Test Design and Defect Prevention Questions

Designing tests and preventative quality measures that reduce defect introduction and recurrence. Covers translating functional and nonfunctional requirements into robust test scenarios, identifying critical paths and edge cases, applying failure mode analysis, and decomposing requirements into maintainable test cases. Includes balancing manual and automated coverage, designing regression and smoke suites for stability, integrating tests into continuous integration and continuous delivery pipelines, instrumenting systems for testability and observability, and using root cause analysis and defect trend analysis to close coverage gaps. Interviewers will evaluate the candidate on heuristics for test selection, acceptance criteria definition, maintainable automation patterns, and practical defect prevention measures such as improved review policies and test driven approaches.