Guidewire Qa Engineer Interview Questions
& Process

The interview process for a QA lead role, focusing on Java and SQL, was poorly planned and communicated. Although I was given a chance to review SQL syntax beforehand, as I don't extensively work with databases, the actual interview had nothing to do with Java or SQL. The program manager ended the interview early due to a substantial ego after asking a series of questions about GUI applications, which I am unfamiliar with. Guidewire seemed to have made a mistake, possibly mixing up the role I was interviewing for. A year later, I encountered the Guidewire staff at the gym, and they appeared to recognize me but offered no greeting. A friend who now works there is dissatisfied and is only staying for the salary until a better opportunity arises. While the CEO is brilliant, I do not recommend Guidewire.

Got a call from the recruiter to set up a phone interview. Then the hiring manager called for about 30 mins. His accent was a bit tough at first but it was okay. He asked me Java questions and seemed to like my answers. The recruiter called again to schedule a face-to-face, but I told him I needed a week off for a surgery. He said he'd call back. After a week of no contact, I emailed him to check if they were still interested. Surprisingly, he replied saying they were. They scheduled the f2f interview, which had 2 rounds. The first round covered general testing and a HashMap problem. The second round involved a QA engineer showing me how to write test cases in Gosu/Studio and asking me to automate something, which I did quickly and impressed him. The recruiter mentioned I did well in the first round and was waiting on feedback for the second, expecting a call. The next day, which was my birthday, I was in SF when the recruiter called to set up the next on-site interview. I immediately started studying and took that day off. The following day, I met four people. The first was a Senior Dev engineer who grilled me on Java, JavaScript, and REST, giving me code samples to find bugs and suggest improvements. That round went well. Next, I met a dev manager for a white box testing problem, which went okay. The round with the Product manager was the toughest; he asked about DB indexing and a BST program. I didn't feel great after that one. The final round was with my hiring manager, who conducted my initial phone interview. This was a breeze with some behavioral questions. I was pretty wiped by then. I got the offer the next day.

For a QA Engineer role at Guidewire, expect about four phases. First, a recruiter will give you a buzz to chat about your background, if you're keen on the gig, and what you know about Guidewire. If that goes well, you'll get a test to finish in a day or two, covering testing, problem-solving, and general software engineering stuff. Nail that, and you'll have a chat with someone from the company, maybe your future teammate or someone senior. They'll want to talk about different kinds of testing, what makes good testing criteria, your automation skills, and more software engineering topics, including databases. Pass that, and you're looking at three back-to-back interviews with your manager, another QA engineer, and a random software engineer. P.S. If you're still reading, don't stress! The interviewers are there to help. If you're stuck on a question, ask for clarification. If you truly don't know, ask for an example. It's totally normal to be nervous, especially for the final interviews. Just make sure you're confident in what you're saying, and you'll do great!