QA Interview Questions
& Process

The interview for this remote job was pretty organized and professional. It had two stages, both on Microsoft Teams. First, I chatted with the hiring manager and another person. They asked standard and competency-based questions. After that, I moved to the second interview. This time, it was the manager again and someone from HR. They gave me two tasks to do an hour before the meeting, and we mostly talked about how I did on those. It felt like a fair and easy interview overall. I heard back within a week.

The interview was kind of a mess. I was asked to do a 15-minute microteach with less than 48 hours notice. I had to reschedule the interview because of my job, which felt like a test itself. The interviewers were almost 10 minutes late. I started my microteach, and one interviewer cut me off at 9 minutes, even though I said I had 6 minutes left. The questions felt a bit all over the place, and when I asked about the specific location, nobody on the panel had a clear answer. They also didn't seem to know which job I applied for. I was told I'd hear back in about 5 working days, maybe 7 because the decision-maker would be away. After 21 days, I called HR twice with no reply. Finally got hold of the person who offered me the interview, and they said they'd be happy to hire me. I turned it down because if this is how the workplace is, I wasn't impressed.

I went through 3 interview rounds for this gig. First up was chatting with the person currently doing the job, which was a good, positive vibe and mostly about skills and digging into the role. Then, I had a planned face-to-face with their manager. This one was super rigid and focused heavily on questions directly from the job description, asking how my background fit, with zero competency questions. Honestly, not the best experience. The third interview felt a bit pointless; I figured it was a quick 20-minute check to see if I was a good fit. This person wasn't friendly, didn't seem engaged, and didn't even turn on their team's camera for our video call. They also had no clue about feedback timelines. After that, I heard nothing for nearly two weeks, just that they were still interviewing others. Eventually, I was told I wouldn't fit because they needed someone full-time in the office for the initial weeks, which was never brought up before. What a letdown. Honestly, 3 rounds aren't needed if something like remote vs. in-office work is a deal-breaker – that should be cleared up upfront. No formal rejection or feedback came my way, even though this whole thing took almost 4 weeks. My advice would be to track these processes for fairness, give candidates timelines, communication, and feedback, and be upfront about salary, remote work, and any other non-negotiables before starting.

The process wasn't super clear, but it ended up being: -2 calls with HR (30-45 mins each) - 1 call with the CPO - A technical test (which includes a service test and, according to the interviewers, should take at least 3 days to complete - though I only had evenings free) - 1 call with the CEO (30 mins) - 1 call to discuss the practical test (1h) with the CPO and an internal PM - 1 call (45 mins) with the Head of Eng - 1 call (45 mins) with team members. Unfortunately, these steps weren't explained from the start.