Job in QA Testing

[Claxon]

Congrats on the job!

Originally Posted by Chryssyxx

as well as define NAB, WNF and so on. If you don't know what these terms mean and hope to get into QA, find out.

Interesting, I've been in through QA and out the other side to the programming desks, and I don't know what they mean!

(edit: Just come back from my investigation into the meanings, and I didn't know them because we always used full words rather than acronyms.)

Originally Posted by Chryssyxx

(Don't give a run-on sentence - Give the coder what they want!_

Caffine and chocolate?

[Chryssyxx]

I humbly ask you to go into further detail about the whole interviewing and hiring process. Also, did you have to move for this job or was it local?

Sure.

Basically it started with two people from HR that asked the regular questions about past experience, have you played any of the companies games, maybe questions about the current game they are working on, and many other questions that you may encounter during any interview. What I can suggest during this process is that you research which game they are working on, and possibly which game you may be getting hired for. This shows that have interest, can do your own homework and are actually interested in the company itself.

The second portion is where I spoke with the lead and director of development where I was asked more specific questions about where I would fit in within the company's development of the title and what I may be best suited for. For me, I was asked whether I knew about the game, which I did, and a few other questions I mentioned earlier. From what I have heard, they also asked other questions depending on the individual. For example, if you have an art background they may ask art questions, or if you have some Compliance background, they could ask questions on that.

I have also heard that other companies will actually show you a video or have you play a game that is buggy and ask you to find five bugs within it. There are usually many more that five available to choose from, so this again is attempting to find out where you fit in and what type of things about the game you may notice first, or excel at finding.

Either way, if you get to a QA interview, prepare the best you can but expect the unexpected.

My lead once told me that he likes to show someone a watch or some other physical item and ask "If I were an Alien, describe this to me" and then refuse to offer any other help in answering the question. There are many ways to go here. You could talk about they physical aspects of the item, such as "well, its silver, black hands" but if you go this route - dig deep!! An Alien might not know what black is. Or you could talk about how humans developed time using the sun to control development of their species and so on. This is a good way to go because it already brings something relative into the conversation. Or why even assume the Alien knows English (or any other language) why not draw pictures? Or why even assume the Alien needs to know exactly what it does, why not describe how its the fountain of youth or a deadly weapon? Anyways, be creative and go into explicit detail. You are attempting to be hired for describing exact situations and scenarios to the dev team.

Also, no, I moved to Vancouver from Eastern Canada to get into the games industry. It was a personal choice, but yes, I had to move... but I did the move first, then applied.

Anyways, hope this was helpful.

--
Chris

[Crazyqbn]

Originally Posted by jillduffy

If you're interested in QA jobs...

Tomorrow (June 10, 2008) there's going to be a book review on this site, and while it isn't a great book for everything it covers, it has a stellar explanation of QA: what it is, what precise things you will do as a QA tester, how much money you can expect to make, what the working conditions may be like, and so forth.

The book is Video Game Careers. See the full review tomorrow.

The Video Game Carrers book was VERY helpful btw thank you ! ^^