Netappp (Network Appliance) Interview Questions test automation

had two telephonic rounds of interview with Netapp(Bangalore India) for test automation(QA) position. Interview was focussed mainly around Perl, C and testing basics. Basically, anyone applying for test automation position in any company can go through this set.

Each of the interview was of 30 min duration. I am summarizing questions asked in both the rounds....


1. (As usual) Please walk us through your profile

2. Then I was asked about my role in the current organization. What work I do?

3. Explain your automation framework

4. Did you do any enhancement or write any API for the automation framework? Explain
what you did? Here, they dont care what product you work on..just explain them how , why and what all you did.

5. Do you know any special variables in Perl? If yes, which are they?

6. How does Perl know about end of file while reading a file?

7. What operators are used with regular expression? I was confused with this question and asked for clarification and he gave me an exmaple like "s" for replace...Ans: tr(translate), g, i

8. Do you know of any Perl test operators like file test operators? How many? Which?

9. What kind of Perl programming do you do? OOP or regular?

10. Which Perl modules have you used?

11. Did use use telnet module or socket module?

12. Lets say, you want automate this functionality of cleaning up client machines from server. Cleaning up means reboot, restore a image and report back to the server. How will you do it? What technique will you use? Use anything perl or any language....Can telnet module be used for above automation?

13. What are the differences between array and hashes in perl?


Second Telephone(Didnt ask anything abt perl, all OS ,C, compilers and testing)

14. What are different components of operating system? What is the basic functionality provided by operating system? ans. mem mgmt, process mgmt, scheduling

15. Explain different types of schedulers for process mgmt.

16. Do you anything about how data is orgainized on disk? What is inode in UNIX?

17. What are the different types of testing? Tell them at least 7-8 types, they keep on waiting to hear more...

18. What is sanity testing? What is regression testing?

19. What the different data types in C?

20. Do you know of any storage data types in C? Ans. auto, static, extern and register

21. Then what is the advantage of register data types? Where they should be used?

22. Lets say you have a C program?What happens when u compile the program..I had to recall
my knowledge about two pass compiler but could not go in deep..He asked that what happens
to macros when the program is given for compilation.

23. Lets say you include a header file in your C program. What does the compiler do when the program is submitted for compliation...I almost gave up for this question. But I suggest keep trying...testing of your indepth knowledge

24. Difference between load testing and stress testing

25. Then a really nice question. I liked it personally. The interviewer said that he has written
his own FTP client and wants to test it. He gave me some time to think and said that come up
with all testing is needed to test the application....I went over funcitonal pts, then some negative test cases like invalid server, network down, how crashes are handled, timeouts, security, connection limits to server and stuff.

Oh, by the way, they do prefer interviews in the evening so that you are comfortable at your home with no disturbance around. Feel free to change the schedule as per your time.Once you are through a round you can expect another call within 2 days.

Best of Luck.