Top 34 Software Process Engineer Interview Questions You Must Prepare 19.Mar.2024

Bug Leakage: When customer or end user discovered a bug which can be detected by the testing team. Or when a bug is detected which can be detected in pervious build then this is called as Bug Leakage.

Verification: process of evaluating steps which is followed up to development phase to determine whether they meet the specified requirements for that stage.

Validation: process of evaluating product during or at the end of the development process to determine whether product meets specified requirements.

A software process or software development process is a method or structure expected to be followed for the development of software. There are several tasks and activities that take place in this process. Different processes like waterfall and iterative exists. In these processes; tasks like analysis, coding, testing and maintenance play an important role.

Quality Control (QC): Concern with the quality of the product. QC finds the defects and suggests improvements. The process set by QA is implemented by QC. The QC is the responsibility of the tester.

Bug Life Cycle:

When a tester finds a bug .The bug is assigned with NEW or OPEN status.

The bug is assigned to development project manager who will analyze the bug .He will check whether it is a valid defect. If it is not valid bug is rejected, now status is REJECTED.

If not, next the defect is checked whether it is in scope. When bug is not part of the current release .Such defects are POSTPONED

Now, Tester checks whether similar defect was raised earlier. If yes defect is assigned a status DUPLICATE

When bug is assigned to developer. During this stage bug is assigned a status IN-PROGRESS

Once code is fixed. Defect is assigned with FIXED status.

Next the tester will re-test the code. In case the test case passes the defect is CLOSED

If the test case fails again the bug is RE-OPENED and assigned to the developer. That's all to Bug Life Cycle.

The difference between Retesting and Regression testing are below:

Retesting is done to verify defects fixes where as regression is perform to check if the defect fix have not impacted other functionality that was working fine before doing changes in the code.

Retesting is planned testing based on the defect fixes listed where as regression is not be always specific to any defect fix. Also regression can be executed for some modules or all modules.

Retesting concern with executing those test cases that are failed earlier whereas regression concern with executing test cases that was passed in earlier builds.

Retesting has higher priority over regression, but in some case retesting and regression testing are carried out in parallel.

Process areas in Capabilty Maturity model describe the features of a products development. These process areas help to identify the level of maturity an organization has attained. These mainly include:

  • Project planning and monitoring
  • Risk Management
  • Requirements development
  • Process and Product quality assurance
  • Product integration
  • Requirement management
  • Product integration
  • Configuration management

Maturity level of a process defines the nature and maturity present in the organization. These levels help to understand and set a benchmark for the organization.

Five levels that are identified are:

  1. Level 1: Adhoc or initial
  2. Level 2: Repeatable
  3. Level 3: Defined
  4. Level4: managed
  5. Level 5: Optimized.

The reasons for choosing automation testing over manual testing are following:

  • Frequency of use of test case
  • Time Comparison (automated script run much faster than manual execution.)
  • Reusability of Automation Script
  • Adaptability of test case for automation.
  • Exploitation of automation tool.

Quality Assurance (QA): QA refers to the planned and systematic way of monitoring the quality of process which is followed to produce a quality product. QA tracks the outcomes and adjusts the process to meet the expectation.

Quality Control (QC): Concern with the quality of the product. QC finds the defects and suggests improvements. The process set by QA is implemented by QC. The QC is the responsibility of the tester.

Software Testing: is the process of ensuring that product which is developed by the developer meets the user requirement. The motive to perform testing is to find the bugs and make sure that they get fixed.

  • Verification is Static Testing where as Validations is Dynamic Testing.
  • Verification takes place before validation.
  • Verification evaluates plans, documents, requirements and specifications, where as Validation evaluates product.
  • Verification inputs are checklist, issues list, walkthroughs and inspection, where as in Validation testing of actual product.
  • Verification output is set of documents, plans, specifications and requirement documents where as in Validation actual product is output.

Following are some challenges of software testing:

  • Application should be stable enough to be tested.
  • Testing always under time constraint
  • Understanding requirements, Domain knowledge and business user perspective understanding
  • Which tests to execute first?
  • Testing the Complete Application
  • Regression testing
  • Lack of skilled testers.
  • Changing requirements
  • Lack of resources, tools and training

Alpha testing: is performed by the IN-House developers. After alpha testing the software is handed over to software QA team, for additional testing in an environment that is similar to the client environment.

Priority: concern with application from the business point of view.

It answers: How quickly we need to fix the bug? Or How soon the bug should get fixed?

Severity: concern with functionality of application. It deals with the impact of the bug on the application.

BUILD: is a number given to installable software that is given to testing team for testing by the development team. Build number assigned are incremental and sequential.

RELEASE: is a number given to installable software that is handed over to customer by the developer or tester.

The information of build, release and version are displayed in software help page. Using this build and release customer can let the customer team know which release version build thet are using.

eg "9.4.123.2" (Release Number.Version Number.Build Number.Patch Number)

Software Testing: is the process of ensuring that product which is developed by the developer meets the user requirement. The motive to perform testing is to find the bugs and make sure that they get fixed.

QA stands for QUALITY ASSURANCE. QA team assures the quality by monitor the whole development process. QA tracks the outcomes and adjusting process to meet the expectation.

The role of Quality Assurance is discussed below:

  • QA team is responsible for monitoring the process to be carried out for development.
  • Responsibilities of QA team are planning testing execution process.
  • QA Lead creates the time tables and agrees on a Quality Assurance plan for the product.
  • QA team communicated QA process to the team members.
  • QA team ensures traceability of test cases to requirements.

