Tower Research Capital Software Testing Interview Questions & Answers

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

A final document summarising what was tested, defects found and open, metrics, lessons learned and the recommendation for release.

Testing that is continuous and collaborative within each sprint, with testers working alongside developers and product owners from the start.

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

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

Designing tests from user flows described in use cases to verify complete real-world interactions.

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.

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

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

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

Add, remove, update quantity, price and tax calculation, coupon codes, stock limits, cart persistence after login and checkout navigation.

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.

DELETE removes selected rows and can be rolled back; TRUNCATE quickly removes all rows and resets the table.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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).

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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).

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.

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

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

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