?
The quality of a product or service is determined by how well they meet the expectations and the requirements set by the customers. A good quality product must be error-free, does not have any lacking areas or any present inconsistencies. Therefore, there are some quality standards that need to be met for a product to be considered to have good quality.
3. Why is checking for quality so important in business?
The following factors are the reasons why quality is very important in business:
Dependency- The success of every business depends on the quality of its products and services.
Business Reputation- If a business provides quality services to its clients and customers, only then will it gain a good reputation in the market.
More Transactions- If customers are satisfied with the quality of services and products that the business provides them, they will keep making transactions with them in the future.
Automatic Advertisement- When the business guarantees and provides quality, the customers remain satisfied, which translates into them referring your business to other people as well
QA is the process of creating, documentation, and agreeing on the guidelines that assure quality. This means that at the end of QA, we get the quality standards for the software that need to be met.
QC on the other hand is a process that focuses on identifying defects in the quality of the developed product. This means that the software is tested at various stages of its development cycle against the various requirements set by the customer.
5. What is the meaning of Testware?
Testware entails all the artifacts or materials that are used while performing tests. This includes test cases, test plans, test scripts, etc.
6. What is the difference between release and build?
The build is the software developed for the customers which is handed over to the testing team by the development team.
A release is an installable application that is officially released for the customer after it is completely tested and certified by the testing team.
A build turns into a release after is removed of any prevalent bugs and errors in it.
What are QA roles and responsibilities?
7. At what point should the QA activities start?
The process of quality assurance must start as soon as the development of software starts. The sooner the QA activities start, the better. This is because QA can help avoid risks that have already been specified in the specification phase.
If QA activities are delayed, they can prove to be very costly, efforts and time-consuming.
8. What is a cause-effect graph?
A graph that represents all possible input domains and the outputs associated with them is called a cause-effect graph. This graph comes into use during the process of test case designing.
9. What is bug leakage and bug release?
When software is handed over to the team of testers knowing that a particular set of errors exist in the release, it is called a bug release. The severity and priority of these errors are known to be very low, as they can be resolved before the final release of the software.
When errors or bugs which went unnoticed by the testing team, are detected by the customers or the end-users after the software’s release, then it is known as a bug leakage.
Bug Triage is the process of prioritizing every bug on the basis of its frequency, severity, risks, etc. It helps to evaluate and then assign the solution to these bugs in a very efficient manner.
A test plan can be considered as a document that defines the objective, scope, approach, and emphasis that will go into the software testing efforts. Test plans can include the features that are to be tested, testing techniques to use, pass and fail criteria, etc.
A test strategy on the other hand can be defined as a set of guidelines that define the test designs in detail and provide instructions on how to conduct the testing process. It includes documentation formats, scope, and objectives, testing processes, test deliverables, etc.
It is a testing methodology where test scripts are created which read test data, such as input and output values, directly from data files. The data sources can be of any type such as CSV files, ODBC files, ADO files, data pools, etc.
Plan- Businesses first need to plan the processes that are related to the goals and objectives and determine what is required to be done to develop a good quality product.
Do- Here the development of the software and its testing is conducted.
Check- An important aspect of QA is to monitor the processes and methodologies that are used to check whether they meet the previously determined objectives or not.
Act- Finding out inconsistencies and flaws in the process and acting accordingly to improve them.
A test case contains conditions and specifications according to which a particular software must be tested for bugs. It includes details of the acceptable inputs, conditions for execution, procedures for testing, ideal outputs, etc.
15. What constitutes a good test case?
A test case can be considered as good if it is capable of finding defects and errors. Therefore, a test case that exhibits the following characteristics can be considered as a good one:
Accuracy- It must exact its purpose
Economic- It must not include unnecessary words or steps
Traceable- It should be traceable to the requirements
Repeatable- The test case must be usable again and again
What are High-level and Low-level test cases?
High-level: The cases which cover all the core functionalities of a product are considered high-level test cases.
Low-level: The cases which are related to the UI of the application are considered low-level test cases.
Which are the most important functions of QA?
The important functions of QA include validation, creation of improvement plans, documentation, and technology transfers.
There are many types of software testing approaches, among which the commonly used ones are:
Unit Testing
Integration Testing
Systems Testing
Functional testing
Non-Functional Testing
Black and White box testing
Regression Testing
Exploratory testing
Agile Testing
Ad-Hoc Testing
Smoke Testing
Alpha and Beta Testing
18. What are the stages in a Bug Life Cycle?
The bug life cycle includes all the stages through which a bug goes, throughout its lifetime. The different stages in a bug lifecycle ate as follows:
The bug is detected and identified, its state is ‘new’
A tester approves the bug as genuine and its state becomes ‘assigned’
It is checked whether the bug is in the scope or not. If it is not, then the bug is postponed for later
Its state becomes ‘in-progress once a tester starts working on it
When the bug is fixed, its state changes to ‘fixed’
If it passes the final testing process, the state is set as ‘closed’
22. What does Bug Control mean in product development?
It is an approach that aims at developing software products that are free from bugs and errors. In this approach, efforts are made to detect and avoid errors only in the testing phase, and not after that.
Functional tests are those which check the functional aspects of the software to validate their efficiency. Smoke testing, unit testing, integration testing, user acceptance, regression testing, etc. come under functional testing.
Non-functional tests are those which check the non-functional aspects of the software to validate its performance. Performance testing, load testing, stress testing, scalability, volume testing, etc. come under non-functional testing.
Agile testing is a software testing approach where continuous iteration of developing and testing the software takes place throughout the SDLC. In this approach, the requirements are gradually developed during the development lifecycle by the customers and the testers. This means, in agile testing, the coding and the testing processes are conducted simultaneously.
25. When a bug is found in production, how can you make sure that the same bug doesn’t occur again?
Whenever a bug is detected in production, the best practice is to create a test case immediately for it and to include it in the regression suite. We can also create alternate or similar test cases to include them in the suite. This way, we can prevent the occurrence of that same bug again in production.
The following kind of bugs can be categorized as un-reproducible bugs:
Defects that surface due to issues of low memory.
Errors or bugs that arise due to addresses pointing to memory locations that do not exist.
Race conditions are error scenarios that occur when the time of execution of one event impacts another even executing in a sequence.
27. How can you handle unreproducible bugs?
To handle un-reproducible bugs, a tester can follow these steps:
Executing test steps that are as close to the bug description as possible.
Evaluating the environment of that test.
Examining and evaluating the results produced by the test execution.
Keeping the time and resource constraints under check
28. What is the difference between a Test Driver and Stub?
A test driver is that piece of code that calls the software component that needs to go under test. Test drivers prove to be very useful when following the bottom-up testing approach.
A test stub is a dummy piece of code or program which is integrated with an application to complete the application’s functionality. Test stubs come into use when following the top-down testing approach.
29. What is meant by Entry and Exit criteria?
Entry Criteria- The process which needs to be run when the testing begins. It includes:
Software Requirement Specification (SRS)
Functional Requirement Specification (FRS)
Test cases
Use cases
Test plans
Exit Criteria- It tells when a product is completely testing and when it should be formally released. It includes:
Metrics
Test Summary Reports
Defect Analysis Report
30. What are the roles of White and Black box testing?
The black box testing approach does not require the tester to have knowledge of the internal code and structure of the software. The tests in this approach are based on the software’s functionalities and requirements.
White box testing on the other hand requires the testers to test the internal designs, implementation, and structure of the software. Therefore, in this approach, the tests are concentrated on path coverage, statement coverage, and branch coverage.
Smoke testing is done to confirm the basic functionalities of a product. Through smoke testing, you can identify the most basic test cases to execute.
32. Why is sanity testing used?
Through sanity testing, you can ensure whether the software runs without the occurrences of any logical errors or not. It helps to avoid the wastage of cost and time involved in testing when the entire build fails.
