SQA Engineer Interview Preparation Guide

Download PDF

There are some interesting challenges for SQA role & activities in my organization. This is with reference to Software Industry.

Basically there is at a gross level lack of compliance to Quality Management system (This is more to do with a mindset issue & ego, high esteem perspective, 'I can delivery without QMS')

Even the people in escalation path just listen, but do not take much action.

SQA is supposed to co-ordinate reviews (tech and management) However the fact is that practitioners preciously know when a review is required as they have higher and bigger stake in the project and they do it exactly when required irrespective of what SQA says. SQA is then merely a coordinator.

If SQA recommends a practice, no one follows (even though it is understood that SQA is a customer advocate), when the same thing is asked by customer, without fail everyone follows!

I find something wrong with the way SQA Roles/Responsibilities are defined & implemented in the organization I work with.

In one of the CMM Books I came across a Disadvantage of SQA concept that was indicative of organizations would not want to assign their best technical talent into such roles.

GET method is mainly used when the client requests are made
to the server. This is like a query made to the server.

POST method is used to submit a set of data to the server.

We have defined middleware and firmware and understand that they are different, yet have many characteristics in common
when it comes to testing. The discussion of test strategy for these types of software will include both middleware
and firmware, and can be extended to test any software which is not accessed by a user interface.

Early testing will multiply the testing effectiveness of any software application, regardless of technology. However, in the world of middleware and firmware early testing is most critical because finding defects at later stages carries a higher penalty of rework. This is due to the extent of integration with hardware and other software.

The problem with early testing in this environment is that with so many integration dependencies, how does someone
create test harnesses and stubs that allow for an accurate test? Manually, the job is possible, but can be
overwhelming when there are many interfaces involved. If you are developing in a language that has tool support for
structural test case design and testing, you may find that the job can be very easy. Specifically, for C++ and Java,
Parasoft has a great toolset to design and perform structural tests, with a feature to automatically create a test harness and test stubs.

Developer testing is essential to avoid high rework costs. To the testers, the software is a black box. Only the developers have the view and access to the code to test all conditions. In addition, not only are functional cases at stake, but also the structural tests for memory boundary violations and memory leaks.

My experience is that developers can test software if the have a good process to follow, standards to show what is expected of them in terms of testing, and a way to hold developers accountable for the quality of their work. Management must also be making the message loud and clear that testing is part of the job and that quality is a shared responsibility between developers, testers, QA, and management.

In the object-oriented view of testing, tests are isolated at a smaller scope, yet can have high complexity due to the interfaces with other objects. The object-oriented view of testing must be able to deal with classes, methods, and attributes and to validate those at a high level of coverage.

In Shel Siegel's book, "Object-Oriented Software Testing," he describes the Hierarchical approach to O-O testing.

The hierarchical approach is at the heart of the object-oriented testing system. This test approach uses and builds upon several well-understood testing techniques, tying them together into a comprehensive testing system. The hierarchical approach leverages the fact that "everything is a system." It defines and applies testing standards for several levels of software component: objects, classes, foundation components, and systems. The hierarchical approach designates as SAFE those components that meet the testing standards for that kind of component. Once you designate a component as SAFE, you can integrate it with other SAFE components to produce the next-level component. In turn, you test this component to the level of safety
associated with the component level it represents. SAFE is always a relative state. It depends entirely on the standards you choose to enforce, your application, your attitude toward risk, and the specific risks and risk management practices you adopt in your project. The hierarchical approach provides guidelines for minimum safety; you decide what is right for you.

A quality management system in accordance with ISO 9001:2000will provide your organization with a set of processes thatensure a common sense approach to the management of yourorganization.

The system should ensure consistency and improvement ofworking practices, which in turn should provide products andservices that meet customer's requirements. ISO 9000 is themost commonly used international standard that provides aframework for an effective quality management system.

The difference is that the CMM is a way to communicate capabilities, and ISO is a way to communicate the process. They are not necessarily incompatible.

The Capability Maturity Model is a very specific way of classifying an organization's software development methods. In a certain way, it tells how the quality of its softwaredesigns is likely to be repeated.

ISO-9000 procedures describe a (possibly) definite development process but gives no indication of the likely quality of the designs or whether multiple software efforts are likely to produce software of similar quality.

Using One Note (or many) of MS.And based on the specifications for the Pen,test the pen.

Beta test & Alpha tests are type of Acceptance Testing.Beta testing is performed at the client's site in the absence of
the development team.Whereas alpha testing is performed at the developor's site.

