01
The developer says "it's not a bug". What do you do?
Show answer
Re-check the requirement, reproduce with clear steps and evidence (screenshots, logs), discuss with the BA/PO and record the final decision.
Broadcom Software Testing Interview Questions & Answers
Curated interview practice questions with answers. These are practice scenarios, not a verified list of past interview questions.
About Broadcom hiring for Software Testing roles
Broadcom is a global technology company that designs semiconductors for networking, broadband, wireless and storage, and also sells infrastructure software. Its software business includes VMware, CA Technologies and Symantec enterprise products acquired over the years. In India it hires chip design and verification engineers, embedded engineers and software engineers for its semiconductor and software divisions.
For Software Testing roles, this Broadcom practice set focuses most on Manual Testing Basics (8), Agile, SQL and API Testing (7), STLC and Test Planning (7), Performance and Security Basics (4). It has 3 easy, 25 medium, 12 hard questions, so you can start easy and work up to the harder ones.
- Company type
- Hardware & semiconductors
- Headquarters
- Palo Alto, California, USA
- Main India offices
- Bengaluru, Pune, Chennai
Broadcom Software Testing interview process
- Online assessment or resume screening
- Technical round 1 (digital design or coding)
- Technical round 2 (domain depth)
- Hiring manager round
Typical pattern based on public candidate experiences. Rounds vary by role, team and year.
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02
What is the difference between GET and POST?
Show answer
GET retrieves data and has parameters in the URL; POST sends data in the body to create or process something.
03
What is a traceability matrix?
Show answer
A grid mapping requirements to test cases and defects, proving every requirement is tested.
04
What is the difference between a walkthrough and an inspection?
Show answer
Both are static review techniques. A walkthrough is informal and led by the author, who explains the document or code to peers to share knowledge and gather feedback. An inspection is the most formal review: it has defined roles such as moderator, reader and scribe, uses checklists, needs preparation and records defects and metrics. Inspections find more defects but take more effort.
05
What are the seven principles of testing?
Show answer
Testing shows presence of defects, exhaustive testing is impossible, test early, defects cluster, the pesticide paradox, testing is context-dependent and absence-of-errors is a fallacy.
06
What is exploratory testing?
Show answer
Learning, test design and execution at the same time, without scripted cases — time-boxed sessions with a charter (e.g. 'explore checkout with coupons'), noting bugs and ideas. Great for finding edge cases.
07
What is JSON schema validation in API testing?
Show answer
JSON schema validation checks that a response has the expected structure: required fields are present, data types are correct, formats like email or date are valid and no unexpected fields appear. Instead of checking only one value, it protects against contract changes that break the app. In Postman you can validate a response against a schema in the test script, and run it on every request in a collection.
08
What is cold start versus warm start, and why test app launch time?
Show answer
A cold start launches the app from scratch when it is not in memory, loading the process and the first screen; it is the slowest. A warm start happens when the app process exists but the screen must be recreated, and a hot start just brings it to the foreground. Users abandon slow apps, so teams set targets, such as cold start under two seconds on a mid-range device, and measure each release for regressions.
09
Tell me about a time you had to push back on a release date.
Show answer
Model answer: Situation: a loan app release was planned on Friday, but the EMI schedule showed wrong values for some tenures. Task: give an honest recommendation. Action: I presented the failing cases, the number of affected customers and the compliance risk in the go or no-go meeting, and proposed a three-day delay with a fix plan. Result: management agreed, the fix shipped on Monday, and no complaints came in.
10
How do you test in-app purchases or subscriptions on mobile?
Show answer
Use the platform's sandbox or test accounts so no real money is charged. Test a successful purchase, cancellation, payment failure, pending payment, refund and restoring purchases on a new device. For subscriptions, test free trial, renewal, upgrade, downgrade, expiry and grace period, often with shortened test durations. Verify the server records the purchase and unlocks features, and that killing the app mid-purchase does not lose it.
11
How do you plan regression testing for a monthly release?
Show answer
Keep a tiered regression suite: a smoke set for every build, a core set of critical flows for every release and a full set run on a rotation or before major releases. Each month, add impact-based tests from the release changes and cases for recent production bugs. Automate stable, repeated cases and keep manual effort for new or changing areas. Schedule regression early enough to fix and retest found issues.
12
How do you estimate testing effort?
Show answer
Break the work into modules and test cases, use past velocity or three-point estimation (optimistic, likely, pessimistic), add time for test data, environment issues, retesting and regression, and keep a risk buffer.
13
Leadership asks for a one-page quality update before a release. Which bug metrics do you report?
Show answer
Keep it short and decision-oriented. Show open bugs by severity, the created versus resolved trend, blockers with owners and dates, defect leakage from the last release and modules with the most defects. Give a clear recommendation, such as ready, ready with known issues or not ready, with reasons. Use a shared dashboard for detail, and one slide or email summary for leaders who need only the risk picture.
14
Why do performance reports use percentiles like p90 and p95 instead of averages?
