A QA Engineer at Activision is the quality guardian for experiences that reach hundreds of millions of players. You ensure our games and game-making tools are reliable, performant, and compliant across platforms and services. Your work directly impacts player trust, live operations stability, and our ability to ship on schedule—whether you’re leading a test floor for a console release or automating complex GUI workflows for content creation tools used by our developers.

You will partner with Production, Development, and QA to surface the right issues at the right time, translate ambiguous symptoms into actionable defects, and validate fixes under real-world conditions. Expect to interact with titles and pipelines powering franchises like Call of Duty® and content creation tools at studios like Infinity Ward. The role is critical because quality at scale is not accidental—it’s engineered through disciplined test design, precise bug reporting, strong leadership on the floor, and smart automation that keeps pace with rapidly evolving game systems.

What makes this role compelling is the scope. You’ll span functional testing, 1st-party compliance (Sony/Microsoft/Nintendo), multiplayer/network edge cases, performance and compatibility, and, for SDET-track roles, automated GUI frameworks, CI integration, and toolchain validation. You’ll see the direct line from your decisions to milestone readiness at Alpha/Beta, certification outcomes, and day-one player sentiment.

Expect a mix of scenario-based prompts, walkthroughs of your past work, and (for SDET) code/architecture discussions. Focus on clarity, structure, and the “why” behind your choices.

Technical/Domain: QA Fundamentals and Compliance

These questions validate your grasp of game QA craft and platform submission standards.

• How would you structure a test plan for a new multiplayer feature that introduces crossplay and voice chat?
• Walk through your process for verifying a platform sign-in/sign-out flow during live gameplay.

Use this interactive module on Dataford to rehearse by topic, track progress, and identify weak areas. Practice aloud and timebox your responses to simulate interview pacing.

Your preparation should balance hands-on QA craft (test design, compliance awareness, bug reporting excellence) with situational leadership and, for SDET roles, automation fundamentals in Python/Lua, GUI testing, and CI. Build fluency in how AAA game development ships: milestones, builds, branching, hotfix cadence, and stakeholder communication.

• Role-related Knowledge (Technical/Domain Skills) – Interviewers look for command of game QA fundamentals: building test plans, identifying high-severity issues, understanding 1st-party requirements, and using bug databases (Jira, DevTrack) to drive clarity. For SDET, expect deep dives into automated GUI testing, frameworks (e.g., Squish Qt), and integration with CI (e.g., Jenkins).

• Problem-Solving Ability (How you approach challenges) – You’ll be assessed on how you isolate variables, craft repro steps, triage ambiguous failures, and choose the right test strategy for risk and time. Strong candidates show structured thinking, measurable outcomes, and awareness of tradeoffs between breadth vs. depth.

• Leadership (How you influence and mobilize others) – For test floor roles, you must demonstrate team direction, clear daily reporting, coaching testers, and escalating blockers effectively. For SDET leads, you’ll be asked about mentoring, setting automation standards, and aligning stakeholders around coverage and reliability.

• Culture Fit (How you work with teams and navigate ambiguity) – We look for proactive communicators who are player-obsessed, resilient under deadline pressure, and collaborative with diverse teams. Show that you can receive/give feedback constructively, uphold QA standards, and contribute positively during crunch and change.

You will experience a scenario-heavy, hands-on process that emphasizes practical judgment over trivia. Expect conversations that mirror the real cadence of game development: rapid iteration, evolving priorities, and tradeoffs near milestones. For leadership-focused roles, you’ll discuss how you run the test floor, track high-severity issues, and produce crisp daily reporting. For SDET roles, anticipate whiteboarding automation strategy, reviewing sample UIs, and assessing framework choices.

Pace and rigor are deliberate. You will be asked to explain how you translate unclear symptoms into clear defects, how you align test plans with Alpha/Beta readiness, and how you keep quality stable during build churn. The philosophy is consistent: we prioritize candidates who show strong craft, ownership, and communication that scales across teams.

You’ll likely meet a cross-functional panel (QA, Production, Engineering), with practical exercises aligned to your track. The process is collaborative and conversational; expect probing follow-ups that test depth, not just breadth.

This timeline illustrates the typical flow from recruiter screen to final panel, including technical or practical exercises. Use it to timebox your preparation: confirm logistics early, clarify which track you’re interviewing for, and request any pre-read or tooling expectations. Maintain momentum by sending timely follow-ups and asking focused questions tied to the next stage.