In Load Testing, we measure the response time and throughput for a web based application which has a large number of users.
In Stress testing, we test the same application for slightly more number of users than it is intended to be used.

Cleanroom development uses an iterative approach, in which the product is developed in increments that gradually
increase the implemented functionality. The quality of each increment is measured against pre-established standards to
verify that the development process is proceeding acceptably. A failure to meet quality standards results in
the cessation of testing for the current increment, and a return to the design phase.

When putting a system together, the different components interacting may show unexpected behaviors. It is hard to be
able to predict these completely.

A typical example happens in power plants when running steam boilers or power generators in parallel. The load is not
distributed evenly, as would happen on a stand alone unit,but needs to be constantly tweaked.

In addition, there are unexpected configurations resulting from the installation itself, which create unstable modes
due to interaction. These must be addressed and proper compensation through the control system be applied.

Test Case is a document which acts as refrence or record. Test case includes not only test input and expected behavior
but also test step and description and pass fail criteria. It is a good practice if we write a test case before we
execute it. It will give a brief idea that what we have to test. In addition to this it acts as record which can be
used by new tester to understand and then test.

Agile communication is quicker than traditional software development communication in the following ways:
First, the project teams are "co-located" so that any questions are immediately answered instead of using phones,
email, etc to ask coworkers for ideas, thoughts or answers. Every day an Agile team meets for a quick 15 minute meeting
(sometimes called a daily scrum) to refine what tasks were completed the previous day, what will be done by the team
today and what impediments are prohibiting the team from getting the work done.
Agile teams are constantly refining scope based on empirical data from previous releases, test results and discoveries
where traditional projects design and code up to the delivery date only to discover problems when it's very expensive to correct.

A set of activities for ensuring the quality of the software product is known as Software Quality Control.
The focus is on identifying the defects in the original products produced.
It is limited only for Testing phase of SDLC.
Software Quality Control is governed by Software Quality Assurance.
Software Quality Control is detection oriented.
The scope relates to specific product.

Software Quality Control Nomenclature:

- Verifying: comparing the code predictions

- Validating: Comparing the prediction of code with test data

- Version Testing: Comparing output of the current version with output of the previous version

- Installation Testing: Comparing the result with newly installed code to the sample result code

- Development Code: Code tested only by the software developer.

- Alpha Code: Testing of the software product internally by selected users.

- Beta Code: Code testing internally by a large numbers of users.

- Released Code: Well tested and documented code that is officially distributed.

Functionality - To determine the required functionality in the software

- Usability - To determine the ease of the software is to use.

- Maintainability - To determine whether the modifications of the software can be made.

- Efficiency - To determine whether the software is efficient.

- Portability - To determine whether the software can be transferred to another environment.

- Reliability - To determine the reliability of the software as per the client's needs.

Functionality : Functions that satisfies the specified requirements.

- Reliability : A set of attributes that are capable of software maintenance under specified conditions.

- Usability : A set of attributes that is capable of effort bearing on individual's performance.

- Efficiency: A set of attributes that are capable of balancing the relationship between performance of software and the resources used.

- Maintainability: A set of attributes that are capable of bearing the effort required for specific modifications.

- Portability: A set of attributes those are capable to bear on the ability of the software to be transferred on another environment.

Clear purpose of the product. All documentation must be clearly written.

- Completeness to the fullest development of the product.

- Only needed information and minimum lines of code should present. It is important as the memory is limited.

- The software product should be portable, so that computers of various configurations would support the execution of the product.

- Product should be maintainable, so that the updating activity can be continued throughout the life time of the software product.

A paradigm that is Goal Question centric.

- A method that control the overall risk.

- Quality Control that involves Plan, Perform, Check, Action Model.

- Complete Software Quality Control.

- Software Development Method that involve the Spiral Model.

Focused on planning, documentation and agreeing certain guidelines that ensures quality.

- The outcomes of Quality Assurance are quality plans, inspection plan, test plan.

- QA is to prevent defects from entering into solutions.

Quality Assurance:

- Focused on planning, documentation and agreeing certain guidelines that ensures quality.

- The outcomes of Quality Assurance are quality plans, inspection plan, test plan.

- QA is to prevent defects from entering into solutions.

Quality Control:

- Includes the activities that are designed to determine the level of quality.

- QC is a reactive means which measures and monitors the quality

- Includes operational activities and techniques to meet the quality needs.

- QC involves in verifying the desired quality levels.