Senior QA Engineer - Take-Home Assignment

Thank you for your interest in joining MTechZilla. This assignment gives you a chance to demonstrate your senior-level QA skills: functional testing across UI/API/DB, edge-case thinking, test strategy, automation awareness, and quality mindset.

Time expectation: ~90 minutes
Submission format: A Markdown document (or PDF) with your responses + (optional) example automation snippet.
Send to: jobs@mtechzilla.com with subject line “Senior QA Assignment – [Your Name]”.

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Assignment Scenario

You’ve been asked to join a project at MTechZilla where we build a web and mobile-responsive application. The feature we want you to test is a simplified “User Registration & Profile” workflow.

Feature description:

• User visits the web or mobile app and selects “Register”.
• They provide name, email, password.
• After registration, they log in.
• They navigate to “My Profile” and edit their profile (name, avatar, biography).
• The system persists changes in a PostgreSQL (PSQL) database via API.
• The system must support API endpoints, web UI, and mobile UI.
• We want to include automated checks, regression coverage, integration with profile module, and database validation.

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Your Tasks

Please provide your responses to each of the sections below.

1. Test Strategy & Plan

• Outline your high-level test strategy for this feature.
• Indicate what types of testing you’ll perform (e.g., functional, UI, API, DB, smoke, regression, integration, security).
• Describe how you’d prioritise and allocate testing efforts for web + mobile.
• Explain how you will ensure quality across the lifecycle (from dev hand-off to production).

2. Test Case Design (Edge-case thinking)

• Provide 10-15 test cases (happy path + edge/failure cases) covering web + mobile + API + database. For each case provide:
  • Test case ID
  • Description
  • Preconditions
  • Steps
  • Expected result
  • Which layer(s) it covers (UI, API, DB)
• Highlight any subtle/complex cases where the user story might not cover everything (show your ability to think beyond the spec).

3. Automation Approach

• Describe which automation framework(s) you would choose (we use front-end tech; you can assume JavaScript/TypeScript + Cypress).
• Outline one or two sample test scripts (either pseudocode or actual) that cover critical scenarios (web UI and/or API).
• Explain how you’d integrate these automated tests into CI/CD, and how you’d maintain them (flakiness, data setup, environment management).

4. Database & API Testing

• Describe how you would validate database state after UI/API operations (PSQL).
• Describe how you would test the API endpoints: what tools (e.g., Postman), test data, negative tests, response validation, error codes.
• Mention how you’d test integration between UI, API, and database (end-to-end).

5. Security, Smoke & Regression Testing

• What smoke tests would you include to ensure the feature is “release ready”?
• What regression tests would you identify (what existing areas might this new feature impact)?
• What basic security test cases would you add (e.g., authentication bypass, XSS, SQL injection, invalid data, avatar upload validation, API rate limiting)?

6. Quality Metrics & Reporting

• Suggest metrics you’d track to measure QA effectiveness for this feature (e.g., test coverage, defect density, automation pass rate, time to fix, escaped defects).
• How would you report status to stakeholders (PM, Dev Lead, Product Owner)?

7. Optional Bonus – Example Automation Snippet

• If you have time and want to showcase your automation coding skill, include one small snippet (in JS/TS) using Cypress (or your preferred tool) that tests a critical path (e.g., registration + login).
• Keep it brief (~30–45 lines).

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Submission Instructions

1. Create a Markdown file named SeniorQA_Assignment_[YourName].md (or a PDF).
2. If you include code snippet(s), embed them in the Markdown or provide a GitHub Gist link.
3. Keep your response within ~2–3 pages of content (plus optional snippet).
4. Submit by emailing to jobs@mtechzilla.com with the subject line:
   Senior QA Assignment – [Your Name]
5. We will review your submission

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What we’re looking for

We’re hiring a Senior QA Engineer who:

• Has strong functional testing skills across UI, API, DB.
• Can derive test cases beyond the user story and handle edge/failure scenarios.
• Understands testing across mobile & web, API endpoints, databases (PSQL).
• Has experience in regression, smoke, integration and basic security testing.
• Has hands-on automation experience (preferably Cypress + JavaScript/TypeScript) and knows how to plug it into CI/CD pipelines.
• Communicates clearly, writes clean test plans, and thinks strategically about quality.

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Thank you for your time. We appreciate your effort and look forward to your submission!
— The MTechZilla Talent Team