In negative testing, the software is validated by evaluating how it behaves when invalid inputs are provided to it. Therefore, it is conducted by keeping a negative point of view to check whether the software behaves as expected when negative inputs are provided.
In positive testing, however, the software is tested by providing positive inputs to it and checking how whether the results match with the expected results or not.
Verification is the process of thoroughly evaluating the software in the development phase to check whether it meets the specified requirements or not. It is done to make sure that the software is capable of meeting the requirements. Activities like meetings, reviews, and inspections are involved in verification.
Validation is the process of thoroughly evaluating the software after it has been developed completely to make sure that it meets the customer’s requirements and expectations. Activities such as black and white box testing are involved in validation.
35. What is the cause-effect graph?
A cause-effect graph is the graphical representation of all the inputs and their respective output effects that can be used while designing test cases.
36. What is meant by Quality Audit?
It is a process where systematic examination of software is conducted by an audit team or by a quality auditor. Here, tests related to the effectiveness of procedures adopted in quality control are performed. It is done after all tasks related to the software are completed.
37. Which Two Levels commonly come under Quality Certification?
Optimization
Repeatable sequences
38. Which factors must be given higher importance in the development of a product in QA?
Testers must first concentrate on planning before starting to work on any software. Adopting and integrating the latest technologies in processes is also very important. Attention must also be focused on identifying the factors on which the software is heavily dependent.
Sometimes quality can be assured simply by paying close attention to the development process of the software. Testing also plays an important role in assuring the efficiency and quality of software.
39. Why is Quality Assurance a ‘proactive approach?
QA testing takes place during the development process and starts as soon as the software goes into development. This is why quality assurance is considered as a proactive approach.
Know More: Top 50 Selenium Interview Question that will help you land a Job
40. How is QA defined in the ISO 9000, Clause 3.2.11?
Quality assurance is defined as that aspect of quality management that deals with assuring the customers that their set requirements for the software’s quality will be fulfilled.
41. How to know if software specifications have been met or not?
By using the traceability matrix tool, we can map requirements to test cases. When all test cases in the matrix are executed successfully, it will mean that the code meets all software specifications.
It is a document that captures all the requirements proposed by the client and the traceability.
A traceability matrix is a document that traces and maps the test cases and the user requirements.
43. Which QA practices can be considered the best?
There are many good practices for QA, among which the best are:
Thoroughly evaluating the selected release criteria
Automating testing for highly sensitive areas
Creating a testing environment that is robust
Simulating final outcomes for evaluation
44. What is Recovery Testing?
Recovery testing is conducted to recover the software from any unexpected or expected events so as to prevent loss of functionalities and data. Events can include unexpected communication loss, shortage in the disk space, etc.
It is the process of automating as many parts of the testing process as possible so as to make QA testing more accurate, efficient, and quick.QA automation can be done by using various automation tools.
Name a few QA automation tools.
Selenium- It is an open-source automation tool that is the most widely used tool for QA.
UTF (Unified Functional testing) – It is an automation tool by SmartBear Software. A few significant features of this tool include Scripted Testing, Test Visualizers, and GUI Testing.
TestingWhiz- It is a QA automation tool by Cygnet Infotech that provides code-less scripting. Some of its features include Integration with Test Management Tools, record and Playback test frameworks, and Keyword Driven Testing.
Retesting is conducted to check whether the errors have been successfully removed or not, while regression testing is conducted to check the impact that error fixes have on other software functionalities.
48. What is meant by MR?
MR or Modification Request can also be called as a Defect report. It is a document that is created to report all the errors and defects in the software and any suggestions which can be taken into account.
49. How are validation activities conducted?
Following techniques are used to conduct validation activities:
Hiring third-party independent people for validation
Assigning team members who are not involved in the verification activities
Getting the software independently evaluated
50. Which types of documents are created during software QA?
The following documents are created during the software quality assurance process:
Requirement document
Test cases and Test plans
Test Metrics
User profiles
Test log
Transaction Mix
Task distribution flow chart
Test incident report
Test summary report
51: What is BVA? Name any other testing technique.
BVA stands for Boundary Value Analysis. This technique is used for doing field-level testing for numerical fields. This test is performed by entering a number +1 and -1 from the extreme values that the input box can take. E.g., if a field can take values from 0 to 100, then by applying the BVA technique, we will try to enter the values -1, 1, 99, and 101. Of these, -1 and 101 should not be accepted by the system.
Equivalence Class, Decision Table, Error Guessing are some other software testing techniques that are used frequently.
52: What is the difference between the severity and priority of a bug?
The severity of a bug is determined by the tester, based on the expected impact of the bug on the application from the perspective of a tester. The highest severity bugs are related to a crash in the application or a functional issue with the most business-critical functionality. The least severe bugs are cosmetic bugs like alignment, spelling mistakes, or color variations.
The priority on the other hand is determined by the developers, based on when they plan to fix the reported issue. Priority 1 issues are of the highest priority and need to be fixed at the earliest. The lowest priority is generally given to cosmetic bugs or those bugs that are likely to be moved to the next iteration or project cycle.
Exploratory testing is an informal testing technique where the tester randomly navigates through the application without any defined steps followed. The testers just check for the overall look and feel smooth page transitions, and expected messages to ensure the application is not crashing at any point.
54: What is UAT? How is it different from functional testing?
UAT or User Acceptance Testing is a form of function done by a subset of the users. For eg, if the software is developed for a departmental store, the UAT should be performed by somebody from the store to see how easily they can adapt to the new software, if they can perform their daily operations, and also understand if any improvements need to be done before handing over the application to the client.
55: What are the test cases you can prepare for a login screen?
There are several test cases that we can write for a login screen, some of them are:
Correct login and password should allow the user to log in.
Incorrect credentials should block the user
For incorrect input, an appropriate error message should be displayed.
The combination of blank login and/or password needs to be checked for appropriate error messages.
For the login edit box, check the maximum character limit along with all field level validations.
For the password edit box, check the maximum character limit along with all field level validations.
Forgot password link should be available.
The register or create account button should be available as per business or requirements.
The alignment of the screen and the spellings should be checked.
The company or product logo should be available as per business or requirement.
56: What is defect density?
Defect density is defined as the number of accepted defects per 1000 lines of code (LOC). It helps the development team to understand more problematic areas in the code and if needed do a restructuring of the code as well.
57: What is the 80-20 rule?
The 80-20 rule is also called the Pareto Principle and in software testing, it means that 80% of the defects come from 20% of the code. This principle helps us to identify the areas of the code or the functionalities that need more rigorous testing to ensure the best quality.
58: Explain the different test coverage techniques.
There are 3 main types of test coverage techniques:
Statement Coverage: here testing aims to cover every line of code. This is the most exhaustive testing and most often the testing team would not have the bandwidth for this type of coverage.
Decision Coverage: As the name suggests, in this testing each decision flow in the code is tested. In this where ever there is a decision box, each flow of the code is tested.
Path Coverage: Path coverage ensures, all the paths leading to a code or functionality are covered as part of the testing.
59: What is DRE?
DRE, Defect Removal Efficiency is a metric used to measure the effectiveness of the testing activity. It is a ratio of the number of defects found by the testing team vs the defects found in production. Higher DRE means more effective testing.
DRE = No. of defects found during testing / (No. of defects found in testing + No. of defects in Prod)
60: What is big bang testing?
After the completion of testing of individual modules, all the modules are combined or integrated and tested. This type of end-to-end testing is called the big bang testing and it is carried out towards the end of the testing life cycle.
61: What is the top-down approach?
In top-down testing, the highest-level modules are tested first. Type of testing uses stubs and drivers to simulate data if any modules are not available for testing. The testing is done downwards, after the highest-level modules, the next highest is testing till the unit level code.
62: What is the bottom-up approach?
In a bottom-up approach to testing, the lowest modules are tested first followed up by the modules above them. The sequence continues till the highest modules are integrated and tested together. The bottom-up approach is very useful in finding code-level and module-level defects at the early stage itself.
