01
What is the difference between DELETE and TRUNCATE?
Show answer
DELETE removes selected rows and can be rolled back; TRUNCATE quickly removes all rows and resets the table.
UST Software Testing Interview Questions & Answers
Curated interview practice questions with answers. These are practice scenarios, not a verified list of past interview questions.
About UST hiring for Software Testing roles
UST is a digital transformation and IT services company with large delivery centres in India, particularly in Kerala. It provides software development, testing, cloud, data and AI services for clients in healthcare, retail, banking and semiconductors. It hires in India for software engineers, test engineers, data engineers and analysts.
For Software Testing roles, this UST practice set focuses most on Manual Testing Basics (8), Agile, SQL and API Testing (7), Accessibility & Usability Testing (6), Mobile Testing (4). It has 13 easy, 27 medium questions, so you can start easy and work up to the harder ones.
- Company type
- IT services
- Headquarters
- Aliso Viejo, California, USA
- Main India offices
- Thiruvananthapuram, Kochi, Bengaluru, Chennai, Hyderabad
UST Software Testing interview process
- Online assessment (aptitude + reasoning)
- Coding test
- Technical interview
- HR round
Typical pattern based on public candidate experiences. Rounds vary by role, team and year.
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02
What is interrupt testing in mobile apps?
Show answer
Interrupt testing checks how the app behaves when something interrupts it: an incoming call, SMS, notification, alarm, low battery warning, network change, plugging in a charger or switching to another app. The app should pause correctly, keep the user's data and resume where the user left off. For example, a call during a payment must not cause a double charge or lose the transaction state.
03
The sprint ends tomorrow and two stories are still in testing. What do you do?
Show answer
Tell the Scrum Master and product owner today, not at the review. Focus testing on the acceptance criteria and the riskiest paths of the story with the most value, and ask a developer to help with test data or simple checks. If a story cannot be finished with quality, it should be carried over, not marked done with untested parts. Raise the cause in the retrospective, such as late handover.
04
SQL: how do you test a foreign key defined with ON DELETE CASCADE?
Show answer
-- Create a parent and child, delete the parent, child rows must disappear
INSERT INTO customers (id, name) VALUES (501, 'Cascade Test');
INSERT INTO orders (id, customer_id, total) VALUES (7001, 501, 250);
DELETE FROM customers WHERE id = 501;
SELECT COUNT(*) FROM orders WHERE customer_id = 501;
-- Expected: 0
-- Also test inserting an order for a non-existent customer: it must fail
05
What is a sprint planning meeting and what does QA contribute?
Show answer
The team selects stories for the sprint. QA helps estimate testing effort, clarifies acceptance criteria and flags dependencies and risks.
06
Explain three usability heuristics with examples from a web app.
Show answer
Visibility of system status: after clicking Pay, show a progress indicator so users do not click again. Error prevention: disable the Submit button until required fields are valid, or ask for confirmation before deleting an account. Recognition rather than recall: show recently searched items and saved addresses instead of making users remember them. Other heuristics include consistency, user control with undo, and clear help for recovering from errors.
07
What is a test case and its components?
Show answer
A set of steps with inputs and expected results. Components: ID, title, preconditions, steps, test data, expected result, actual result and status.
08
What is the difference between a walkthrough and an inspection?
Show answer
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.
09
What are focus order and visible focus, and how do you test them?
Show answer
Focus order is the sequence in which keyboard focus moves through interactive elements; it should follow the visual reading order. Visible focus means the focused element clearly shows a ring or highlight. Test by pressing Tab through the page and watching where focus goes. Common bugs are focus jumping to the footer, focus going behind an open dialog and designers removing the outline with CSS, leaving keyboard users lost.
10
SQL: verify that soft-deleted users do not appear in the active users list.
Show answer
-- 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
);
11
What is visual regression testing in automation?
Show answer
Visual regression testing takes screenshots of pages or components and compares them with approved baseline images to detect unexpected layout, font, colour or spacing changes that functional assertions miss. When a difference crosses a threshold, a person reviews it and either accepts the new baseline or logs a bug. Dynamic content like dates and ads must be masked, and the same browser and screen size must be used to avoid noise.
12
What is a database view and what do you verify when testing it?
Show answer
A view is a saved query that behaves like a virtual table, often used for reports or to hide sensitive columns. When testing it, compare its output with the same query run on the base tables, check filters and joins return the right rows, confirm hidden columns such as salary are really absent, check behaviour when base data changes and verify that users without permission on the base tables can still read the view if intended.
13
Design EP and BVA tests for a password that must be 8 to 16 characters and contain at least one digit.
