Crack Your Next Job Interview with These Top Automation Testing Interview Questions

Since automation testing is one of the rising trends in the modern app development industry, companies are actively hiring new automation testers and developers. Moreover, experts believe that automation testing will continue to dominate the future app-developing market creating more job opportunities. However, the interview questions for automation testing can be quite confusing and challenging.

Moreover, the interview structure is also complex, especially for the new testers and developers. This is because the entire process consists of several steps and eligibility checks to check the competency of the testers. It also verifies whether the testers and developers are accustomed to all the modern trends and innovations in the test automation segment and aware of major testing tools such as Selenium, Playwright, Appium and many more.

So, with this article, we are going to discuss some of the top automation testing interview questions that will help developers and testers crack their next job interview. We will also take a brief look at some of the basic segments of the automation testing interview process.

What Should You Expect in Automation Testing Interview

While interviewing for an automation tester, you can expect questions that will assess your understanding of fundamental concepts, automation tools, frameworks, practical experience, familiarity with industry-based practices, and problem-solving skills. To further simplify this information for the new developers and testers, we have mentioned all the stages that you have to encounter in this process:

1.     Technical Questions

These questions will be directed to assess the technical knowledge and expertise of the automation testers and developers. It will also assist the basic knowledge related to its advanced testing process:

  • There will be questions about the automation testing frameworks and tools that the testers have worked with. Some of the common examples include TestNG, Cucumber, and Selenium WebDriver.
  • After this, they will be asked questions to assess their understanding of programming languages commonly used for executing test automation. Some other popular languages are JavaScript, Java, and Python.
  • There will also be questions to test the knowledge about multiple test automation frameworks including data-driven frameworks, keyword-driven frameworks, and page object models.
  • The automation testers will also have to prove their ability to write and explain sample automation test scripts.
  • This round will conclude with questions about other crucial elements like synchronization, handling dynamic elements in automation test scripts, and using locators.

2.     Testing Concepts

The primary objective of this phase is to verify the knowledge of the automation testers about executing the test cases on the elements of the application:

  • They will have to prove their understanding of software testing concepts like designing the test cases for executing the testing instances, test reporting, and tracking the defects within the application source code.
  • They will also have to prove their knowledge of different types of testing including regression testing, functional testing, integration testing, and end-to-end testing.
  • The automation testers must also display their experience with modern testing methodologies like Scrum and Agile. They will also have to justify its impact on executing the automation test cases.

3.     Problem-Solving Scenarios

This phase will focus on the problem-solving abilities of the candidates. This is because while executing the test cases various bugs and errors can arise and hamper the test progress:

  • The testers will be given scenarios or problems related to automation testing including handling pop-up windows, implementing data-driven testing, and dealing with frames.
  • They will also have to demonstrate their abilities to troubleshoot and debug automation scripts for finding and removing crucial bugs and errors.

4.     Best Practices and Testing Process

This process will evaluate whether the candidates are implementing the best practices related to automation testing to improve the productivity of the testing process:

  • They will have to display their understanding of the software development life cycle and where automation testing fits in this process.
  • During this process, the testers will also have to prove their familiarity with continuous deployment and continuous integration pipelines and how automation testing can benefit this process.
  • It will also verify the knowledge of version control systems like Git and how these can be used to improve the efficiency and quality of the automation test cases.
  • Finally, this round will conclude with the awareness of best practices in automation testing such as improving the maintainability, scalability, and reusability of the test cases.

5.     Behavioral Questions

The goal of this phase is to analyze the behavior of the testers and developers to understand how they will handle various scenarios and practices involved with automation testing:

  • Questions assessing the adaptability, teamwork, problem-solving skills, and ability to work under pressure will be under the limelight in this phase.
  • The testers will also have to give examples of how they have approached challenging automation testing scenarios in their previous projects and accomplish them.
  • They will also be asked questions about their approach to prioritizing tasks and managing time efficiently in a fast-paced application development environment.

6.     Communication and Collaboration

Proper communication and collaboration between different teams of an app developing company is crucial for the timely rollout of high-quality applications:

  • The developers will be asked about their ability to communicate effectively about the technical concepts of the app to both technical and non-technical stakeholders within the company.
  • They will also be asked about their experience while collaborating with different testers, developers, and other team members to ensure comprehensive test coverage and timely delivery of high-quality web applications.

