Fresh Associate Software Engineer Interview Preparation Guide

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Software Requirements are Descriptions and specifications of a system-A requirementis a condition or capability to which the system must conform and Define. A system is designed with certain functionality in mind and to ome up with that functionality and its specification right at the beginning is Requirement Engineering. Requirements Engineering-Eliciting, organizing, and documenting the requirements of the system-The process of establishing the services that the customer requires from a system and the constraints under which it operates and is developed Software requirements should be:
★ Clear
★ complete
★ Unambiguous
★ Quantitative

SRS stands for Software Requirement Specification.
It establishes the basis for agreement between customers and contractors or suppliers on what the software product is expected to do, as well as what it is not expected to do.
Some of the features of SRS are -
★ It sets permits a rigorous assessment of requirements before design can begin.
★ It sets the basis for software design, test, deployment, training etc. It also sets pre-requisite for a good design though it is not enough.
★ It sets basis for software enhancement and maintenance.
★ It sets Basis for Project plans like Scheduling and Estimation.

Functional Requirements are the Expected functionality or services from the system.
Non - Functional Requirements are System property and constraints. Now Constraints can be on requirements itself. Some examples are of Response time, 24X7 availability of the system etc.

The steps involved are Planning Analysis Design coding testing. After testing maintenance of the product in also involved.

It is used to Verify whether the build is ready for feature/requirement based testing).

It is used in verifying software restart capabilities after a "disaster".

It is ued toverify proper controls have been designed.

This Question is often asked in microsoft of from any other company who is looking to hire you for testing work. A test case will have 5 section.

It evaluate the Human Computer Interface. Verifies for ease of use by end-users. Verifies ease of learning the software, including user documentation. Checks how effectively the software functions in supporting user tasks. Checks the ability to recover from user errors.

It is Used when software meant for different types of users. It also check that whether the software performs for all users.

It is verifying that the software meets the specified performance requirements (response time, volume.

Probably one term which you must be aware of as we often hears this software is in Alpha phase and in Beta phase. Here Testing is done by representative set of potential users for trial use. Please Note - in-house (alpha testing) - external (beta testing).

Testing conducted to determine whether or not a system satisfies its acceptance criteria and to enable the customer to determine whether or not to accept the system. It is Done against requirements and is done by actual users.

It checks that the functional specifications are correctly implemented. Can also check if Non Funcctional behavior is as per expectations.

We impose abnormal input to stress the capabilities of the software. Input data volume, input data rate, processing time, utilization of memory, etc. are tested beyond the designed capacity.

Regression Testing accdoing to IEEE is "selective retesting of a system or component to verify that modifications have not caused unintended effects". It is repetition of tests intended to show that the software's behavior is unchanged, except insofar as required. It Can be done at each test level.

System testing conducted once again according to hardware configuration requirements. Installation procedures may also be verified.

Some of the testing under this category and what they mean are as follows.

The Tools used in Unit Testing are debuggers, tracers and is Done by Programmers. Unit testing verifies the functioning in isolation of software pieces which are separately testable.

IEEE Defines it as The process of testing an integrated hardware and software system to verify that the system meets its specified requirements. It is tested against system specification. May test manual procedures, restart and recovery, user interface, stress, performance. In System Testing, real data is used and sometimes users participations is also used.

According to IEEE, Integration Testing is An orderly progression of testing in which software elements, hardware elements, or both are combined and tested, to evaluate their interactions, until the entire system has been integrated. It Test against system design and Focuses on communication between modules start with one module, then add incrementally. Various Types of Integration Testing are: * big bang approach - Integrate Everything at once * top-down approach - Keep on breaking the system in parts one by one and than test each part. * bottom-up approach - Test the small parts first and than keep on integrating the system and keep on testing the bigger module of it. * mixed approach - Done by help of stubs (Dummy modules)

As per Test Target, there is * Unit Testing * Integration Testing * System Testing As per Test Objective, there is * User Acceptance Testing * Installation Testing * Functional * Alpha / Beta testing * Regression * Performance * Stress * Usability * Configuration * Smoke (Sanity Test) Let's see them one by one.

Testing is running the program(or product) under various circumstances and conditions to find errors and bugs in it. This is important as releasing a faulty product will not only cause serious problems to the end user, it will also harm the companies reputation. There are various kind of Testing conditions and which one to use depends on type of product.

Some Features of RUP are -
★ Online Repository of Process Information and Description
★ Templates for all major artifacts, including:
- Requirements tracking (RequisitePro templates)
- Use Cases (Word Templates )
- Project Management (Project Templates)
★ Process Manuals describing key processes

RUP stands for Rational Unified Process
It deals with -
★ Iterative software development process.
★ Visual Modeling of Systems
★ Quality Management
★ Change Control Management
★ Deals with the role, the activity, and the artifact
★ For managing OO Software Development