Microsoft Software Testing Interview Questions & Answers

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

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

A language to query databases. Testers use it to verify data saved by the application, prepare test data and check backend results.

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

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.

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

Statuses like To Do, In Progress, In Review, Ready for QA, Done and Reopened, with transitions that depend on the team's configuration.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

INNER returns matching rows, LEFT keeps all left rows, RIGHT keeps all right rows and FULL keeps all rows from both tables.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

Measuring speed and stability: load (expected users), stress (beyond limits), spike (sudden surge), endurance (long duration) and scalability testing.

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

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

Unit, integration, system and acceptance testing, moving from individual components to the complete product in front of users.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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).

Valid login, invalid login, forgot password, locked account and session handling are the main scenarios to cover.

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

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

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.

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

Defects found after release that testing should have caught; leakage % = defects in production / total defects x 100.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Re-check the requirement, reproduce with clear steps and evidence (screenshots, logs), discuss with the BA/PO and record the final decision.

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

TDD writes unit tests before code to drive design; BDD describes behaviour in business language scenarios that become automated acceptance tests.

Verifying the application works across different hardware, software and settings combinations.

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