Game QA Fundamentals and 1st-Party Compliance

This is the backbone of test floor excellence. You will show how you design and execute tests that surface the most impactful issues quickly, and how you align with Sony TRC/Microsoft XR/Nintendo Lotcheck requirements to prevent certification blockers.

Be ready to go over:

• Test planning for features and milestones: Identifying risk areas, smoke vs. regression, cross-platform coverage
• Compliance concepts: Save/resume behavior, network disconnect handling, entitlement, age/guideline prompts, error messaging
• Severity and priority: How you assess impact to submission, live players, and schedule
• Advanced concepts (less common): Localization compliance, accessibility checks, peripheral compatibility edge cases, platform-specific telemetry validation

Example questions or scenarios:

• "Outline a test plan to validate a new multiplayer map across PS5/Xbox/PC, including crossplay and voice chat."
• "Explain how you would verify compliance for a forced sign-out during an online match."
• "A defect is disputed as ‘Not a Bug.’ Walk us through how you’d investigate and respond with evidence."

Bug Reporting and Database Mastery

We expect precision, clarity, and completeness in bug reports—your defect quality determines fix velocity. You’ll demonstrate how you maintain standards in Jira/DevTrack/DevTest, perform bug sweeps, and ensure high-severity items are tracked to resolution.

Be ready to go over:

• Defect anatomy: Clear title, repro steps, expected vs. actual, attachments, environment/build, severity/priority
• Triage and sweeps: Duplicates, WNF decisions, regression verification, database hygiene
• Reporting: Daily summaries, milestone assessments at Alpha/Beta, communicating risk/coverage
• Advanced concepts (less common): NMI queues, dashboards/queries for risk burndown, tagging for platform/peripheral variants

Example questions or scenarios:

• "Rewrite this vague bug into an actionable report with steps and evidence."
• "How would you track a blocker through to certification readiness across multiple teams?"
• "Describe your approach to auditing duplicate bugs ahead of Beta."

Test Design and Strategy

Strong candidates show intentionality: choosing techniques and coverage based on risk and constraints. You’ll be evaluated on how you structure exploratory sessions, systematize regression, and align tests with production goals.

Be ready to go over:

• Technique selection: Boundary/error guessing, state transitions, pairwise, session-based test charters
• Regression prioritization: Feature hot spots, platform/app store updates, network dependencies
• Metrics and outcomes: Coverage models, defect detection rate, mean time to resolve/verify
• Advanced concepts (less common): Telemetry-informed testing, synthetic account workflows, soak/performance sampling within QA scope

Example questions or scenarios:

• "Design a smoke test suite for daily build acceptance on a live-ops title."
• "Given two days before Alpha, what do you cut and why?"
• "How would you validate a new matchmaking algorithm without internal tooling changes?"

Automation and Tools (SDET Track)

For roles focused on developer tools, you will be assessed on your ability to build robust GUI automation, integrate with CI, and raise the quality bar for content creation pipelines. Expect to discuss design choices, flake reduction, and maintainability.

Be ready to go over:

• Framework selection and design: Page-object models for GUI, locator strategies, synchronization
• Languages and tooling: Python/Lua; familiarity with frameworks like Squish Qt, TestComplete, or Ranorex
• CI integration: Test orchestration in Jenkins/TeamCity, artifacts, logs, and gating strategies
• Advanced concepts (less common): Parallelization, headless runs, test data/versioning strategies, integrating with C++/C# components

Example questions or scenarios:

• "Propose an automation strategy to validate a complex Qt-based asset import workflow."
• "A GUI test is intermittently failing in CI. How do you isolate flakiness and harden the test?"
• "Walk us through a Python utility you would build to capture and annotate logs/screens during failures."

Leadership and Communication on the Test Floor

As an Associate QA Project Lead, you’re an extension of the Project Lead—setting direction, supervising execution, and communicating status. Interviewers assess how you mentor testers, handle pressure, and keep stakeholders aligned.

Be ready to go over:

• Daily management: Task assignment, progress tracking, coaching, and unblocking
• Reporting cadence: Clear daily reports, risk callouts, readiness for Alpha/Beta
• Cross-team alignment: Partnering with Production/Development, escalating effectively
• Advanced concepts (less common): Building onboarding/training programs, improving QA systems and procedures, leading focus groups or demos

Example questions or scenarios:

• "You’re short on testers and have a critical build. How do you reset priorities and communicate impact?"
• "Describe a time you coached a tester to elevate bug quality."
• "How would you structure a daily report to surface risks and ask for decisions?"