7.     Coding Challenges and Practical Exercises

The final round will consist of hands-on experiences and coding challenges to verify the competency of the candidates:

  • This will consist of various automation tasks that will verify your practical skills and ability to align with the company standards.
  • So, the testers must be prepared to write code, debug scripts, and demonstrate their proficiency while using modern automation testing tools.

In short, during an automation testing interview process, you should expect to showcase your technical expertise, problem-solving abilities, and practical knowledge in automation testing. You should also uphold your theoretical knowledge, real-world experiences, and practical demonstrations of your skills.

Top Automation Testing Questions to Crack the Interview

To assist the new developers and testers in acing their automation testing interview, we have mentioned some of the top questions in this segment:

1.     What is Automation Testing?

Automation testing is the process of programmatically verifying the performance of the applications by implementing predetermined test scripts. These scripts will provide all the vital information and statistical data that will allow the system to emulate human interactions while communicating with the app.

2.     How is Automation Testing Superior to Manual Testing?

While executing manual testing, the app companies have to set up and maintain a team of human testers. So, it is a resource-consuming process. Moreover, while executing manual testing, the testers will run the test cases one by one which will delay the overall testing phase. This process is also prone to errors that can happen due to the involvement of human developers.

On the other hand, while executing automation testing, the system can run thousands of different test instances simultaneously. The companies can run their test cases 24 hours round the clock and also maintain the test accuracy.

3.     How Can You Handle Dynamic Elements while Executing Automation Testing?

Dynamic elements are those elements in apps that change based on the device or human interactions. While handling dynamic elements in automation testing, we can use techniques like CSS selectors, XPath, or dynamic IDs. This will help to easily locate these elements and handle challenging scenarios.

4.     How Can You Run Automated Cross-Browser Testing?

The most effective process of executing automated cross-browser testing is the use of cloud platforms. These platforms provide access to thousands of real devices, browsers, and operating systems through remote servers. Modern cloud platforms like LambdaTest also support the execution of automated selenium test cases on more than 3000 browser instances simultaneously.

These platforms also have other additional advantages like the generation of comprehensive and visually appealing test reports, live test tracking, and bug reporting history.

5.     How Do You Maintain Test Data in Automation Testing?

While executing automation testing, it is a common practice to reuse almost 60% of the existing test data. To ensure that this data is error-free and compliant with the changing market standards, it is important to regularly review the code and implement any changes if necessary.

6.     How Do You Eliminate Errors Like False Positives and False Negatives in Automation testing?

Errors like false positives and false negatives can arise when testers run certain testing scenarios without waiting for the previous one to complete. The most effective solution to this problem is the implementation of methods like explicit and implicit waits. These can automatically pause the testing scenario until the completion of a given parameter or test case.

7.     What Are Some of the Challenges of Automation Testing and How Do You Overcome Them?

Some of the major challenges of executive automation testing include synchronization, maintenance, and handling dynamic elements. To solve this issue, the testers can use smart waits, robust locators, and regular code refactoring.

8.     State Some of the Best Practices of Automation Testing.

While executing automation testing, it is very important to implement practices like clarity, test case independence, and reusability. Moreover, techniques like designing atomic test cases and prioritizing test coverage can massively help to boost test productivity.

9.     How Do You Identify Tests that Can Benefit from Automation Testing?

Repetitive testing instances that do not change regularly can massively benefit from the integration of test automation. Some of the major examples include unit testing and regression testing.

10.  What is the Importance of Continuous Integration in Automation Testing?

Using continuous integration with automation testing, we can run the development and testing phases simultaneously. This process will help to detect and remove errors as soon as they appear in the application source code.

The Bottom Line

All the questions that we discussed in this article will not only help the developers to stand out from the competition but also better prepare themselves for a challenging interview process. However, it is also important to remember that the preferences of the company, the app projects, and the target audiences will also affect the questions for the interview process.

We also advise the developers to constantly update their knowledge and information about all the revolutionary trends and innovations in the segment of test automation. It is also important to understand the changing application market and modern standards for app development. All this information will better equip the testers and developers to crack the interview process.

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