Alpha testing is similar to user acceptance testing and is done by either the developers, testers, or the clients at the tester or developer location. It is done right before shipping the product to the clients. This is done to ensure that there are no last-minute missing functionalities or defects and the client can use the product as expected.
Beta testing is carried out by the client at their location with their infrastructure before the product is deployed for wider use. The purpose of this testing is to find out issues that are related to the infrastructure and set up at the deployment location that could not be replicated during the testing phase.
65: What is user experience testing? How is it different from functional testing?
User experience (UX) testing is a form of performance testing where the performance of the UI of the application is measured. For eg the time taken for the results to be displayed, time taken for the page transitions, etc.
UX testing and functional testing are similar in the way the testing procedures and steps are defined. But they differ in the expected results. Let us take a login scenario. The user enters the login credentials and password and hits the login button. For a functional test, the expectation would be that the user is logged into the application and an appropriate application page is displayed. Whereas for a UX test, the expected result would be to achieve this login within a specific time say 5-7 seconds. If the login happens successfully after 7 seconds, it would be considered a failure for the UX test.
Localization testing, also known as location-based testing is used to test functionalities that are specific to the location where it is deployed. These tests can be related to language, location maps, mobile or internet data speed, or any other regional data. The best example for localization testing would be the search functionality in mobile phones. Whatever you search, be it hotels or petrol pumps, the expectation is to get results closest to your current location.
67: What is Soak Testing?
Soak testing is a type of performance testing where the system is subjected to a load over a long period ranging from a day to a week or more. This type of testing is very useful in finding defects and issues that occur only when the system is in use for a long period. Like issues caused by memory leaks.
68: When will use automation for your project and why?
Automation can be used in the projects to cover regression testing of stable functionalities as well as for smoke testing the build before it is accepted for further detailed testing.
The main benefit of automation testing is that it helps the testers to thoroughly test the newly implemented functionalities by letting the already stable functionalities be tested by the tool. This ensures that the new code changes have not impacted the existing functionalities. And at the same time gives more bandwidth to the testers to test new and more business-critical modules.
69: What is CI/CD and how does testing fit into the pipeline?
CI/CD refers to the continuous implementation and continuous deployment of software from code to production. As the name suggests, every time there is a new code check-in, it gets deployed to the production branch as well. All this happens automatically.
Most companies have automated batch processes that check for any code changes. Once a code change is detected, a new build is triggered. This build then triggers an automation suite. This is where the testing comes in. Based on the results of the automated test, the build is deployed to the production of rolled back.
70 What outsourced and crowd-sourced testing?
Many companies would give the testing of their application to a different company or group of people who specialize in testing. This is done to get better test results and hence better quality. Sometimes, when the project timelines are crunched, in that case also the testing work is assigned to another team or company. This is called outsourced testing.
In crowd-sourced testing, the testing work is assigned to a completely unknown pool of people who may or may not be testers. It is like a crowd of people who are given some benefits for testing an application or software. This concept of testing is picking up fast and allows companies to test their application across different regions, devices, and operating systems.
71: What is a showstopper in software testing?
Showstopper is a defect that blocks the testing activities from proceeding. In such cases, the testing is stopped till the issue is resolved or a new build is cut. An example of a showstopper defect would be login failure, app crash, or not database connectivity.
72: What is a hotfix?
A hotfix is a special build that is rolled out to fix a critical issue. The issue would be very urgent and hence it is not possible to wait till the next build. These builds are very critical and need to be rolled out as soon as possible because they directly impact the customers.
73: What are the different models followed in SDLC?
There are several models to choose to streamline the Software Development Life Cycle. These are:
In API testing, we test the API directly with different inputs and verify the response and response time. API testing is also used for integration testing. The most common tools used for API testing are Postman and SoapUI. There are several other free and paid tools as well.
75: What are the different environments in project development?
The different environments in a project are:
DEV: the development environment
QA/STAGE: the testing environment
PERF: the performance testing environment
UAT: the user acceptance testing environment or a pre-prod environment
PROD: the production or client or deployment environment.
Conclusion
With all our heart we hope that the questions that we have compiled are beneficial for you in the next QA interview. All the best
Collaboration can never be successful without communication. It has a tendency to break or make a project.
Whether it is about testing and software testing team or between a manager and client.
However, now companies are moving towards agile technology that has managed to break down the walls between different departments.
But there can be times when one forget all about collaborations and work differently. It can be a difficult form to keep a track off. Hence, it is essential to follow up the operations and development of a project in order to test off the whole logic.
Importance of Communication
When it comes to development and testing, one is required to follow up an accurate path in terms of focus.
The testing team and developers have to complete their end of the deal as per the requirements of the business.
Developers are required to complete the functions that are derived in order to come up with something accurate. In addition to this, the main task of testing team is to implement and focus on the overall improvement of the development cycle. No matter how different their task might be, they have a common goal of having an error-free end product.
In order to achieve goals, one is required to follow up the path of agile technology that can contribute to collaborations. However, this is only possible with honest and open communication as per two-ways. For better understanding, you can consider it as the tyres of a cycle.
If a single of them is flat then you won’t be able to ride your bike. It requires a great deal of balance that can be attained with honest communication. In addition to this, one has to understand the whole concept of ROI, quality, speed, etc. that can be facilitated with communication only.
Here are five of the major ways in which one can attain collaboration between both the teams.
Sharing Responsibilities
The whole project can never be successful if we depend on the only a single person.
The whole project requires the equal contribution of both teams – testing and development.
This is actually really simple to understand. When we talk about the agile world then there is nothing known as them or us.
It is a whole team that works on a single project to improve product quality.
Hence, they are required to divide each and every responsibility among themselves.
The development team can come up with relevant and accurate unit test while coding.
This will help testers while testing an application since the test cases are already formed for them. On the other side, the tester will help to gate pass a project accurately.
It will allow them to work on the product with more responsibility and without changing any code.
This can be achieved if we follow up a meeting with everyone involved to get proper input before proceeding with the project.
Collaboration of Tools
Another of the important factor that must be kept in mind while typing code is flexibility with tools that are used in collaboration.
The best form of communication that is proved is face-to-face. Since it allows one to work on the facial expression of an individual as well.
However, there are times when teams have to work together from a different location.
At that time, it becomes essential to come up with some alternative to ensure that you have attained goals.
It becomes difficult when members are not right in the next cabin or a walk away.
In such case, e-mails are potentially used by the member to be updated and for queries.
It can be spreadsheets or even online platform options allowing them to work on sharing basis.
In addition to this, remote access can be used widely to ensure that teams are working properly.
Hence, now is the time to get acquitted with a management application that is all over the internet.
A number of applications that allows an easy communication route for the members and be updated with work done.
These workflow management applications allow individuals to get through work or even assign it to others.
They have scalable, readable, maintained and flexible features intact.
Earlier, businesses were dependent on Skype but now there are applications such as Trello and Wrike that have taken it to a top notch.
In addition to this, it is now easy to be on the same page as other with these applications.
Visibility of activities
Another of the essential factor of collaboration is visibility. It will also have a huge impact on the trust of the teammates.
It will expand the agility in the team. The point is that you must not simply assume what others know.
It is possible that some of the members have no idea why you have added on a new function.
Hence, it is better to be visible at every single step. If you are adding something then let them know or what standards are used. The best thing for a tester to do is to have a review session with developers to have a proper outcome format.
On sharing the work, it will generate an upstream towards the whole work mode.
It will influence the testing scope at a huge rate. Not only developers, but stakeholder or architects can be life saviour when it comes to working on the product.
They will give their input and you might know what more is to expect out of this whole system. This will allow deep scrutinizing of product.
Critical Bugs – Find and Fix
When it comes to finding bugs, the best thing to follow is to prioritize the whole system.
It will give you an easy adoption to where to start and how to run off test cases.
