Cisco Software Testing Interview Questions & Answers

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.

For a field accepting 1–100: valid class 1–100 (test 50), invalid below 1 (test −5), invalid above 100 (test 150). One value represents each class.

Use mocks or stubs from the API contract such as Swagger, write test cases early and validate again when the real service is available.

The observation that a small number of modules contain most defects, so testing should focus on those areas.

Create a request with method, URL, headers and body, send it, check status and body, add test scripts and save it in a collection.

Using experience to guess where defects likely hide, such as empty fields, special characters or unexpected sequences, and designing tests for them.

List conditions and actions in a table and cover every combination of conditions (rules) — ideal for business rules like loan approval: salary > X AND credit score > Y → approve.

Success, failure and pending flows, timeouts, refunds, double-click payments, every method (UPI, cards, net banking), rounding, security (no card data stored) and reconciliation with bank reports.

Code is built and tested automatically on each change; tests are quality gates that stop faulty builds from moving forward.

GET retrieves data and has parameters in the URL; POST sends data in the body to create or process something.

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.

Assess impact and risk, discuss with product and dev, decide to fix, defer with a workaround or delay release, and document the decision.

State the problem, location and condition briefly, for example 'Checkout button disabled after applying a coupon on the cart page'.

Verify inserted, updated and deleted rows match UI actions, check constraints, duplicates, NULLs and totals with COUNT and SUM queries.

Risk-based testing: cover critical user flows, recent changes and high-defect areas first. Clearly communicate the untested risks and get stakeholder sign-off.

Talk to developers and users, explore the product, review similar systems, create notes and mind maps, confirm assumptions and write test cases as you learn.

The team selects stories for the sprint. QA helps estimate testing effort, clarifies acceptance criteria and flags dependencies and risks.

Severity = impact on the system. Priority = urgency to fix. Logo misspelt on the homepage → low severity, high priority. Crash in a rarely used report → high severity, low priority.

Verification: are we building the product right? (reviews, walkthroughs — no code run). Validation: are we building the right product? (actual testing against user needs).

Positive cases use valid inputs to confirm expected behaviour; negative cases use invalid inputs to confirm the system handles errors gracefully.

Checking that people with disabilities can use the product, using screen readers, keyboard navigation, colour contrast and WCAG guidelines.

New → Assigned → Open → Fixed → Retest → Verified → Closed, with Reopened, Rejected, Deferred and Duplicate as side paths.

Smoke tests run on every build for quick feedback; full regression runs less often, such as nightly or before release.

Re-check environment, data, browser and steps; check the logs; try the reporter's setup; add video and console logs; mark it 'cannot reproduce' only after discussing with the developer, and keep monitoring.

Send page, size, sort and filter parameters, then verify counts, order, boundaries (first, last, empty page) and invalid parameter handling.

An API style using HTTP methods on resources identified by URLs, usually exchanging JSON and staying stateless.

A clear title, steps to reproduce, expected vs actual result, environment/build, severity and priority, and evidence (screenshot, video, logs).

A defect that stops testing or release of a feature because no workaround exists, so it is highest priority.

Test execution rate, pass percentage, defect density, defect leakage, defect rejection ratio, requirement coverage and automation coverage.

Black box tests behaviour without code knowledge; white box tests internal logic and paths; grey box uses partial knowledge of the internals.

SDLC is the full software development life cycle; STLC is the testing life cycle: requirement analysis, test planning, test design, environment setup, execution and closure.

A model with many fast unit tests at the base, fewer API or integration tests in the middle and a small number of UI tests at the top.

Test on real devices and OS versions, interrupts such as calls, battery, network changes, gestures, permissions and app store guidelines.

A bug is behaviour that deviates from agreed requirements; an enhancement is a new or improved capability beyond the current requirements.

Basic operations, division by zero, decimals, large numbers, order of operations, clear and backspace, repeated operations and memory keys.

Severity is impact on the system; priority is urgency of the fix. A crash in a rare report is high severity, low priority; a spelling mistake in the logo is low severity, high priority.

JIRA Query Language, used to search issues, for example project = ABC AND status = Open AND priority = High.

Evaluating how easy and pleasant a product is to use by observing real users complete tasks and noting confusion.

Testing how a system moves between states based on events, for example an order going from placed to paid to shipped to delivered.

A human error causes a defect in the code, and when that defect is executed it produces a failure visible to users.

An epic is a large body of work; stories are user-facing slices of it; tasks are technical work items; bugs are defects.

Peer review for clarity, coverage of requirements, correct expected results, test data and traceability, then update and baseline them.

Log and track bugs, link them to stories, build dashboards and filters with JQL, manage sprints and generate reports.

Keep tests modular, prioritise by risk, use exploratory testing, automate stable parts and keep close contact with product owners.

The number of defects per size of software, for example defects per thousand lines of code or per module, used to compare quality.

Functional testing checks what the system does (login, checkout). Non-functional testing checks how well it does it (performance, security, usability, compatibility).

User Acceptance Testing — end users or the client verify that the system meets business needs in a production-like environment before go-live.

A technique that tests all pairs of input values instead of every combination, greatly reducing test cases while catching most defects.

Testing services directly without the UI, checking status codes, responses, security and performance. It finds issues early and is faster than UI tests.

Sprint planning (estimate test effort), daily stand-up (status and blockers), sprint review (demo) and retrospective (improve). Testers clarify acceptance criteria early and test within the sprint.

Valid card and PIN, wrong PIN, three failed attempts, amount above balance, amount above daily limit, invalid denomination, machine out of cash, network failure and receipt printing.

Clear, concise, independent, repeatable, traceable to a requirement, with precise expected results and tested data.

A regular review where QA, development and product assess new bugs and decide severity, priority, owner and target release.

Checking the application works across browsers, devices, operating systems, screen sizes and network conditions.

Allowed and disallowed formats, size limits, empty file, duplicate names, special-character names, cancel upload, slow network and multiple files.

The extent of requirements or code exercised by tests. Measure requirement coverage with a traceability matrix and code coverage with tools.

A development model where each development phase has a matching testing phase, such as requirements with acceptance tests and design with integration tests.

Internationalisation tests that the product can support many languages and formats; localisation tests that a specific locale is correct for text, currency, date and layout.

Static testing reviews documents and code without executing; dynamic testing executes the software to observe behaviour.

Status code, response body and schema, headers, response time, error messages for invalid input, authentication (401/403) and that data is saved in the database.

Check SQL injection, brute-force lockout, password masking, session timeout, HTTPS, cookie flags, error messages not revealing users and password reset flow.

Scope (in and out), objectives, approach, environments, schedule, roles, entry/exit criteria, risks and mitigation, deliverables and tools.