Curated interview practice questions with answers. These are practice scenarios, not a verified list of past interview questions.
About PwC hiring for Software Testing roles
PwC is one of the Big Four professional services networks, offering assurance, tax, consulting and deals services. In India, PwC member firms and acceleration centres support global clients with technology consulting, data analytics, cyber, risk and process work. It hires for associate and consultant roles in analytics, BI, testing, ERP and risk assurance.
For Software Testing roles, this PwC practice set focuses most on Bug Life Cycle and Jira (6), Agile, SQL and API Testing (5), Mobile Testing (5), Automation Basics for Manual Testers (5). It has 4 easy, 29 medium, 7 hard questions, so you can start easy and work up to the harder ones.
Company type
Consulting
Headquarters
London, United Kingdom
Main India offices
Kolkata, Bengaluru, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Gurugram
PwC Software Testing interview process
Online assessment (aptitude + technical)
Group discussion or case round
Technical interview
Partner or HR round
Typical pattern based on public candidate experiences. Rounds vary by role, team and year.
Solved for PwCStart practicing
3 QUESTIONS FREESign up to unlock the full question bank and track your progress.Unlock every question and answer, then continue practising company-wise and package-wise.
✓ 3 questions free • Unlock the rest in seconds
01
SQL: find orders that have no matching customer record.
-- orphan orders indicate a broken foreign key or bad data load
SELECT o.order_id, o.customer_id
FROM orders o
LEFT JOIN customers c ON c.customer_id = o.customer_id
WHERE c.customer_id IS NULL;
02
A CAPTCHA on the signup page blocks screen reader users. What do you recommend?
Log it as a high-severity accessibility bug because it fully blocks a group of users from signing up. An image-only CAPTCHA fails WCAG unless an alternative is offered. Recommend options such as invisible or risk-based bot checks, an email or OTP verification step, an audio alternative plus another modality, and rate limiting on the server. Retest the full signup with NVDA and TalkBack after the change.
03
When should you reopen a bug and when should you log a new one?
Reopen the bug when the same issue, with the same steps and expected result, still fails after the fix. Log a new bug when the fix works but a different problem appears, even in the same screen, or when the original bug has already been closed in a past release. Link the new bug to the old one. Mixing different problems in one reopened ticket confuses tracking and metrics.
04
What is the difference between a walkthrough and an inspection?
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
How would you test a feature that is enabled for only 10 percent of users through a feature flag?
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.
Spend the first day learning the scope: read the release notes, user stories and test plan, and ask the lead what is at risk. Get access to the environment, tracker and test repository. Pick up a clearly defined module, run its existing test cases to learn the application and note gaps. Ask questions early in stand-up. Within a few days, take ownership of retesting and regression for that module.
08
Search works fine in QA but is very slow in production. Could a missing database index be the reason, and how do you check?
Yes, very likely. An index lets the database find rows quickly, like the index of a book. With a small QA table, a full table scan is still fast, but with millions of production rows it becomes slow. Compare indexes on the searched columns in both environments and ask a developer to check the query plan. Test key queries on production-size data in staging, and include data volume in future performance checks.
09
How do you test a mobile app's offline mode and data sync?
Turn off the network and perform supported actions, such as creating, editing and deleting records, and check they are saved locally with a pending status. Reconnect and verify everything syncs once, in order, with no duplicates. Test conflicts, where the same record is changed on two devices, and confirm the agreed rule applies. Test sync after app restart, on a slow network and when the server rejects a change.
10
A manager wants 100 percent test automation. How do you respond?
I agree with the goal of faster and more reliable testing, but explain that 100 percent is neither possible nor useful. Exploratory testing, usability, visual judgement and brand-new features need people, and some flows like real payments or OTP are costly to automate reliably. I would propose clear targets instead, such as automating all critical regression and smoke flows, with metrics like regression time cut from three days to four hours.