Show answer
Length partitions: below 8 (invalid), 8 to 16 (valid), above 16 (invalid). Boundaries: 7, 8, 9, 15, 16 and 17 characters. Digit partitions: contains a digit (valid), no digit (invalid). Sample tests: 'abc1234' with 7 characters is rejected, 'abcdefg1' with 8 is accepted, a 16-character value with a digit is accepted, 17 characters is rejected, and 'abcdefgh' with no digit is rejected. Also test empty input and spaces.
14
What is the difference between an error, a defect and a failure?
Show answer
A human error causes a defect in the code, and when that defect is executed it produces a failure visible to users.
15
What are latent defects and masked defects?
Show answer
A latent defect exists in the software but has not caused a failure yet because the needed conditions have not occurred, such as a leap-year bug that appears only on 29 February. A masked defect is hidden by another defect, for example a broken discount calculation you cannot reach because the cart page crashes first. After the first bug is fixed, the masked one appears, which is one reason regression and retesting matter.
16
Write test cases for a multi-select dropdown.
Show answer
1. Open and close by click and keyboard. 2. Select one, then several options; all show as chips or a count. 3. Deselect an option. 4. Select all and clear all, if available. 5. Search inside the list filters options. 6. Maximum selection limit is enforced with a message. 7. Required field shows an error if none selected. 8. Saved selection persists after refresh. 9. Long option names do not break layout. 10. Screen reader announces selected state.
17
What does INVEST mean for user stories?
Show answer
INVEST is a checklist for good user stories: Independent, Negotiable, Valuable, Estimable, Small and Testable. For testers, testable is the most important: a story must have clear acceptance criteria so you can say pass or fail. Small stories are easier to test within a sprint. If a story fails INVEST, raise it in refinement rather than discovering the gaps during testing.
18
What are implicit waits, explicit waits and auto-waiting?
Show answer
An implicit wait, in Selenium, sets a global time the driver keeps retrying to find any element before failing. An explicit wait waits for a specific condition, such as an element being clickable or a spinner disappearing, and is more precise. Auto-waiting, built into Playwright and Cypress, automatically waits for elements to be visible, enabled and stable before acting. Mixing implicit and explicit waits in Selenium can cause unpredictable delays.
19
What is a test harness?
Show answer
A test harness is the setup of drivers, stubs, test data, scripts and tools needed to run tests on a component and collect results, especially when the full system is not available. For example, to test a pricing module, a harness can feed it input files, stub the tax service and compare outputs with expected values. In automation, the framework, runner and reporting together are often called the harness.
20
What automated accessibility tools exist and what are their limits?
Show answer
Common tools are axe DevTools, Lighthouse in Chrome, WAVE and accessibility linters in CI. They quickly catch missing alt text, low contrast, missing labels and invalid ARIA. Their limit is that they find only roughly a third of WCAG issues. They cannot judge whether alt text is meaningful, focus order is logical, error messages make sense or a custom widget works with a screen reader, so manual testing is still required.
21
What does the absence-of-errors fallacy mean?
Show answer
It means that finding and fixing many defects does not guarantee success if the system itself does not meet user needs. A bug-free product built on wrong or misunderstood requirements is still a failure. For example, a perfectly working report that shows the wrong business metric is useless to the client. This is why testers validate against real user expectations, not just the written specification.
22
What do you check in mobile accessibility testing?
Show answer
Turn on the screen reader, TalkBack on Android or VoiceOver on iOS, and check every button, image and field has a meaningful label and the reading order is logical. Check text scales with system font size, colour contrast is sufficient and touch targets are large enough, about 48 by 48 density-independent pixels. Make sure information is not shown by colour alone and that the app works without complex gestures.
23
What are the main testing differences between Android and iOS?
Show answer
Android has many manufacturers, screen sizes and OS versions with custom skins, so device fragmentation and background-kill behaviour need more coverage. iOS has fewer devices but strict permission, privacy and store review rules. Navigation differs: Android has a system back button or gesture, iOS relies on in-app navigation and swipe back. Notification, permission and file-access behaviours also differ, so test cases need platform-specific steps.
24
Severity vs priority — with an example.
Show answer
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.
25
What is a test plan and what does it contain?
Show answer
A document defining scope, approach, resources, schedule, entry and exit criteria, risks and deliverables of testing.
26
What are ACID properties and how can a tester check them?
Show answer
ACID means Atomicity, Consistency, Isolation and Durability. Atomicity: a transfer that debits one account must also credit the other, or neither happens; test by forcing a failure midway. Consistency: constraints still hold after the transaction. Isolation: two users updating together do not see each other's half-done work; test with two sessions. Durability: committed data survives a restart; test by committing, restarting the service and querying again.
27
How would you test a web page you have never seen before in 30 minutes?