In addition to this, the product managers can focus on the goals of the business. This will help in keeping our focus on finding out bugs that can be fixed up by testers or developers.
In order to start this, teams can make a list of whole features as per their priority.
The one that is most important can come at the top followed by others.
It will give an idea to the departments about their test cases. Also, one can work on the application as per the customer point of view.
It is a way to get a bigger picture of the complete product. They will find out the solutions to the points that are more essential than the one that is not.
It will also help in being working out in the single aspect with not worrying about the other one.
Battles to win
If we try to fight off every single threat that is present in the product that you can forget about it.
This is a difficult task when we try to work on all the bugs and trying to eliminate it.
You need to know which bugs can be resolved on your end while leaving others for your team members.
In addition to this, one must know what is worth their time.
Testing already works on a strict time frame and hence not even a second must be wasted on something that you have no idea about.
Also, it is possible that everyone is working on the points that are not even important.
The most essential aspect that will fall with it is the red line form. You need to make a line for you or the whole team.
It will determine where you must keep your focus on. It will also help in determining the essential interactions point on the product end.
For instance, usability, load time, etc. are major points.
If you are concern about this then you can have a whole team just to fight these defects only.
This will take the mind of developers and testers off them and the defect team can work on them with some predefined guidelines.
It will only help you to make sure that there are no other major points that can be a downfall for the application.
In addition to this, everyone will be focused on their own task with no distractions.
Bonus Point – Test Driven Development and Business Driven Development are also a major part of the whole development and testing cycle.
One must be specific while forming testing cases which will be used by the developers.
After the implementation of the code, these cases can work together with the unit testing mode in order to come up with accurate results.
This will cover up all the requirements at the business end and also give an idea of where to end the whole process.
You cannot depend on a single end of the rope to make sure that you will not fall.
The other end must be tightly bounded to something to prevent a fall. Similarly, to work on a stead road, you need to take an initiative.
This will determine a route with the improvement in the whole collaboration system.
What’s the Software Tester Salary in India? Or in Canada, or USA, or in the UK?
Before we get into that, What makes Each IT expert’s compensation is mostly determined by two factors, are – their roles and obligations and their ability. Aptitude differs from one individual to the other, while the salary depends on the organizational or project level.
By and large, yearly pay rates for software testing experts increment with experience. As these years add to their CV, the software testing professionals turn into the specialist in their field. Furthermore, as experience rises, their job slowly moves from working “on” the venture to working “for” the venture. What’s the Role of a Software Tester? Software testers are also known as Quality Analyst. A software tester or Quality Assurance Tester will probably discover loopholes or bugs that were presented by the engineer’s code.
They test the functionality of computer applications and program projects before they are launched to market. Basically, software testers endeavor to break programs that software engineers make to dodge issues that can influence the end-user.
Quality Assurance testers use computer and computer systems to test software. In the case that a software engineer assigns a QA tester with testing an app for Android and iPad systems, they will lead their testing on tablet computers. In like manner, the software tester would test a server app on a computer server. Pay of Software Tester depends on:
Aptitudes and level of skills
Experience
Current Salary (if moving to a new position)
Company
Place
Type of employment,e. full-time vs. contractual vs. freelancing
Benefits
Also, sometimes the negotiation abilities of the candidate/employee
Career Path of Software Testers
The career progress as a software tester (QA Analyst) will look like the following, but can differ from one corporation to another –
Fresher – QA Analyst
2-3 years’ experience – Sr. QA Analyst
5-6 years’ experience – QA Team Coordinator
8-11 years’ experience – Test Manager
14+ experience – Senior Test Manager
Employment Outlook for Software Testers
BLS – The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics does not give information particular to the profession of the software tester. In any case, the BLS offers generous data about software engineers, who for the most work inseparably with software or QA testers.
As indicated by the BLS, vacancies for software engineers should increment by about 25%, through 2026. So, it’s obvious that there is also a huge opportunity for software testers as both professionals work hand in hand. What’s the Market Trend for Software Testers in 2021?
We have already mentioned that the pay rates of a software tester change from one venture to the next, skills, and experience. Now it is time to have a look at the market trend regarding the salary of software testers.
As indicated by Naukri.com, a primary Indian Job portal, there isn’t much variation between the standard yearly pay rates of QAs and the software developers.
Software Tester Salary in India
The average base pay of a software tester in India with 2-3 years of experience is (Rs 342k per annum). On the other hand, the average salary of a QA analyst is (Rs 395000) and the salary of a software test engineer is (Rs. 250000) per annum.
Salary of various profiles in software testing include,
(Average salary) QA Leader – USA $71k India – Rs. 1292000/ year) Test Engineer – USA – $72k India – Rs. 475600/year Manual Test Engineer – USA – $52000 India – 532000/year Automated Test Engineer – USA – $67000 India – 448391/year Tester – USA – $44k India – Rs. 493k / year
Tester’s Salary Range in the United Kingdom
The national average Software Tester salary in the United Kingdom is £25,712. Pay rate estimates are based on 115 salaries anonymously submitted to Glassdoor by Software Tester workers in the UK.
Whereas the average Quality Assurance Tester salary in London, UK is £24,000. These pay rate estimates are based on 47 salaries anonymously submitted to Glassdoor by QA Tester workers in London, UK.
Further, the national average Software Testing Engineer salary in the United Kingdom is £33,797. Pay rate estimates are based on 123 salaries anonymously submitted to Glassdoor by Software Testing Engineer workers in the UK. Tester’s Salary Range in the United States
The average compensation for a Software Tester in the United States is $71,289. Salary rates estimates depend on 88 pay rates anonymously presented to Glassdoor by Software Tester representatives in New York City, NY.
Then the average Quality Assurance Tester salary in the United States is $37.58 per hour. Pay range estimates are based on 1,512 salaries anonymously submitted to Indeed by Quality Assurance Tester users, workers, and collected from present and past job advertisements on Indeed in the last 36 months.
Moreover, the average Software Test Engineer salary in the United States is $104,968 per year. These salary range estimates are based on 6,340 salaries anonymously presented to Indeed by Software Test Engineer users, workers, and collected from present and past job advertisements on Indeed in the last 36 months. Tester’s Salary Range in Canada
The average salary for Software Tester in Canada is $27.09 per hour or $52,825 per year. The fresher level positions begin at $40,450 annually whereas the most skilled employees can take up to $89,803 per year.
Further, the average Quality Assurance Tester compensation in Canada is $38.46 per hour or $75,000 per year. The salary for fresher level’s positions begins at $20,876 annually while most experienced employees make up to $127,500 for a year.
On the other hand, the average for Software Test Engineer in Canada is $51.28 per hour or $100,000 per year. The fresher level positions begin at $44,051 annually whereas the most experienced employees can take up to $125,494 per year. Where would you be able to discover software testing employment opportunities?
There are such a significant number of websites out there that the list given below is negligible. You can generally do a complete web scan for a thorough checklist to find a job profile as per your prerequisite.
Here’s a small list –
Indeed.com
QAJobs.net
Monster.com
Glassdoor.com
Naukri.com
SoftwareTestingJobs.com
SoftwareTestingJobs.net
TestingJobz.com
JobCentral.com
HotJobs.Yahoo.com
ITJobs.com
ITJobs.net
Jobs.com
ComputerJobs.com
Final words…
Keep in mind that one need not generally wait for employment opportunities to apply for a vacancy; you can usually present an expression of interest to an organization and expectation that you will be kept in a choice for future settlement. Occupations, similar to fortunes, only sometimes fall on your lap from the up above – you should be proactive.
More or less, despite the fact that market analysis supports a decent advancement in the salary of software testers, QA testers, and software test engineers, the sort of project and expertise tells what the immediate earning would be for testers. Likewise, the software tester’s responsibility in the project and aptitude can be a noteworthy factor. At the end of the day, as a QA tester promotes to a project manager, then the pay disparity would not be a concerning factor.