The choice of SDLC depends on the various factors, how stable are the requirements:

When the requirements are very clearly know, documented and not subject to change then we can follow the waterfall model.

Most of the companies follow the V mode for the development because this model includes both verification and validation activities and testing is involved in earlier phase.

Iterative model can be used to build application where requirement changes after a period of times or application features or added on with smaller release. When the client is ready for the delivery of the product in parts or phases.

Quality Assurance (QA): QA refers to the planned and systematic way of monitoring the quality of process which is followed to produce a quality product. QA tracks the outcomes and adjusts the process to meet the expectation.

RELEASE: is a number given to installable software that is handed over to customer by the developer or tester.

The information of build, release and version are displayed in software help page. Using this build and release customer can let the customer team know which release version build thet are using.

Beta testing: It is performed by end user. So that they can make sure that the product is bug free or working as per the requirement. IN-house developers and software QA team perform alpha testing. The public, a few select prospective customers or the general public performs beta testing.

The testware is:

The subset of software which helps in performing the testing of application.

Testware are required to plan, design, and execute tests. It contains documents, scripts, inputs, expected results, set-up and additional software or utilities used in testing.

Testware is term given to combination of all utilities and application software that required for testing a software package.

Testware is special because it has:

  1. Different purpose
  2. Different metrics for quality and
  3. Different users

BUILD: is a number given to installable software that is given to testing team for testing by the development team. Build number assigned are incremental and sequential.

Software problem are listed below:

  1. Purchasing the license of tool (QTP, selenium, QC, LR)
  2. Lack of skilled Tester to run the tool
  3. Expectation that automated tests will find a lot of new defects
  4. Maintenance of automated tests
  5. Technical problems of tools

WinRunner has two types of recording modes:

  1. Context Sensitive recording – records the operations that are preformed in an application by identifying the GUI objects.
  2. Analog recording – records the inputs from keyboard, mouse clicks, the x and y coordinates that are travelled by the mouse pointer across the screen.

A good time to start the QA is from the beginning of the project startup. This will lead to plan the process which will make sure that product coming out meets the customer quality expectation. QA also plays a major role in the communication between teams. It gives time to step up the testing environment. The testing phase starts after the test plans are written, reviewed and approved.

Regression Testing: When changes in the code of the software are made to fix the previous bug. Then testing needs to be perform to ensure that it will not generate a new bug in the application and it works as specified and that it has not negatively impacted any functionality that it offered previously. Regression Testing is important because of following reason:

  • That the application works even after the alteration in the code were made.
  • The original functionality continues to work as specified even after doing changes in the software application.
  • The alteration to the software application has not introduced any new bugs.

Data Driven is an automation testing part in which test input or output values, these values are read from data files. It is performed when the values are changing by the time. The different data files may include data pools, csv files, Excel files. The data is then loaded into variables in recorded or manually coded scripts. For data driven testing we use Parameterzing and Regular expression Technique.

Ex: To evaluate login functionality, we use different user name and password combinations, variables are used to access different username and password. The list of username and password are stored in a data table or excel sheet.

The difference between smoke and sanity testing is described below:

  • Sanity testing is performed when new build is released after fixing bugs where as smoke testing is performed to check the major functionalities of the application.
  • Sanity is performed by the tester or the developer but smoke testing can be performed by the tester or developer.
  • Smoke testing is performed earlier where as sanity is performed after the smoke testing.
  • Sanity testing is narrow and deep approach of testing and smoke testing is focused testing based on major functionalities.

Once the test is executed, a report of the results is displayed by WinRunner. The report shows all checkpoints, error and system messages that were encountered during execution. The test results window is used to account for any mismatches detected at checkpoints.

  • High Priority and Low Severity: Company logo is not properly displayed on their website.
  • High Priority and High Severity: Suppose you are doing online shopping and filled payment information, but after submitting the form, you get a message like "Order has been cancelled."
  • Low Priority and High Severity: If we have a typical scenario in which the application get crashed, but that scenario exists rarely.
  • Low Priority and Low Severity: There is a mistake like "You have registered success" instead of successfully, success is written.

Destructive testing includes methods where material is broken down to evaluate the mechanical properties, such as strength, toughness and hardness.

For example, finding the quality of a weld is good enough to withstand extreme pressure and also to verify the properties of a material.

Benefits of Destructive Testing (DT):

  • Verifies properties of a material
  • Determines quality of welds
  • Helps you to reduce failures, accidents and costs
  • Ensures compliance with regulations

Bug release: is when a build is handed to testing team with knowing that defect is present in the release. The priority and severity of bug is low. It is done when customer want the application on the time. Customer can tolerate the bug in the released then the delay in getting the application and the cost involved in removing that bug. These bugs are mentioned in the Release Notes handed to client for the future improvement chances. 

The key practices of software-producing and acquiring organizations needs significant interpretation or tailoring prior to application. The tailoring involves the identification of process artifacts, process tailoring, and their relationships to project artifacts. Subsequent to this process, the nature of various kinds of tailoring used is explored in the definition and development of software process descriptions. Various techniques that are appropriate to each type of tailoring are then discussed. The approach is built on Software Process Framework, which serves for providing guidance for designing, analyzing, and reviewing the process of software for consistency with the Software Capability Maturity Model.

Various tailoring plans are implemented by including mandatory processes, process waivers, tailored processes / procedures, Lifecycle models. The tailoring plans are reviewed at enterprise level but owned and updated only at the project level.