Katkat
Back

Plan QA testing for a new feature

TikTokSoftware Engineer · Technical Screen
EasySoftware EngineerTechnical ScreenSoftware Engineering Fundamentals

Last updated

This problem tests your ability to structure a comprehensive quality assurance strategy for a social media feature, balancing functional testing, edge cases, and automation.

Scenario

You are a software engineer at a major social media company. Your team is launching a new "Friends-only Feed" toggle on the main homepage. This feature allows users to filter their feed to show only content posted by accounts they follow that also follow them back (mutuals).

Task

Design a comprehensive QA testing strategy for this feature. Your response should address the following areas:

  1. Test Coverage: Identify the primary functional scenarios to test, including success paths and failure modes.
  2. Edge Cases: Propose at least three non-obvious edge cases (e.g., connectivity issues, account states, or data sync anomalies) that could break this feature.
  3. Prioritization: How would you decide which bugs are "showstoppers" versus "nice-to-fix" before a public launch?
  4. Automation Strategy: What layers of the testing pyramid would you prioritize for this feature, and why?

Example Context

  • Users may have thousands of followers.
  • The feed must update in near real-time when a new mutual relationship is formed.
  • The toggle state should persist across app restarts.

Deliverable

Provide a structured plan. Ensure you address how you would collaborate with the Product Manager to define "Acceptance Criteria" and how you would handle regression testing for the existing "For You" feed.

Hints

Hint 1

Consider the user lifecycle: what happens when a user blocks someone or removes a follower while the Friends-only feed is active?

Hint 2

Think about the difference between client-side toggle state management and server-side filtering performance.

Hint 3

For prioritization, consider using a matrix that maps user impact against the complexity of the workaround.

Follow-up questions

  • How would you measure the success of this feature in production using observability tools like logging or metrics?
  • If the Friends-only feed experiences high latency, how would you troubleshoot whether the issue is in the filtering logic or the underlying database query?
  • How would you approach testing the feature if it needed to be rolled out via a gradual 'canary' deployment to 5% of users first?