The software testing certification can assert and ensure a certain individual’s specific knowledge of software testing. Software testing certifications guarantee the skill for testing software and help the testers to be more efficient and effective in their respective works.
This gives certification on their competency in the area of software testing. One can progress in their career by taking next levels of software testing and gradually become an expert in this area.
Here are the top software testing certifications one can go to in 2021. Table of Contents
Read on to Know More About Them in Detail 1. ISTQB (International Software Testing Qualifications Board)
ISTQB is one of the leading software testing certifications which has its global imprint. With its headquarters in Belgium, it has testing exam centers all across the world.
It is seen as one of the favorite certifications to acquire a job in software testing overseas as well as in India. One needs to have ISTQB certification in order to take up work in any company in the United States.
There are several levels of certifications within the ISTQB, starting from the beginner level to the advanced and expert level.
There are a predefined syllabus and standards one needs to have to come out of this examination. Further, as they say, there is no end to learning.
After you finish the advanced levels, one may still have furthermore courses to take on, such as post-expert level. 2. CAST (Certified Associate in Software Testing)
This certification is provided by Quality Assurance Institute in the US. One can be eligible to undertake this course only if you have three or four-year experience in IT or an accredited college or if you have a two-year college with one year of experience.
Once the registration is done, the candidate will receive a Software Testing Body of Knowledge book which will help to prepare and give the examination.
The material which is received after registering is sufficient to pass the examination. 70% of pass score is needed for this examination. 3. CETPA
This examination is what you need in case if you are looking for abundant exposure to the number of advanced technologies in software testing techniques.
Hands-on experience is given on various tools such as Load Runner, Selenium, and HP Quality Control and so on.
CETPA is widely known for its testing mostly in northern parts of the Indian subcontinent. With its 13 years of experience, it is known to cover various testing domains in manual, database, and automation. 4. CMC
CMC is a Tata enterprise that offers certifications in several of its niches in software development. It is one of the leading IT consulting organizations.
With CMMI level V accreditation, this stands out as a well-known center for its diploma course. The diploma in software testing offers certification is very well known for its manual techniques as well as automation techniques.
The CMC offers a three-month course for software testing. A student without an IT background can also learn the course through the CMC limited. 5. CSTE (Certified Software Testing Engineer)
This course is also provided by the Quality Assurance Institute of USA. This comes in the second level or intermediate level for software testing certification.
Those with five to eight years of experience in the field can be eligible to undertake the course. One should have a three or four-year degree in an accredited college along with two or three years experience in the IT field in order to undertake this given course.
They provide sufficient and quality material to registered students in order to prepare for the examination. 6. Seed Infotech
Seed Infotech is known for its certification in manual and automation testing. Known to be one of the best testing institutes in India, they not only train for the course but also offer mock interviews and placements for its candidates.
This organization is associated with around 300 plus companies in India making it as one of the largest and well known certification organization in the country. This company also offers ISTQB training. 7. QA Campus
The QA campus is based in Delhi which provides certifications for various niches in IT. This organization has programs to cater to the needs of different candidates in the software testing levels.
Keeping the needs as per the evolving market and present demand scenario, the institute manages to train its SQA skills to its candidates.
With its placement program, those students in this agency get placed at the largest and popular companies in the country. 8. Qspiders Software Testing
Qspiders is one of the successful and reputed training institutes for software training in India. Not only professionals but also students can enroll in this course for software testing.
They are well known for providing good study materials and classes for the candidates and help them to build a good career in software testing. There are also placements available in top MNCs which is a plus point. 9. STC
STC Technologies is known to provide world-class software testing with a good curriculum. The study materials also keep changing in STC as per the latest trends and developments in the industry.
Expert professionals help with the study materials which help to deliver top-notch quality in the study. The specialty with them is their e-learning facility. The course, which is a diploma in Software testing, also gives practical experience with its training modules. 10. V Skills
The V skills is a joint venture by the government of India and the Government of NCT. It is one of the largest manpower companies in Delhi.
The advantage of this certification is it does not need a minimum educational qualification to enroll in the course.
Hence this can be helpful and useful to not only professionals in this field but also students in the area of software testing. It helps to make the candidate acquire the requisite knowledge and make his job-ready.
It does not require a huge time commitment and it opens options for those with different sector backgrounds. There is no restriction on the number of attempts too. Automation testing and QTP are covered in this course.
The above mentioned are top ten software testing certifications available in 2020. Once the beginners and intermediate level is completed, one can also go to post expert level to further learn about software testing.
Penetration Testing Certification is an added advantage for your current security testing job or if you wish to build a career in it. Security-related employment comprises many domains, for example, security analyst, information security specialist, security engineer, the system administrator (with security as a duty) network security administrator, and additionally specialized jobs, for example, penetration tester, intrusion analyst, and malware engineer. In this article, you will get to know about 10 Penetration Testing Certifications which are considered with high regard in the web-security industry.
What Are The Merits of Security Testing Certification?
It comprehends vulnerabilities and risks influencing the companies once a day.
Your misguided judgments about hacking will be solved as after the certification, you’ll get a general sense regarding what an ethical hacker’s role will be in the company.
Additionally, you’ll comprehend that the idea of hacking is significantly more than just hacking into another person’s email or Facebook accounts.
The program will prepare you for the enumeration and network scanning methods.
Through the security testing program, you will learn different kinds of countermeasures, foot-printing, and foot-printing tools.
You can likewise find what packet sniffing strategies are and how to secure against sniffing.
You will build up your insight in the field of system hijacking and hacking techniques, steganography, virus analysis, covering tracks, the working of viruses, malware investigation strategy, and PC worms.
As a white hacker certificate holder, you can likewise build up your expertise in Trojans, Trojan analysis, and Trojan countermeasures
Lastly, you’ll figure out how the exploits develop.
So, in case you want to head towards the profession in the IT field and are interested in gaining practical experience in security testing, certification is an extraordinary decision.
It’s a powerful method to approve your abilities and demonstrate a current or prospective manager that you are qualified and appropriately trained.
Here is our list of 7 best security or penetration testing certification one must look forward to.
Top 20 Penetration testing certification
Certified Ethical Hacker (CEH)
Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP)
Certified Cloud Security Professional (CCSP)
Offensive Security Certified Professional (OSCP)
GIAC Security Essentials Certification
Licensed Penetration Tester (LPT)
CREST
GIAC Exploit Researcher and Advanced Penetration tester
(IACRB) Certified Penetration Tester
Certified Red Team Operations Professional (CRTOP)
Certified Ethical Hacker (CEH)
Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP)
Certified Cloud Security Professional (CCSP)
Offensive Security Certified Professional (OSCP)
GIAC Security Essentials Certification
Licensed Penetration Tester (LPT)
CREST
GIAC Exploit Researcher and Advanced Penetration tester
(IACRB) Certified Penetration Tester
Certified Red Team Operations Professional (CRTOP)
1. Certified Ethical Hacker (CEH)
The Certified Ethical Hacker is offered by the International Council of E-Commerce Consultants (EC-Council) which is an intermediate level qualification.
It’s an unquestionable requirement have for IT experts seeking after a career in ethical hacking. It is considerably more technical certification.
The CEH certification sets up and oversees the base benchmarks for professional ethical hackers. The CEH certification affirms people in the particular system security control of ethical hacking.
CEH accreditation holders get learning and skills on hacking methods in fields, for example, scanning networks, foot-printing and reconnaissance, system hacking, enumeration, sniffers, Trojans, worms and viruses, social engineering, hacking web servers, session hijacking, wireless networks, and web applications, penetration testing, cryptography, SQL injection, avoiding IDS, honeypots, and firewalls.
Since innovation in the field of hacking transforms day by day, CEH certification holders are obligated to get 120 proceeding learning credits for every three-year cycle.
2. Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP)
CISSP is an advanced level accreditation for IT masters who are serious about occupations in data security. This vendor-neutral accreditation is known as (ISC)2 and articulated as “ISC squared” offered by the International Information Systems Security Certification Consortium. It is perceived worldwide for its benchmarks of magnificence.
With the assistance of Certified Information Systems Security Professional aka CISSP program, the learner will get introduction towards the security solicitudes and can manage them in an expert way. The person will have the capacity to put the standard methods into usage.
On doing this course you will surely emerge and will be advantageous while going to attend interviews. The certification will also give a person an entrance to a system of industry and subject specialists who are into the security field.
3. Certified Cloud Security Professional (CCSP)
One of the primary purposes behind security experts to take the CCSP course is to demonstrate they are educated about cloud security as well as other security-related cloud contemplations – a situation at the front line of business advancement in IT.
Cloud environments are loaded up with security threats that differ day by day, so picking up the CCSP credential is imperative for proving to hiring managers you’re knowledgeable in the required security contemplations that are a vital part of cloud computing.
This course enables individuals to show capability in cloud data security, cloud design, and architecture, and also application security considerations, everyday activities, and considerably more. Any individual who is hoping to do a job in a cloud-based environment will be very much assisted with a CCSP certification.
4. Offensive Security Certified Professional (OSCP)
The Offensive Security Certified Professional is one of the most specialized programs of the certification choices. Offered by the revenue driven Offensive Security, it’s sponsored as the main totally hands-on accreditation program.
Offensive Security planned the course for technical experts to demonstrate they have a practical and reasonable comprehension of the penetration testing procedure and lifecycle.
Prior to opting for the OCSP course, comprehend that the coursework demands a strong technical comprehension of software development, systems networking protocols, and systems internals, particularly Kali Linux, an open-source venture by Offensive Security.
This is an online training course for most of the candidates as classroom training is just offered in Las Vegas.
The test-taker is assigned to recognizing vulnerabilities, researching the network, and hacking into the system to obtain official access within 24 hours.
Afterward, the Offensive Security certification commission should receive a thorough penetration test report for analysis and decide whether to award the certification.
5. GIAC Security Essentials Certification
The GIAC Security Essentials Certification is appropriate for people who are searching for employment growth in the cybersecurity domain. By doing this course, a person will have the capacity to prove capabilities to deal with security errands.
The people ought to be in charge of showing distinctive notions in the information security field. A person will have the potential to design and create a network architecture utilizing distinctive technologies, like NAC, VLAN’s, etc.
The program will also make the candidate skilled enough to run plenty of command-line tools to analyze the framework. The candidate will further gain pragmatic learning on windows security, threat management, Linux security, and so on.
6. Licensed Penetration Tester (LPT)
The LPT is the certification designed for the EC-Council’s whole data security track. It is a definitive trial of a person’s practical aptitudes as a penetration tester.
To acquire this certificate, you are asked to perform a full black-box penetration testing of a network given to you by the EC-Council. This implies following the whole procedure i.e. reconnaissance, enumeration, scanning, obtaining access, and managing access and afterward really employing vulnerabilities.
It is anyhow not an easy test. Regardless you should completely archive your activities in a total, proficient penetration test report. As your report will likewise be reviewed by other penetration testing experts that as of now have EC-Council’s LPT accreditation.
7. CREST
CREST data certificate courses and body’s pen test exams are broadly recognized around numerous countries.
This test certifies and teaches quality pen testers. The non-profit organization guides the necessities of a technical data security commercial center that involves the administration of an organized and regulated assistance industry.
CREST supports the top-notch capacity, ability, and consistency in the overall technical cybersecurity section.
With the goal to counter the danger of cyber-attack, it is trained candidates in a way that helps a business to work in an aggregate way and offer top practice and information.
8. GIAC Exploit Researcher and Advanced Penetration tester
Higher-level training programs meant for a person that has job duties such as assessment of the target network, finding vulnerabilities of system and application, etc.
Candidates should have the skill to conduct advanced penetration tests and should be able to think like an attacker and fin flaws in the system.
Requirements as per the website
1 proctored exam
55-75 questions
A time limit of 3 hours
Minimum Passing Score of 67%
The objective of the test include
Must demonstrate how to bypass network access control systems
Have to develop custom fuzzing test
Must be able to write stack overflow exploits
Find out common weakness in cryptographic implementations
Must perform protocol fuzzing to trace out flaws
Must show the basic understanding in X86 processor architecture, Linux memory management, assembly, and the linking and loading process.
Have to showcase the ability in converting Python script and packet crafting using Scapy
Have to express the ability in writing shellcode in Linux operating system
9. (IACRB) Certified Penetration Tester
The Information Assurance Certification Review Board (IACRB) offers a wide range of tests. CPT is one of the tests.
An in-depth study about techniques used by black-hat hackers
Current and up-to-date ethical hacking training
Effective pen-testing methodologies
Learn about network protocol attacks
Learn about wireless security flaws
Get to know about web-app flaws
Know more about UNIX and Linux flaws
10. Certified Red Team Operations Professional (CRTOP)
Meant for people with expert-level knowledge and should perform a comprehensive assessment.
The two-hour exam will have a question from,
Red team roles and responsibilities
Red team assessment methodology
Physical reconnaissance tools and techniques
Digital reconnaissance tools and techniques
Vulnerability identification and mapping
Social engineering
Red team assessment reporting
11. CompTIA PENTEST+
CompTIA PENTEST+ is an assessment consisting of 85 penetration testing questions which you have to answer in 165-minutes. This assessment requires a deep knowledge of penetration testing. The questions deal with security vulnerabilities in desktops, laptops, servers, mobile devices, and cloud environments. It also focuses on your practice skills that include analyses of Python and Bash code, vulnerabilities in apps and Bluetooth, etc.
12. CERTIFIED EXPERT PENETRATION TESTER (CEPT)
This certification includes a 2-hour assessment which has 50 multiple choice questions.wait deals with nine central subjects, but more important is the ingenuity of the applicants. The tester must have great attack simulations capabilities and should be able to find unknown cyber-weaknesses. Some of the topics you should be well versed with to take this certification are memory corruption, reverse engineering, and exploit creation in both for Linux and Window.
13. CERTIFIED PENETRATION TESTER (CPT)
To clear this certification the application must have deep knowledge of 9 bases of penetration testing, like exploits in Windows and Linux, penetration methodologies, wireless network security, and web application vulnerabilities. It is also a w hour assessment with 50 multiple-choice questions.
14. GIAC CERTIFIED INCIDENT HANDLER (GCIH)
This certification is a mix of multiple-choice and lab-based questions. There are over 100 questions to be covered in 4 hours. This assessment is a combination of penetration testing and security strategies. Some of the topics you must be well prepared with before taking this assessment are client attacks, denial-of-service attacks, and various attack modes. They should also know about various techniques and tools used by hackers. They should also know how to prevent these attacks.
15. GIAC ENTERPRISE VULNERABILITY ASSESSOR (GEVA)
This certification is mainly for those who want to get into cybersecurity for enterprise IT systems. It is a two-hour assessment with 75-question. Be prepared with topics like PowerShell scripting, network scanning, and vulnerability assessment frameworks. Applicants should also know how to resolve and report security issues.
16. GIAC ASSESSING AND AUDITING WIRELESS NETWORKS (GAWN)
This certification is a 2 hours test with 75 questions. The applicants must be proficient in detecting even the slightest gap in the security of the wireless network. They should be veterans in detecting and fighting against such attacks.
17. GIAC MOBILE DEVICE SECURITY ANALYST (GMOB)
This is a 75 questions assessment for 2 hours. The main topics it includes are tablet smartphone and app security. It requires the applicants to have knowledge of how hackers unlock mobile devices on different OS and they should also have knowledge on how to safeguard data on malware-infected devices.
18. GIAC WEB APPLICATION PENETRATION TESTER (GWAPT)
To clear this certification you should be proficient in dealing with the challenges of web apps. Basically have a clear understanding of topics like client injections, authentication attacks, cross-site request forgery, etc. It is a two-hour assessment having 75-question, which requires a deep understanding of possible attacks and penetration testing.
