HCLTech Software Testing Interview Questions & Answers

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.

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

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 shared checklist for when a story is complete, usually including code review, tests passing, no open critical bugs and documentation updated.

Rules such as NOT NULL, UNIQUE, PRIMARY KEY, FOREIGN KEY and CHECK that keep data valid and consistent.

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

A set of steps with inputs and expected results. Components: ID, title, preconditions, steps, test data, expected result, actual result and status.

A team meeting at the end of a sprint to discuss what went well, what did not and what to improve next.

Shift left with early reviews, improve test design, automate regression, use better test data, add monitoring and learn from escaped defects.

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

The hardware, software, data and configuration where testing happens, set up to mirror production as closely as practical.

They let testers verify totals and counts per category, such as the number of orders per customer, and compare them with the UI or reports.

Valid login, wrong password, empty fields, case sensitivity, max length, SQL-injection strings, password masking, 'remember me', lock-out after N attempts and the forgot-password link.

The inputs used in tests. Prepare using valid, invalid and boundary values from production-like but masked data, spreadsheets or generators.

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

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

Valid transfer, insufficient balance, daily limit, wrong beneficiary, OTP failure, network drop mid-transaction, duplicate click and statement update.

Reproduce and assess impact, inform stakeholders, help developers fix and verify in staging, run regression and check monitoring after the hotfix, then do a post-mortem.

Evaluating software to find defects and confirm it meets requirements. It reduces risk, protects users and saves the cost of fixing bugs after release.

A document defining scope, approach, resources, schedule, entry and exit criteria, risks and deliverables of testing.

By business criticality, usage frequency, defect history, risk and dependencies, running high-priority cases first.

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

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.

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

Smoke testing checks that the critical features of a new build work (broad and shallow). Sanity testing checks that a specific fix or area works after a change (narrow and deep).

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

A grid mapping requirements to test cases and defects, proving every requirement is tested.

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

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.

Entry criteria are conditions that must be met to start testing (build ready, environment set); exit criteria define when testing can stop (pass rate, no critical defects).

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

200 OK, 201 Created, 204 No Content, 400 Bad Request, 401 Unauthorized, 403 Forbidden, 404 Not Found, 500 Internal Server Error.

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

Check access with valid, expired and missing tokens, role-based permissions, error codes and that sensitive data is never exposed.

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

Moves to the chosen floor, doors open and close, door sensor stops closing on obstruction, overload alarm, emergency button, behaviour in a power cut, max capacity and the floor display.

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

Valid keyword, partial match, no results, special characters, very long text, empty search, case sensitivity, spelling errors, suggestions and speed of results.

Prioritising tests by the likelihood and impact of failure, so critical areas get the most coverage when time is limited.

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

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.

An urgent patch released outside the normal schedule to fix a critical production defect, followed by regression testing and merge back to the main branch.

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

Re-testing existing features after a change. Automate stable, repetitive, high-value flows that run every release.

Finding why a defect was introduced, such as unclear requirements or missed reviews, to prevent similar defects in future.

Alpha is done in-house by internal teams before release; beta is done by a limited group of real users in their own environment.

Mandatory fields, email format, password rules, duplicate email, terms checkbox, captcha, confirmation email and field length limits.

Test 17, 18, 19, 59, 60 and 61.

A suite is a collection of related test cases; a run is one execution of a set of tests against a build.

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.

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

A scenario is a high-level thing to test (user logs in); test cases are the detailed steps and data that verify it.

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.

Testing at the edges of input ranges, such as 17, 18 and 19 for an age limit of 18, since errors cluster at boundaries.

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

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

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.