Show answer
Spend five minutes understanding its purpose and main user flows. Then run a quick smoke check of the main flow end to end, test key inputs with valid, invalid and boundary values, check links, buttons and error messages, and try the page on a second browser and a mobile width. Keep short notes and take screenshots as you go. Report the top issues by risk at the end, not every small cosmetic point.
28
Write test cases for a shopping cart.
Show answer
Add, remove, update quantity, price and tax calculation, coupon codes, stock limits, cart persistence after login and checkout navigation.
29
How do you test session management in a web application?
Show answer
Check that a new session ID is created after login, and that the session expires after the defined idle time. Verify logout invalidates the session on the server, so pressing back or reusing the old cookie does not work. Check that cookies use Secure, HttpOnly and SameSite flags. Test concurrent logins if they are limited, and that changing the password ends other sessions. Session IDs must not appear in URLs.
30
What is heuristic evaluation and how is it different from a usability test with users?
Show answer
Heuristic evaluation is an expert review where a few evaluators inspect the interface against known usability principles, such as Nielsen's ten heuristics, and list problems with severity. It is fast and cheap and needs no participants. A usability test watches real users perform tasks and shows where they actually struggle. Heuristic reviews find many obvious issues early, but they can miss problems that only real users with real goals reveal.
31
What is deep link testing?
Show answer
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.
32
Tell me about a time you found a usability problem that the requirements did not mention.
Show answer
Situation: while testing a leave application form, every test case passed. Task: I still felt the flow was confusing. Action: I noticed the date picker started on Sunday and the half-day option was hidden under 'More', so I asked two colleagues to apply for leave while I watched; both made mistakes. I logged a usability suggestion with notes. Result: product moved the option and support queries dropped.
33
What is JSON schema validation in API testing?
Show answer
JSON schema validation checks that a response has the expected structure: required fields are present, data types are correct, formats like email or date are valid and no unexpected fields appear. Instead of checking only one value, it protects against contract changes that break the app. In Postman you can validate a response against a schema in the test script, and run it on every request in a collection.
34
What is a performance bottleneck and where do bottlenecks usually occur?
Show answer
A bottleneck is the component that limits the whole system's performance, so adding load beyond it increases response times or errors. Common places are slow database queries or missing indexes, too few database connections or threads, CPU or memory limits on servers, slow third-party APIs, large uncompressed files and chatty code that makes many small calls. Monitoring each layer during a test shows which resource saturates first.
35
SQL: find orders that have no matching customer record.
Show answer
-- 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;
36
What is end-to-end testing?
Show answer
End-to-end testing checks a complete business flow from the user's first action to the final result, across all connected parts: UI, APIs, database, third-party services and notifications. For example, in online shopping: search a product, add to cart, pay, receive the confirmation email and see the order in the account. It finds integration issues that module-level testing misses, but it is slower and needs stable environments.
37
What is exploratory testing?
Show answer
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.
38
What is test automation and what problems does it solve?
Show answer
Test automation means using scripts and tools to run tests, compare results and report them without a person doing each step. It solves slow and repetitive regression, gives fast feedback on every code change in CI, runs the same checks exactly the same way every time and covers many data combinations. It does not replace thinking: exploratory testing, usability judgement and new feature testing still need manual testers.
39
What is the difference between a build and a release?
Show answer
A build is a compiled version of the software created from the latest code, often many times a day, and given to QA for testing. A release is a tested, approved version delivered to customers or production, usually with release notes and a version number. Many builds can go through testing before one of them is promoted as a release. Testers always note the build number in bug reports.
40
What is colour contrast ratio and what values does WCAG require?
Show answer
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.
Tips to crack the UST Software Testing interview
- Practise aptitude and coding questions for the assessment, focusing on accuracy within time limits.
- Revise SQL, testing concepts and your main programming language, and prepare examples from your projects.
- Learn about UST's history as UST Global and its large Thiruvananthapuram campus for company questions.
- 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; UST interviewers usually ask follow-ups on your first answer.
Frequently asked questions
How many rounds are there in the UST Software Testing interview?
Candidates usually go through 4 stages: Online assessment (aptitude + reasoning); Coding test; Technical interview; 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 UST Software Testing interview?
This practice set leans on Manual Testing Basics (8), Agile, SQL and API Testing (7), Accessibility & Usability Testing (6), Mobile Testing (4). Revise those first, then practise explaining one or two of your own projects end to end, because most UST interviewers ask you to walk through real work.
Are these the exact questions asked at UST?
No. These are curated practice questions that match the skills and difficulty usually tested in it services interviews like UST's. They are not a leaked or verified list of past questions.
Where does UST hire Software Testing professionals in India?
UST has large teams in Thiruvananthapuram, Kochi, Bengaluru, Chennai, Hyderabad. Openings and locations change often, so check the UST careers page and filter by city and experience.
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