19. GIAC CERTIFIED PENETRATION TESTER (GPEN)
This certificate requires expertise in penetration testing, especially in its process. It is a 3-hour certification focusing on three main stages of exploit:
reconnaissance,
attack
It also focuses on a few attack styles like web application injection attacks and password attacks. The assessment is a mix of 115 multiple choice or lab-based questions.
20. GIAC EXPLOIT RESEARCHER AND ADVANCED PENETRATION TESTER (GXPN)
It deals with advanced penetration testing techniques like exploiting stack overflows, think fuzzing, and shellcode scripting. The assessment is a 3-hour test including 75 multiple choice and lab questions. The main topics dealt with in this certification attacks on Linux and Windows and network exploits. It also assesses the tester’s capability to communicate their notions and findings to business stakeholders.
Conclusion
Becoming a valued certified ethical hacker or security tester is an incredible professional goal. Also, the demand for security testers surpasses the supply, this implies that salaries and perks are plentiful. All because nowadays everybody requires the administrations of an ethical hacker to test their frameworks.
Organizations hire security testers so they can record what was discovered and fix those vulnerabilities as quickly as they can for improving company’s security.
Also, as a certified ethical hacker, you can give individual assistance to people in recovering email, documents, and data that might be unavailable due to any kind of issues.
Thus, above-mentioned security testing courses are the most sought-after certifications available today to make a fantastic career in the domain of security testing.
Bug Bounty Hunter is a job that requires skill. Finding bugs that have already been found will not yield the bounty hunters.
They must have the eye for finding defects that escaped the eyes or a developer or a normal software tester.
Like the name suggests it’s a work that needs so much of time and patience. If they do, the bounty will be big! What do they do?
The data/application security wing in big organizations don’t have sufficient time or labor to eliminate every bug from the system, so they contact private contractual workers for assistance.
Organizations like Google, Facebook, Twitter, and numerous more reward bug bounty hunters for reporting security issues in their system. This reward can be in sort of swags, money, or just compliance.
Fundamentally, a bug hunter utilizes his tools to analyze things or break into things, compose a vulnerability report for the organization that has issued the bounty, and hence, get paid for this role.
A few hackers make countless dollars annually as an alternate income simply by hunting the bugs.
Also, there’re different terms for this role – Bug Bounty, Responsible Disclosure, Vulnerability Reward Program, all are the equivalent.
Thus, in short, a bug bounty is employed by companies for reporting security issues, not for development issues like some content is missing or button isn’t working.
The majority of the bug bounty has their range noted. How to become a skilled Bug Bounty Hunter?
To do it efficiently, you’ll have to know some fundamental coding and computer aptitudes.
Luckily, we have huge lots of incredible resources to help start off the journey, and coding is really simple to educate yourself.
But, in the event that you have no clue what any of this stuff implies as you read on, bug bounty hunting presumably isn’t for you.
And if you understand these skills wells you can start your journey as a bug bounty hunter in three steps as given below – 1. Start Reading:
There are a few must-read books that you can purchase to empower you to learn in the rudiments and basics of bug hunting and penetration testing.
Since bug bounties frequently incorporate site targets, we’ll center on kicking you off with Web Hacking.
Here is the list of some of the best books to learn bug bounty –
The Web Application Hacker’s Handbook
OWASP Testing Guide v4
The Hacker Playbook 2: Practical Guide to Penetration Testing
The Tangled Web: A Guide to Securing Web Applications
iOS Application Security
The Mobile Application Hacker’s Handbook
Also, one must read tech write-ups, reviews and Proof of Concepts (POC) from different hackers.
You need to comprehend and read from other people who are doing it as bugs are submitted by write-ups so; they will enable you to learn from the perspective of other bug hunters.
In addition, watch tutorials available on YouTube for practical understanding of the task! 2. Practice
As it is said, “practice makes the man perfect”.So, along with reading it’s further vital to ensure that you are likewise understanding and grasping what you learn by far.
Practicing on vulnerable systems and applications is an incredible method to test where your skills stand in the simulated situations.
These will also offer you a perception of what you’ll be running up in reality.
Organizations will frequently have a link anywhere on their site offering bug bounties, however, they can be elusive.
You’re in an ideal situation checking a bounty board where hackers are reading published vulnerability reports and refreshing a functioning list on the regular basis. Like these:
HackerOne
Vulnerability Lab
Bugcrowd
Fire Bounty
Additionally, join the hacker’s community to learn from the peers who are happily ready to share their skills and knowledge with the budding bug bounty learners. 3. Begin learning about Bug Bounties Practices:
So, now you’re at the stage where it’s nearly time to begin your bounty hunt venture.
If you discover a bug, ask constantly yourself: what’s the security influence on the application? You can begin hunting and keep in your mind the notion to “find a bug” or you can begin hunting with the notion of “searching the genuine impact”.
The former notion is totally different; the latter notion embraces a bigger perspective.
Keep in mind to never ever stop learning. It’s the most important thing about hacking. Be steadfast. And yes, keep practicing as much you can, in fact, never stop practicing. What tools Bug Bounty Hunter use?
There are two main tools that a bug hunter could use OWASP Zed Attack Proxy and BurpSuite. OWASP ZAP is an open source.
BurpSuite is commercial software that’s really cool and has an enormous fanbase. Both are very extendible that will be a lot easier to use. How much Bug Bounty Hunter earns?
A survey conducted by the security biz HackerOne of 1,700 bug bounty hunters from over 195 countries and regions, augmented by the organization’s data on 900 bug bounty reports, has affirmed that white-hat hackers make a median salary that’s 2.7 times that of standard software engineers in their home nations.
Google gave Chrome operating system bug hunters paying them a combined $700,000 in 2012 while Mozilla staked out a $3,000 flat charge for bugs bounty that met its criteria.
Facebook has paid out as much as $20,000 for a single bug bounty report and in 2016, Apple declared rewards that go up to $200,000 for a defect in the iOS secure boot firmware elements.
Bug bounty hunter’s profession is taking off and with that comes tremendous open doors for hackers to earn best prizes for making the internet more secure.
Final thoughts…
Bug bounty hunting needs the most efficient aptitudes in the majority of the software tasks. It’s difficult, yet it’s amazingly compensating when done precisely.
Like code writing, remember that it takes constancy, determination, and a plenty of feedback to be called a successful and proficient bug bounty hunter.
One has to think out of the box ideas and do their absolute best.
As a Bug hunter you generally gain understanding, learning and your skills take further steps.
Look out at bug bounty role in such a manner and keep your inspiration up every day.
Thus, when you do bug bounty hunting, being happy is as important as having the right skills! Remember to enjoy your role!
Several questions surface when people hear about a Software Testing Conference.
Some of the obvious ones are listed below
How can the conference benefit you and your career goals?
Is it going to be like those boring lectures that will go for around 4 long days? How will I keep my eyes open during the session and prevent my mind from falling asleep?
Is it going to be an exhilarating one?
How will it add value to my career?
Being dubious can be one of the reason. Some will say that tare sometimes times awfully boring. However, excuses are not an option for these 12 awesome conferences.
Before we jump into the list. let’s have an idea about the essentiality of such conferences. Why attend the Software Testing Conference?
It is a great chance for you to complete your goals on a professional
You will get a new idea by allowing to brainstorm your mind. It will give you an opportunity to come up with something more innovative and improved form of an existing process. Also, it is possible that you might solve an ever-going process.
It helps you to get in touch with the latest advancement in technology or new evolution that you might be unaware about.
A software tester gets ample opportunity to test their techniques and skills for testing.
It is a chance for tested to interact and get in touch with leading personalities. Also, it is a great platform to enhance the networking on the professional end.
