Test Engineer interview

evilberry

Hello world!

First of all, that forum's huge, apologies if I posted in a wrong subforum, be gentle while hurting me.

... so I got contacted by this company (not recruiting agency!) that found my resume online, really liked it and invited me for an interview for Senior Test Engineer role. I am not particularly looking for a new role at the moment, but I really wanted to move on to engineering and eventually development at some stage (comp science graduate) so I got excited and really looking forward to it.

I do have plenty of QA working experience (over 4 years now) ranging from Analyst, Tester to Team Lead, none engineering/automation though (did plenty of coding/scripting in college though, pretty certain I could pick it up easily). My QA processes and procedures knowledge is pretty thorough then.

So my question to all of you, especially QA Engineers/QA Recruiters - given my background estimate my chances getting that job and please, let me know what questions might be asked on the interview.

I will get youse a round or ten of the finest stout shall I get the job

Thanks a mil!

A.

Dearg81

It's impossible to estimate your chances based on your post. You have good experience but the lack of automation experience could be a problem. I'd advise you to look for the job spec online and research the job thoroughly. The job spec should mention what type of automation they use so use that to your advantage.

I'm a senior QA myself and we wouldn't hire anyone for a Senior position without automation skills. You can get around this though if you can convince them you have the coding knowledge. The main thing I would say is don't be complacent because they contacted you, do your homework and be prepared.

Best of luck, let us know how it goes.

Mr. Loverman

Well they obviously like your CV, so now they want to see if they like you.

Impossible to tell what will happen.

evilberry

Thanks lads,

I gave the job specs a good read before already, they mentioned automation hands on in "desirable skills", but then they said in role description that you'd be running both manual and automated tests with moving on to automation tests mainly. Well and then so I assumed they were looking for an experienced manual tester with coding knowledge to pick up automation.
It's a small company, so my thoughts were that hiring an experienced manual tester and teaching them automation is cheaper for them than hiring the one who has experience in automation already.

I'll let you know how it goes. Thanks!

evilberry

Ok, so I had the interview, it went well, lasted like an hour.

It's exactly what I expected - they're looking for a person with a thorough QA knowledge who could additionally pick up automaiton fairly quickly.

Let's see if they were happy enough and if I make it to another round keep your fingers crossed