Software Development and Shift Left Testing Questions

Comprehensive understanding of the software development lifecycle and the software testing lifecycle, and how testing can be shifted earlier into development. Candidates should be able to describe lifecycle phases from requirements and design through implementation, verification, deployment, and maintenance, and the corresponding testing lifecycle activities such as test planning, test design, environment provisioning, test execution, defect tracking, and test closure. Explain shift left testing practices that move validation and quality activities earlier, for example developer authored unit tests, test driven development, behavior driven development, static analysis and linting, early integration checks, and continuous testing integrated into developer workflows. Discuss how shift left affects automation strategy and pipeline design, including deciding which tests run at which pipeline stages, creating fast feedback loops, managing test data and environments for early verification, and defining quality gates and metrics for early defect detection. Cover organizational impacts such as shared ownership of quality, definition of done, training and tooling needs, and trade offs including upfront investment and changes to developer responsibilities.