-- Business rule: at most one ACTIVE subscription per user
SELECT user_id, COUNT(*) AS active_count
FROM subscriptions
WHERE status = 'ACTIVE'
GROUP BY user_id
HAVING COUNT(*) > 1;
-- Expected result: no rows
13
What is a duplicate bug and how do you avoid logging one?
A duplicate bug is a new report for a problem that is already logged. Before raising a bug, search the tracker by key words, module, error message and recent open bugs, and ask teammates working on the same area. If a similar bug exists, add your extra information, such as another browser or data set, as a comment instead of a new ticket. This keeps the backlog clean and saves triage time.
14
The developer says "it's not a bug". What do you do?
-- the active list query used by the app should return 0 rows here
SELECT u.user_id, u.email
FROM users u
WHERE u.is_deleted = 1
AND u.user_id IN (
SELECT user_id FROM active_users_view
);
Situation: a small tax rounding change was made late on a Friday. Task: no manual regression was planned for pricing. Action: our nightly API suite failed one data-driven case where a 3-item cart was off by one rupee; I checked the trace, reproduced it manually and logged it with the failing input. Result: it was fixed before release, and the team agreed to keep pricing tests in the pull request suite.
21
How do you test biometric login with fingerprint or face unlock?
Test enabling biometrics in app settings after a password login. Verify login with a registered fingerprint or face, and failure with an unregistered one, falling back to PIN or password after the allowed attempts. Remove or add a fingerprint in device settings and check the app asks for re-authentication. Test devices without biometric hardware, disabled biometrics and app behaviour after an OS update or reinstall.
22
How do you test an application when requirements change frequently?
-- Insert a row, then try the same key again; the second insert must fail
INSERT INTO users (id, email) VALUES (9001, 'a@test.com');
INSERT INTO users (id, email) VALUES (9001, 'b@test.com');
-- Expected: duplicate key or unique constraint error
SELECT COUNT(*) FROM users WHERE id = 9001;
-- Expected: 1
DELETE FROM users WHERE id = 9001;
24
What is the difference between UI automation and API automation, and which gives faster feedback?
UI automation drives the browser or app like a user, so it checks the full experience but is slower and breaks more often with design changes. API automation sends requests directly to services and checks responses, which is much faster, more stable and can run before the UI exists. API tests give faster feedback, so teams place most business rule checks at the API level and keep a smaller set of UI journeys.
25
A training portal is adding recorded video lessons and podcasts. What accessibility checks do you run?
Check that prerecorded videos have accurate, synchronised captions, not just auto-generated ones with errors, and that audio-only content like podcasts has a transcript. Important visual information that is not spoken should have audio description or be covered in the transcript. Media should not autoplay with sound, and player controls must work by keyboard and be announced by screen readers. Also check that nothing flashes more than three times per second.
26
What is colour contrast ratio and what values does WCAG require?
Contrast ratio compares the brightness of text and its background, from 1:1 to 21:1. WCAG AA requires at least 4.5:1 for normal text and 3:1 for large text, which is about 18 point or 14 point bold. User interface parts such as input borders and icons need 3:1. AAA raises text to 7:1. Testers check this with a contrast checker or browser developer tools, including placeholder, disabled and hover states.
27
What is the difference between statement coverage and branch coverage?
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.
28
Your team has 500 manual regression test cases and wants to start automating. Where do you start?
Do not automate all 500. First clean the suite: remove duplicates and outdated cases. Rank the rest by business risk, run frequency and stability. Start with a smoke set of 20 to 30 critical journeys and move rule-heavy checks to the API level. Choose a tool that fits the team's skills, build a simple framework with page objects and CI runs, then expand in batches while tracking time saved and flakiness.
29
How would you add basic security testing to a team that has no security process?
Start with low-cost steps. Add an OWASP-based security checklist to the definition of done for stories touching login, payments or personal data. Train testers on access control, injection and session checks. Add automated dependency and vulnerability scans to the CI pipeline. Include negative authorization tests in API suites. Arrange a penetration test before major releases and track security bugs separately with clear severity rules.