It is a platform where a person can get recognition
It is a great platform to exchange thoughts, experience, ideas and even learning something from others.
Received a Conference opportunity? Get the list checked beforehand
Throughout the year, almost every month, there are so many software testing conferences that take place.
However, before you get your registration done or even plan on going to one such conference, you need to make sure that the conference is the right one for you as an organization and individual.
So, out these points before you pack your bags;
Do your homework and understand what the conference is all about from the respective website.
Check on all the details related to the conference including schedule, topics, programs, ideas, etc. You need to know that fundamental of the conference before you get started with the registration process. In addition to this, it is possible that the conference will need pre-requisites.
Know your speaker and what they are known for. What are their inventions or finding?
Is the venue feasible enough to stay and have a comfortable conference?
Once these points are cleared, then get started with your conference registration on the respective website itself. Software Testing Conference 2019
If you are looking for the latest Software Testing conference list to attend in 2019, then here it is.
January 15-18 2019, Software Quality Days, Vienna, Austria
The conference is about the challenges and complexities of the testing domains.
This fabulous competition mainly focuses on cloud-based applications.
The minimal cost of the conference is $776 which will be attended by developers, managers, software testers, etc. to add some latest services and tools.
February 4-6 2019, AutomationGuild Online Conference
This is an online conference that will cost $197 for a single person. This whole conference will move around the automation testing conference.
On top of that, there is no restriction for the person who wants to attend the conference.
You can attend the free and can attain an opportunity for a lifetime access.
March 11-12 2019, UK STAR Software Testing Conference, London
The conference is said to be annual.
However, this international conference has a specific motto to solve the diverse issue that is surrounding the testing world.
In addition to this, even developers can get a lot of help from this conference.
April 28 – May 3, 2019, STAREAST Software Testing Conference, Orlando, Florida
The event will take place in Florida at a minimal price of $2895 that will cover exploratory testing, security testing, testing strategy, etc.
It is a great opportunity to get in touch with many quality engineers, test managers, developers, software testes that will get indulge in strategies and techniques.
May 29-31 2019, Nordic Testing Days (NTD), Tallinn, Estonia
The registration of this event is already closed and the waiting list is also almost full.
However, if you still wish to get in waiting list then simply send an email with a request to registration@nordictestingdays.eu.The conference will educate tester about the strengths of this field along with the community.
Since registration is closed, the event will be attended by topmost software testers that have years of experience.
They will be joined in by some fresher’s that are starting their career in testing.
It is all about sharing experience and knowledge including the failure and success story to inspire fresh minds.
June 12-14 2019, Romanian Testing Conference, Grand Hotel Italia, Cluj-Napoca, Romania
The conference is covering many topics that are related to the challenges, experience, ideas, strategies, techniques, and development of a software.
The new implementation in the testing world will also take place at the conference.
Along with this, everyone is free to send out a video with their experience on it. There is Google form option available for sharing entries.
May 23-24 2019, TestBash, Utrecht, Netherlands
The details of the tickets are not available anywhere.
In case, an individual is interested to enroll their name for the conference then they have to get in touch with them.
The whole aim of the conference is set on the software testing that including different modules.
This event will be attended by many managers, developers, designers, testers, etc.
April 23-25 2019, SauceCon, Austin
The conference is set out for a total of two days along with a workshop.
The entire focus of the event will be on different topics such as advanced selenium, automation testing, mobile application testing, and parallel testing.
There are many other topics covered by the people. Many experts of automation testing will join in the event to improve their knowledge and skills about the automation testing.
It is the chance to join in with them to improve the skills and learn.
April 18-19 2019, SelenlumConf, Funabori, Tokyo, Japan
This whole conference is based on the inspiration lectures and workshops in which Selenium training will be presented in detail.
The conference will be graced by the top automation professionals that will meet the testers of the community in an active manner.
However, the details on the ticket are not out yet so you must visit the site for more updates.
April 3, 2019, TestBash Essentials, Utrecht, Brighton, England
The short conference is the main one that will allow the professionals to share their experience, ideas, and knowledge with others.
This whole conference will be attended by the testers, developers, managers, and designers that will focus on the testing knowledge that will be shared by finest minds.
However, no expert will be available at the conference.
28th Feb-1st March 2019, Testing in Context Conference Australia (TiCCA), Melbourne, Australia
The active community is not the focused part of a conference every day.
In Melbourne, the conference that will be attended by students, managers, software testers, researchers, developers, practitioners, scholars, and the list goes on.
However, the main motto of this whole conference is to give an opportunity to every single individual to learn different things by interacting with other and share ideas.
You never know who will leave you inspired for a lifelong.
February 14-15 2019, European Testing Conference, Valencia, Spain
The event will take place in the mid of February with the price of $984.
This conference is targeting the art of testing. It is a huge opportunity to listen to the practitioners and experts on what makes them different and known.
On top of that, there will be professionals joining in the conference that gives an opportunity to get in touch and learn more about the technical field.
Then, there will be the testing practices that allow testing a certain module. It is a chance to see how programmers and testers visualize things.
Let’s admit, quotes are funny, impressive and they are mostly truth which everybody agrees to. You can find quotes for all the aspects of your life.
No matter where are you are working, there will be quotes that you can relate to your current situation or even give you a sarcastic or even much more defined realistic aspect of it.
Memes and quotes related to programming or coding are in plenty. But what’s baffling about software testing is that there are only a few quotes and memes available on the internet. Even though both of them are crucial in SDLC and has been there for a long time
To save you from the trouble. Listed here are the compilation of gem of quotes when it comes to software testing.
Have a look
1. “I don’t care if it works on your machine! We are not shipping your machine!” — Vidiu Platon.
2. “Fast, good, cheap: pick any two.”— Anonymous
3. “If you don’t like unit testing your product, most likely your customers won’t like to test it either.” – Anonymous
4. “You must be a constructive schizophrenic. Be clear about the difference between your role as a programmer and as a tester. The tester in you must be suspicious, uncompromising, hostile, and compulsively obsessed with destroying, utterly destroying the programmer’s software. The tester in you is your Mr. Hyde – your Incredible Hulk. He must exercise what Gruenberger calls ‘low cunning.” – Boris Beizer
5. “All code is guilty until proven innocent.” – Anonymous
6. “Good programmers write code for humans first and computers next.” – Anonymous
7. “Failure is not an option. It comes bundled with the software.” – Anonymous
8. Why do we never have time to do it right, but always have time to do it over?” – Anonymous
9. If you’re relentlessly focused on lowering cost, you’ll quickly become oblivious to opportunities to increase value.” — Michael Bolton
10. “Testers don’t like to break things; they like to dispel the illusion that things work.”— Kaner, Bach, Pettichord
11. “A pinch of probability is worth a pound of perhaps.”— James Thurber
12. “Testing is not responsible for the bugs inserted into software any more than the sun is responsible for creating dust in the air.”— Dorothy Graham
13. “The problem is not that testing is the bottleneck. The problem is that you don’t know what’s in the bottle. That’s a problem that testing addresses.“— Michael Bolton
14. “Don’t fall in love with a model.”
15. “Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new.” – Albert Einstein
16. “The business of life is to endeavor to find out what you don’t know from what you do; that’s what I called ‘guessing what was on the other side of the hill.'” – Duke of Wellington
17. Never stop testing, and your advertising will never stop improving – David Ogilvy
18. “Magicians have done controlled testing in human perception for thousands of years” – Teller
19. “To find out what happens when you change something, it is necessary to change it.”
20. “You can see a lot by just looking.” – Yogi Berra
21. “Criteria must be reconsidered at every stage of an investigation.”
22. “Testing leads to failure, and failure leads to understanding” – Burt Rutan
23. “I found out that most programmers don’t like to test their software as intensely as I do” – Kent Beck
24. “Like any well-designed software product, Windows is designed, developed and tested as an integrated whole” – Bill Gates
25. “Discovering the unexpected is more important than confirming the known.” – George Box