Show answer
An average hides slow requests. If 90 requests take 1 second and 10 take 10 seconds, the average is 1.9 seconds, which looks fine, but one user in ten waits 10 seconds. The p95 value means 95 percent of requests were faster than it, so it shows what most users actually experience, including the slow tail. Service level targets are usually written as percentiles, such as p95 under 2 seconds.
15
What is the difference between smoke testing in CI and full regression?
Show answer
Smoke tests run on every build for quick feedback; full regression runs less often, such as nightly or before release.
16
What is the Page Object Model?
Show answer
The Page Object Model is a design pattern where each page or major component gets a class that holds its locators and actions, such as LoginPage with a login method. Tests call these methods instead of using locators directly. When the login button changes, you update one place instead of fifty tests. Tests become readable, like steps a manual tester would write, and duplication drops. Keep assertions mostly in tests, not page objects.
17
SQL: find orders whose total does not match the sum of their order items.
Show answer
SELECT o.order_id, o.total_amount,
SUM(i.quantity * i.unit_price) AS items_total
FROM orders o
JOIN order_items i ON i.order_id = o.order_id
GROUP BY o.order_id, o.total_amount
HAVING o.total_amount <> SUM(i.quantity * i.unit_price);
18
What is the pesticide paradox and how do you counter it?
Show answer
The pesticide paradox says that if you run the same tests again and again, they stop finding new defects, just as pests become resistant to the same pesticide. To counter it, regularly review and update test cases, add new scenarios from recent production bugs, vary test data, and mix scripted runs with exploratory sessions. Rotating testers across modules also brings fresh eyes and new ideas.
19
What do you do in the test execution phase when a test fails?
Show answer
Re-run the test once to confirm the failure and rule out wrong data or environment issues. Capture evidence such as screenshots, logs and the build number. Check for an existing bug, then log a new one with clear steps and link it to the test case. Mark the test as failed, and mark dependent tests as blocked if they cannot run. After the fix, retest and run related regression.
20
What is the difference between statement coverage and branch coverage?
Show answer
Statement coverage measures the percentage of code statements executed by tests. Branch coverage measures whether every decision outcome, true and false, has been executed. Branch coverage is stronger: for 'if (amount > 1000) applyDiscount()', one test with 1500 gives 100 percent statement coverage, but you need a second test with 500 to cover the false branch. 100 percent branch coverage implies 100 percent statement coverage, not the other way round.
21
How do you test time zone handling for timestamps stored in a database?
Show answer
Check how timestamps are stored, ideally in UTC with a time zone aware type. Create a record from a user in IST and another in a different zone, then query the raw value and compare it with what each user sees on screen. Test boundaries such as orders placed just before midnight IST, which fall on the previous UTC date, and daylight saving changes for foreign users. Reports grouped by date are a common bug area.
22
What is CI/CD and how does testing fit?
Show answer
Code is built and tested automatically on each change; tests are quality gates that stop faulty builds from moving forward.
23
What is the difference between a build and a release?
Show answer
A build is a compiled version of the software created from the latest code, often many times a day, and given to QA for testing. A release is a tested, approved version delivered to customers or production, usually with release notes and a version number. Many builds can go through testing before one of them is promoted as a release. Testers always note the build number in bug reports.
24
What should a tester verify about HTTPS on a website?
Show answer
Check every page and API uses HTTPS, and plain HTTP redirects to HTTPS. Verify the certificate is valid, not expired, and matches the domain, with no browser warnings. Look for mixed content, where an HTTPS page loads scripts or images over HTTP. Check login and payment forms submit only over HTTPS and that cookies holding session data have the Secure flag.
25
What is scalability testing?
Show answer
Scalability testing checks how well the system handles growing load by adding resources, such as more servers or bigger machines, and whether performance improves in proportion. For example, if two servers handle 1,000 users, do four servers handle about 2,000 at the same response time? It finds limits that resources cannot fix, such as a single database bottleneck, and helps plan capacity for future growth.
26
Tell me about a time you found an important bug that others missed.
Show answer
Model answer: Situation: before a release of an insurance app, all regression tests had passed. Task: I was doing a final exploratory round. Action: I renewed a policy on the last day of the month and saw that the premium was calculated for 31 days in a 30-day month. I logged it with exact data and the formula difference. Result: the date logic was fixed before release, and I added month-end cases to the suite.
27
How do you test push notifications?
Show answer
Verify notifications arrive when the app is in foreground, background and closed. Check title, text, icon and that tapping opens the right screen with the correct data. Test with notifications disabled at OS level and inside app settings. Check behaviour after logout, reinstall and on multiple devices with the same account. Test grouping of many notifications, time-sensitive ones, and that no notification shows private data on the lock screen.
28
How do you balance manual testing and automation work in the same sprint?
Show answer
I agree the split with the team at sprint planning. Testing new stories manually comes first because it blocks the sprint goal. I then automate the stable flows from the previous sprint, so scripts are not rewritten while features change. For example, I block two afternoons a week for automation and report progress in stand-up. If a release is at risk, I pause automation and tell the lead openly.
29
What is defect clustering?
Show answer
The observation that a small number of modules contain most defects, so testing should focus on those areas.
30
What are test data and how do you prepare them?
Show answer
The inputs used in tests. Prepare using valid, invalid and boundary values from production-like but masked data, spreadsheets or generators.