30
Tell me about a device-specific bug you found and how you reported it.
Model answer: Situation: users of one budget phone model reported that the camera upload screen was black. Task: reproduce it. Action: I borrowed the same model, found the issue only appeared when the battery saver was on, and logged the bug with the device model, OS version, logs and a video. Result: the developer fixed the camera initialisation, and we added that model to our device matrix.
The OWASP Top 10 is a widely used list of the most critical web application security risks, published by an open community project. It includes broken access control, cryptographic failures, injection, insecure design, security misconfiguration, vulnerable components and authentication failures. Testers use it as a checklist to include basic security checks in their testing and to speak the same language as security teams.
A deep link opens a specific screen inside the app from a URL, email, SMS, QR code or notification. Test that each link opens the correct screen with the right data when the app is installed, closed or running in background. If the app is not installed, it should open the store page or a web fallback. Test links that need login, expired or invalid links, and that parameters cannot be tampered with to access other users' data.
34
How do you handle a product owner who keeps adding scope in the middle of a sprint?
Model answer: Situation: our product owner added two small changes to a story mid-sprint, which pushed testing to the last day. Task: protect quality without being rigid. Action: I showed the extra test effort in stand-up and asked the Scrum Master to help decide what to swap out. Result: one change moved to the next sprint, and the team agreed new requests go through the backlog.
35
How do you explain a technical bug to a non-technical stakeholder?
Focus on impact, not internals. Say who is affected, what they cannot do, how often it happens and what it may cost, for example: 'About one in twenty users paying by UPI see a failure message even though money is debited, which will raise refund complaints.' Then give the options and a recommendation. Avoid jargon like null pointer or race condition unless asked. A short screen recording often helps.
36
What is the difference between vulnerability scanning and penetration testing?
Vulnerability scanning uses automated tools to look for known weaknesses, such as outdated libraries, missing security headers or open ports. It is fast, repeatable and can run in the pipeline, but gives false positives. Penetration testing is a deeper, mostly manual exercise by security experts who try to exploit weaknesses and chain them like a real attacker. Teams scan regularly and run penetration tests before major releases or yearly.
Collect details from reviews and support: devices, OS versions and app version when it started. Compare battery usage of the current and previous versions on the same devices over a typical session and while idle in background. Use profiling tools to look for background location, wake locks, frequent sync or network polling. Share measurements with developers, verify the fix with the same method, and add a battery check to release testing.
Alpha is done in-house by internal teams before release; beta is done by a limited group of real users in their own environment.
Tips to crack the PwC Software Testing interview
Learn about the PwC Professional framework, which covers whole leadership, business acumen, technical capabilities and relationships.
Practise case questions and guesstimates with a clear structure, especially for consulting and advisory roles.
Revise Excel, SQL and a BI tool, and be ready to describe how analysis helped a decision.
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; PwC interviewers usually ask follow-ups on your first answer.
Frequently asked questions
How many rounds are there in the PwC Software Testing interview?
Candidates usually go through 4 stages: Online assessment (aptitude + technical); Group discussion or case round; Technical interview; Partner or HR 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 PwC Software Testing interview?
This practice set leans on Bug Life Cycle and Jira (6), Agile, SQL and API Testing (5), Mobile Testing (5), Automation Basics for Manual Testers (5). Revise those first, then practise explaining one or two of your own projects end to end, because most PwC interviewers ask you to walk through real work.
Are these the exact questions asked at PwC?
No. These are curated practice questions that match the skills and difficulty usually tested in consulting interviews like PwC's. They are not a leaked or verified list of past questions.
Where does PwC hire Software Testing professionals in India?
PwC has large teams in Kolkata, Bengaluru, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Gurugram. Openings and locations change often, so check the PwC careers page and filter by city and experience.