There were a total of 4 rounds for the SDET role.
In the first round, it was a tech round. I received an invite for a Teams meeting, and the interviewer was off-camera. Questions were related to OOPs, Java collections like the difference between HashMap and HashSet, and there were two programs related to String and Array. I felt the person was not confident and was asking questions from random websites.
The first round was clear, and then I got a call from HR saying that there would be super loop rounds next.
In Round 2, the interview took place again on Teams. The interviewer seemed adamant about receiving word-for-word answers and was looking for correct syntax to be written. Despite providing logically correct answers and solutions, I received feedback that I didn’t have knowledge of API testing. Though I explained how the API works, what to test, how RestAssured internally works, and how to construct the request message, I received this feedback just because I missed a method after a given statement while writing this in Notepad.
The questions were so random, and there was no follow-up discussion after providing the answers. The same person took another round with a different programming language, and she had zero idea about the language but still conducted the interview based on questions given on GeeksForGeeks.
This round felt more like complete interrogation than a genuine tech discussion.
I feel sorry for those who work with or are interviewed by individuals with zero practical knowledge, relying solely on theory, even when notes are right in front of them.
PS - If you want to clear this round, just focus on the Java programming language and go through all the interview questions on the first two Google results. And practice string manipulation programs.
The rest two rounds were less technical and more on use cases in testing and basic questions.
In short, there is a high chance that you might encounter this person in your interview, so I would suggest memorizing all the syntax, method names, and libraries.
For instance, she asked me what methods are available in the Selenium Select class.
As the famous saying goes, “They couldn’t see the forest for the trees.”