Global tech
Medallia India SDET Interview: Rounds, Questions and Preparation
For SDET roles at companies like Medallia India
What the job involves
An SDET (Software Development Engineer in Test) at global tech companies designs, builds, and maintains automated test frameworks and tools that ensure software quality at scale. Day to day, they write code to automate UI, API, and integration tests, collaborate with developers to debug failures, and integrate tests into CI/CD pipelines. They also perform exploratory testing and advocate for quality throughout the development lifecycle.
Role and Technical Knowledge
- 1
What is the difference between a QA Engineer and an SDET?
A strong answer highlights that SDETs write production-level automation code, build test frameworks, and contribute to CI/CD, while QA engineers may focus more on manual testing and test case execution.
- 2
Explain the Page Object Model (POM) and its advantages in Selenium.
Cover how POM separates page locators and actions from test scripts, improving code reusability, maintainability, and reducing duplication.
- 3
How do you test a REST API? What tools have you used?
Mention validating status codes, response body, headers, and authentication. Tools like Postman for manual testing and REST Assured for automation are good to reference.
- 4
What are the key components of a test automation framework?
Discuss modularity, test data management, reporting (e.g., Extent Reports), logging, and integration with CI tools like Jenkins.
Practical Scenarios
- 5
You have a flaky test that passes sometimes and fails sometimes. How would you debug and fix it?
A strong answer includes checking for timing issues (use explicit waits), ensuring test isolation, reviewing locators, and logging to identify patterns.
- 6
How would you automate a login page that has a CAPTCHA?
Discuss strategies like disabling CAPTCHA in test environments, using test hooks, or mocking the CAPTCHA service. Avoid suggesting bypassing security in production.
- 7
Describe how you would integrate automated tests into a CI/CD pipeline.
Cover triggering tests on code commits, using Jenkins/GitLab CI, parallel execution, and reporting results back to the team.
- 8
You need to test a feature that is not yet fully developed. How do you proceed?
Emphasize collaboration with developers, writing tests based on API contracts or mock services, and using test-driven development (TDD) principles.
Coding and Automation
- 9
Write a program to reverse a string without using built-in functions.
Show a clear loop or recursion approach, handle edge cases like empty string, and explain time complexity.
- 10
How do you handle dynamic web elements in Selenium?
Discuss using XPath with contains(), starts-with(), or relative locators, and avoiding brittle absolute paths.
- 11
Explain how you would read test data from an Excel file in your automation script.
Mention using Apache POI (Java) or openpyxl (Python) to read data, and data-driven testing with TestNG DataProvider.
- 12
What is the difference between implicit wait, explicit wait, and fluent wait?
Clarify that implicit wait applies globally, explicit wait targets specific conditions, and fluent wait allows polling frequency and ignored exceptions.
Behavioural and HR
- 13
Tell me about a time you found a critical bug just before a release. How did you handle it?
Use STAR method: describe the situation, your action to report and prioritize the bug, and the outcome (e.g., release delayed or hotfix deployed).
- 14
Why do you want to work as an SDET rather than a pure developer role?
Show passion for quality, interest in automation and tooling, and how you enjoy breaking software to make it better.
- 15
How do you handle disagreements with a developer who says a bug is not reproducible?
Emphasize clear communication, providing detailed steps, logs, screenshots, and collaborating to reproduce together.
- 16
Where do you see yourself in 3-5 years as an SDET?
Express growth towards leading automation efforts, mentoring juniors, or specializing in performance or security testing.
Coding round
SDET interviews usually include a coding round. Practise planning the solution out loud, then review code the AI writes from your plan, in Python, Java, C++, C or JavaScript.
Ready to try it for real?
Take a timed test or talk through a mock interview for this role, then see your scores.
This is practice material for SDET roles, written with AI. It is not a list of questions Medallia India or any other company has asked.