Launch blocked by critical bugs.Unblocked today.

PM assigned in 10 minutes. QA engineer starts scoping the critical test coverage in the first hour not writing tests blindly but identifying which flows absolutely cannot break on launch day: authentication, core user journey, checkout or payment, and any feature highlighted in your launch announcement. For a 4-hour Starter session, the engineer writes targeted Playwright or Cypress end-to-end tests covering the top 5-8 critical paths, configured to run in your existing CI/CD pipeline on every push. These tests catch the most damaging regressions the ones that cause public failures before they reach production. A Full Day session extends coverage to secondary flows and adds API contract tests.

Yes automated test engineering is the core deliverable. For web applications, the engineer writes Playwright end-to-end tests (TypeScript or JavaScript) covering user flows, or Cypress if that is your existing framework. For unit and integration tests, the engineer uses Jest with React Testing Library for frontend components, or pytest for Python backend services. Tests are written in your existing test framework and file structure not a separate repo or tooling that requires maintenance overhead. The engineer also configures the tests to run as a mandatory CI gate in GitHub Actions, GitLab CI, or your existing pipeline so every PR triggers the test suite automatically. All tests pass before the session ends.

Yes. Load and performance testing is in scope. The engineer uses k6, Locust, or Artillery to simulate realistic concurrent user load against your staging environment matching your expected peak traffic pattern (gradual ramp-up, sustained peak, spike scenario). The test run identifies: the request throughput limit before error rate spikes, which specific endpoints or database queries become the bottleneck under load, and memory or connection pool exhaustion patterns. You receive a written performance report: current throughput limits, identified bottlenecks with supporting metrics, and specific recommendations to increase capacity (database connection pool sizing, query optimisation, caching layer, horizontal scaling). The engineer can implement the top optimisations if time allows in the same session.

PM handles the triage. For bugs discovered during QA: critical bugs blocking the release are escalated immediately to a developer engineer PM can activate a second engineer in the same session at no additional coordination cost. Minor bugs are documented in a prioritised bug report delivered at the end of the session, with severity classification (blocking, high, medium, low), reproduction steps, and recommended fix approach. If you want the QA engineer to also fix the bugs they find, PM scopes a combined QA-plus-developer engagement from the start typically a Full Day session with a QA engineer and backend or frontend developer working in parallel. This is a common pattern for pre-launch crunch days.

Every QuickHire QA engineer passes a live testing exercise on a real web application with intentionally introduced bugs the candidate must find, document, and write an automated test reproducing the bug within a time limit. The written assessment covers: Playwright and Cypress end-to-end testing patterns (page object model, test isolation, network interception for API mocking), performance testing methodology (load profile design, interpreting k6 or Locust output, identifying bottlenecks), accessibility testing (WCAG 2.1 AA automated and manual checks), and API testing with Postman or REST Assured. Portfolio review focuses on test coverage improvements that prevented production incidents, with specific metrics (bugs caught pre-production, regression rate reduction). Only the top 3% pass all stages.