31
A developer asks you to test a feature that has no acceptance criteria. How do you proceed?
Show answer
First ask the product owner or business analyst for the expected behaviour and write down the answers as draft acceptance criteria. Meanwhile, explore the feature, compare it with similar existing features and list assumptions. Share the assumptions in the story so everyone agrees before you sign off. Raise the missing criteria in the next refinement so future stories are not picked up without them.
32
How do you test a REST API that is not ready yet?
Show answer
Use mocks or stubs from the API contract such as Swagger, write test cases early and validate again when the real service is available.
33
A manager wants to cut QA time in half. How do you explain the value of testing?
Show answer
Use data, not opinion. Show defects caught before release by severity, production incidents and their cost, and defect leakage trends. Explain what risk increases if testing is cut, then offer options: risk-based testing of critical flows, more automation for regression, and developers owning unit tests. Agree on which risks the business accepts in writing. This turns the discussion into a trade-off decision instead of a conflict.
34
How would you test a feature that is enabled for only 10 percent of users through a feature flag?
Show answer
Test both states: flag on and flag off, so existing users are not affected. Verify the targeting rule assigns the right users and that a user stays consistently in the same group. Test switching the flag on and off in a live session and confirm data created with the flag on still works after it is turned off. Check analytics events for both groups and confirm the flag can be rolled back quickly.
35
Write a Postman test script that checks the status is 201 and the response contains an id.
Show answer
pm.test('Status is 201', function () {
pm.response.to.have.status(201);
});
pm.test('Response has id', function () {
const body = pm.response.json();
pm.expect(body).to.have.property('id');
pm.expect(body.id).to.be.a('number');
});
36
What is a workload model in performance testing?
Show answer
A workload model describes the realistic load to simulate: which user journeys run, their mix in percentages, the number of concurrent users, request rates, think times, data volumes and the ramp-up pattern. For example, 60 percent browse, 25 percent search, 10 percent add to cart and 5 percent checkout at a peak of 2,000 concurrent users. It is built from production analytics and business forecasts, and wrong models produce meaningless results.
37
How do you do cross-browser testing and choose which browsers to cover?
Show answer
Use analytics to pick browsers and versions that most real users have, plus the ones listed in the requirement, usually the latest two versions of major desktop and mobile browsers. Run the main flows on each and check layout, fonts, forms, date pickers, file upload and JavaScript errors in the console. Use responsive mode for screen sizes, and real devices or a cloud device lab for mobile browsers.
38
Write a simple Playwright test in TypeScript that logs in and checks the dashboard heading.
Show answer
import { test, expect } from '@playwright/test';
test('valid user can log in', async ({ page }) => {
await page.goto('https://qa.example.com/login');
await page.getByLabel('Email').fill('qa.user@test.com');
await page.getByLabel('Password').fill('Secret@123');
await page.getByRole('button', { name: 'Login' }).click();
await expect(page.getByRole('heading', { name: 'Dashboard' })).toBeVisible();
});
39
What is a sprint planning meeting and what does QA contribute?
Show answer
The team selects stories for the sprint. QA helps estimate testing effort, clarifies acceptance criteria and flags dependencies and risks.
40
What is visual regression testing in automation?
Show answer
Visual regression testing takes screenshots of pages or components and compares them with approved baseline images to detect unexpected layout, font, colour or spacing changes that functional assertions miss. When a difference crosses a threshold, a person reviews it and either accepts the new baseline or logs a bug. Dynamic content like dates and ads must be masked, and the same browser and screen size must be used to avoid noise.
Tips to crack the Broadcom Software Testing interview
- For hardware roles, revise digital electronics, Verilog, computer architecture and verification concepts such as SystemVerilog and UVM.
- For software roles, revise C, data structures, operating systems and networking, especially for VMware and infrastructure software teams.
- Be ready to go deep into your project, explaining design decisions and debugging steps, as interviewers often probe details.
- Keep a one-minute story ready for every project on your CV: problem, your part, tools, result.
- Practise the hard questions on this page aloud; Broadcom interviewers usually ask follow-ups on your first answer.
Frequently asked questions
How many rounds are there in the Broadcom Software Testing interview?
Candidates usually go through 4 stages: Online assessment or resume screening; Technical round 1 (digital design or coding); Technical round 2 (domain depth); Hiring manager round. The exact rounds change with the role, team, location and your experience, so confirm the process with the recruiter.
Which topics should I prepare for the Broadcom Software Testing interview?
This practice set leans on Manual Testing Basics (8), Agile, SQL and API Testing (7), STLC and Test Planning (7), Performance and Security Basics (4). Revise those first, then practise explaining one or two of your own projects end to end, because most Broadcom interviewers ask you to walk through real work.
Are these the exact questions asked at Broadcom?
No. These are curated practice questions that match the skills and difficulty usually tested in hardware & semiconductors interviews like Broadcom's. They are not a leaked or verified list of past questions.
Where does Broadcom hire Software Testing professionals in India?
Broadcom has large teams in Bengaluru, Pune, Chennai. Openings and locations change often, so check the Broadcom careers page and filter by city and experience.
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