What to expect in the Quality Assurance hiring process at Axelerant

This document outlines the hiring process at Axelerant specific to Quality Assurance Engineers. It is intended to help you determine if Axelerant is the right fit for you and set you up for success in the hiring process. This is a guide to be better prepared by understanding our expectations and what we look for. If you have any questions, please reach out to the recruitment team.

About Axelerant and the Quality Assurance team

Axelerant is a digital service agency focusing on open-source software solutions, especially Drupal. However, our testing capabilities and services are not limited to Drupal or any particular domain and we are committed to ensuring effective and efficient quality deliverables. Our core values of enthusiasm, kindness, and openness are aligned with this commitment, and this is something we look for in every team member at Axelerant.

As a Quality Assurance Engineer at Axelerant, you would primarily use proactive and reactive measures of verification and validation and be a core contributor to building valuable solutions. Given the scale and complexity of our solutions, it is likely that you won’t be building them alone. This means that it is essential that you can contribute to the system as a team and put the team’s needs first (our KPI’s are also designed to be team-first). While we are distributed, and we respect your needs for flexibility, we also expect you to be accountable for tasks assigned to you. You should be proactive and communicate the status of your tasks elaborately. This is just one of the examples of how we put our team’s needs over our own.

We expect you to follow standardized processes in testing the applications throughout their lifecycle, understanding and analysing requirements, planning and designing the overall testing strategy, adapting to modern testing techniques, being a messenger of quality in the team. We expect you to follow our recommended processes and practices, and also help improve them.

All of these expectations are tempered with support for your needs. Our efforts provide you with a stable and psychologically safe environment where you can thrive and fulfil your career aspirations. This means we provide you with training, mentoring, peer support, life and performance coaching, and the ability to find resources for your own development needs. Look at our benefits page for more information.

If you have any questions about working at Axelerant, feel free to talk to our recruitment team.

The Process

Typically, the hiring process for a Quality Assurance engineer takes up to a few weeks. It depends on the availability of interview slots and the role you are applying for. For instance, for the QA Lead position and all the SDET roles, we have a technical assignment on Test Automation. Hence, for these roles, it’s not possible to proceed until we have the assignment from the candidate (you) for evaluation. We often see the entire process take about a month, but in an expedited process, all of these steps could be completed even within a week.

We evaluate your profile and application at every step of the way. Either of us may find that we are not a fit and abandon the process. We also describe how we evaluate your application at each stage of the process below.

Applying

The process begins when you apply for a position, typically from our careers page. On applying, your profile is created in our ATS (applicant tracking system) and is tracked there throughout the process. Depending on the position, you might receive some questionnaires and/or an interview test. Depending on your responses, we move to the next step.

How we evaluate

We check for general fitment as per the job description. Depending on the level you apply, we check the quality of your written responses to our questionnaire and the content of your resume. For example, if you apply for L3 or higher positions, we want to see some experience working in large teams and leading small teams. Similarly, such positions also require above-average writing skills. Common errors such as consistently poor spelling, lack of capitalization, and other common grammatical errors may lead to rejection. We are not looking for 100% accuracy, which is not the only factor we consider anyway. Still, glaring errors reduce your chances of moving ahead, especially those easily avoided by a spell check or a tool like Grammarly.

We also check your resume for the kind of work you have done. We don’t depend on the titles but look at the work you have done in the past. Rich and specific detail would help us in making a better decision and finding alignment.

Culture Conversation

This conversation is to find alignment between us in our values and basic check on fitment by gauging the candidates’ interest for the role, communication skills, clarifying various points about their application/resume, and answer any questions they have regarding the process/company.

How we evaluate

We are not necessarily looking for culture fitment when hiring, but we look at ways in which you add value to Axelerant. We want to know more about how well you align with our core values and what perspectives you bring to the table. Here, we also check how clearly you can communicate using English (our language of communication across the teams) and how relevant your experience is to Axelerant.

Peer Interview

After the culture conversation, you may move to the peer interview stage. Since this is a lengthy conversation and online calls can be tiring, we have split this into two rounds.

Round 1: Fundamentals and Testing Aptitude

You are going to play the Quality Analyst, the tester in your day-to-day job at Axelerant. Hence, it’s crucial for us to evaluate you on those foundational skills. Therefore, the first round validates the fundamentals of testing, testing in Agile and Quality processes. You will be given numerous testing conditions for which you’ll have to identify possible testing scenarios (functional, UI, compatibility, APIs, etc.). We strongly believe that a tester’s job is not purely to find bugs, hence be prepared to think and talk about more proactive measures to introduce quality.

Round 2: In-depth Interview

If we decide to move forward, we invite you to round 2, where we have an in-depth conversation about your work experience and the questionnaire you responded to. You are expected to be well prepared to answer questions related to your experience or information mentioned in the resume. Come prepared to discuss your accomplishments, lessons learned. Don’t worry, we aren’t going to ask you to breach any NDA and disclose information about your client/projects.

It is important for you to honestly answer the questionnaire rolled out during the recruitment process as this round would cover those portions depending on your proficiency in several areas. Additionally, you will also see yourself placed in hypothetical situations where you’ll have to work through the solution or at least think of better alternatives.

Finally, we look forward to answering any questions you might have regarding Axelerant, the job role, the hiring process, or anything else. In fact, we value meaningful questions and discussions from you.

How we evaluate

As you might have understood correctly, we check whether you have it in you to be a tester, whether you are someone who understands quality in the larger picture. We present to you an opportunity to walk us through your experience. Essentially, we evaluate you on your ability to communicate and convince.

Axelerant is moving towards adapting to modern testing techniques (including technical solutions). With the software industry evolving rapidly, we are looking for people who are ready to invest efforts in continuous learning, who are ready to evolve as a person and a professional in the industry. Hence, wherever possible slip in your “learn & apply“ experiences within your answers in both the rounds.

Know the team

Akhil is a recruiting operations specialist and the SPOC throughout the hiring process for candidates and the business. He will meet the candidates initially before or after the test for preliminary screening to find alignment or fitment between them and our requirements. To find out more about him, read his LinkedIn profile.

Shweta is the director of Quality Assurance services at Axelerant. She is accountable for the team’s growth at Axelerant and knows hiring is an important channel. You will likely be meeting with Shweta during your peer interview rounds. To find out more about her, read her drupal.org profile, or her LinkedIn profile.

Trupti is a QA Lead at Axelerant. Apart from working on challenging projects, she spends much time mentoring her teammates, and you will likely meet her during the interview. To find more about her, read her LinkedIn profile.

Shefali is a Senior QA Engineer at Axelerant. Apart from working on challenging projects, she spends much time improving the quality practices, and you will likely meet her during the interview. To find more about her, read her LinkedIn profile.

Getting Help

I hope this document helps you understand Axelerant better and set you up for a successful interview experience with us. We appreciate any feedback you might have about this document and our hiring process. For this or any questions you may have about working with us, please reach out to the recruitment team.