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What questions should I ask during the interview process and what am I looking for in the answers that they give (or don't) in order that I gain a good understanding of what testing processes and procedures they use to ensure high quality application code

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    What do you mean exactly by "agile testing"? Testing is testing - the assessment of a product through exploration and experimentation. Agile is context.
    – João Farias
    Mar 20 at 8:27
  • Agile testing as in eXtreme programming - writing the tests and the code together as opposed to the more traditional view of testing from Waterfall and Command and Control organizations where testing is essentially only post-development verification and finger-pointing leading to extreme risk avoidance and slowing the pace of change.
    – Michael Durrant
    Mar 20 at 10:51

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Here are some questions you can ask to assess a company's agile testing maturity during an interview:

  1. Can you walk me through your current testing process?

This question will give you a good idea of how they approach testing and the level of detail they go into. You can also ask follow-up questions to understand the tools and technologies they use.

  1. How do you integrate testing into your development process?

This question will help you understand the level of collaboration between testing and development teams. Ideally, testing should be an integral part of the development process and not a separate activity.

  1. What is your approach to test automation?

This question will help you understand their level of automation maturity. You can also ask follow-up questions to understand the tools they use, the extent of their test automation, and the percentage of tests that are automated.

  1. How do you measure the success of your testing efforts?

This question will help you understand their approach to metrics and whether they have a data-driven approach to testing. You can also ask follow-up questions to understand the types of metrics they use and how they use them to improve their testing processes.

  1. Can you share an example of a particularly challenging testing problem you've faced, and how you solved it?

This question will help you understand their problem-solving skills and their approach to testing challenges. You can also ask follow-up questions to understand the level of collaboration and communication involved in solving the problem.

  1. How do you handle testing in a continuous integration/continuous delivery (CI/CD) environment?

This question will help you understand their approach to testing in a fast-paced environment. You can also ask follow-up questions to understand the level of automation and the frequency of testing in their CI/CD pipeline.

  1. How do you ensure that your testing efforts are aligned with business goals?

This question will help you understand their approach to testing in the context of the business objectives. You can also ask follow-up questions to understand the level of collaboration between testing and business teams.

When assessing their answers to these questions, you should look for indicators of a mature agile testing process, such as:

  • Collaboration between testing and development teams
  • A data-driven approach to testing
  • A focus on automation and continuous testing
  • A culture of experimentation and continuous improvement
  • A commitment to quality and customer satisfaction
  • A clear alignment between testing and business objectives

On the other hand, indicators of an immature testing process may include:

  • A lack of collaboration between testing and development teams
  • A focus on manual testing and a low level of test automation
  • A lack of metrics and data-driven decision-making
  • A lack of alignment between testing and business objectives
  • A reactive rather than proactive approach to testing

With these questions and insights in mind, you can gain a good understanding of a company's testing processes and procedures, and determine if they are a good fit for your career goals and aspirations.

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Ask the following questions:

Who runs what tests when ?

You are looking to see whether testing is everyones responsibility or whether there aer silos of certain people writing certain tests at certain times.

Who writes what tests when ?

You are looking to see if testing if a first class citizen and is being performed by application developers as they write code.

What are the test frameworks ?

You want to see modern frameworks that promote readability, reliablity and maintainability

What is your test data strategy ?

You want to see that there is one. Without a defined strategy there are likely to be constant data problems in tests.

How long do your test suites take to run ?

Fast Feedback in minutes is key. If test suites take hours to run this is a major red flag

How reliable (%) is your end to end test suite ?

Unreliable test suites destroy faith in the testing process.
They should be fixed or removed (not pended or skipped).

What is your unit test code coverage level for application code ?

Implementations require specifications means 100% coverage at all times. Measure against this benchmark. If the current code coverage is low, address the underlying application development process first to ensure new code meets the 100% benchmark.

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I suggest:

  1. The Joel Test because I believe first of all need to understand SDLC.
  2. Ask about test case coverage and automated test coverage.
  3. Ask about Test Pyramid concept and if everyone understands in the company.
  4. Ask about non-functional testing.
  5. At last question about QA metrics.
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