At Bolt, hiring is more than checking boxes. It’s about finding curious, collaborative, and eager people to build high-quality products in a fast-moving environment. Our QA hiring process is structured to evaluate your technical expertise, problem-solving skills, and team fit, while giving you plenty of opportunities to get to know us.

Here’s what you can expect at each stage.

1. Recruiter screening call

Your journey starts with a conversation with one of our recruiters. This is a chance to explore mutual fit. We want to understand what you’re looking for, and you’ll get a better sense of what Bolt is all about.

During the call, we’ll:

Introduce you to Bolt and the role you applied for.
Learn about your current situation: Are you actively looking, or just curious about new opportunities?
Discuss what matters most to you in your next role: automation vs. manual work, company culture, impact, or growth.
Get your initial salary expectations so we can align with the hiring team.
Walk through your experience to identify the best team fit (e.g. Commerce, Data, or Platform).
Flag any potential concerns related to communication in English, cultural alignment, or your resume.
Answer your questions about the contract, relocation, or the hiring process itself.

And to give you a sense of what we might ask:

What do you know about Bolt?
Can you walk us through your most recent project?
What kind of architecture were you working with? Did you contribute to system or API design?
What would motivate you to make a career move right now?
Are you open to relocating to Tallinn, and if so, what’s your expected timeline?

If everything looks like a potential match, we’ll explain the next steps and what timelines you can expect.

Bolt recruiters are your partners throughout the hiring journey. This conversation is all about transparency and alignment. We want to make sure we’re the right match for each other before moving forward.

2. Home task

Once you've had your initial chat with a recruiter and it looks like a good match, we’ll invite you to complete a home task.

This step allows you to demonstrate your skills in a real-world context — whether you’re applying for a manual or automation QA role, or bringing mobile testing expertise to the table. It’s not just about ticking boxes — we want to see how you think, approach challenges, and communicate your ideas.

We’ll give you a clear brief, relevant documentation, and a realistic deadline. You’ll usually have one week to complete the task and send it back.

What we assess (Manual QA)

For manual testing roles, we’re looking at more than just test cases. We want to see how well you understand the task, how creatively you approach testing, and how clearly you communicate.

Here are a few things we’ll focus on:

English proficiency and communication.
Attention to detail and accuracy.
Clarity and structure of your test documentation.
Thoughtful questions or assumptions raised.
Creativity in test scenarios and coverage.
Basic coding and SQL understanding (e.g. how you handle inputs, structure queries).

If you're applying for a mobile QA role, we’ll also assess:

Mobile-specific test design.
Bug identification and prioritisation.
Analytical thinking and structured problem solving.

We’ll also consider how professionally your task is delivered: Did you submit it on time? Is the language clear and polished? Does the work reflect what you'd bring to a real QA team?

What we assess (Automation QA)

For automation testers, we ask you to build a small test framework from scratch. This helps us understand how you structure code, manage complexity, and plan for scalability.

We’ll review:

Project structure and reusability (POM or DDD).
Configuration and data handling.
Test parallelisation (or how it’s enabled).
Logging, screenshots, and reporting tools.
Selector strategy and implementation.
Compatibility (e.g. OS, language version targeting).
Quality and clarity of documentation.
Overall test content and maintainability.

We’re not just looking for a technically correct solution. We want to see how thoughtfully you’ve approached the challenge, and whether you’ve laid the groundwork for a scalable, reliable test setup.

Once you reach this stage, you’ll receive all the details. We aim to keep the task practical and relevant to the work you’ll be doing with us.

3. Technical interview

If your home task looks good, the next step is a technical interview. This is a deep dive into your QA expertise, both theoretical knowledge and practical skills. Depending on the role (manual, mobile, or automation), the conversation will touch on relevant areas like test design, problem-solving, frameworks, infrastructure, mobile specifics, and APIs.

This interview typically consists of 3 sections:

Basics of QA: Grounded in your experience, prioritisation skills, and thought process.
Scenario-based questions: Logical and hands-on challenges that simulate real testing situations.
Tools and tech familiarity: To understand which platforms, frameworks, or environments you’re comfortable working with.

We’ll also be observing how you:

Ask clarifying questions.
Explain ideas clearly and concisely.
Approach tough problems with persistence.
Show genuine interest in our company, product, and challenges.

If you want to better prepare for this stage, here are some types of questions we might ask:

Basics of QA

How do you approach testing when there’s little or no documentation?
What test design techniques do you know, and when would you use each?
How do you estimate testing timelines?
What’s the difference between severity and priority? Can you give examples?
What are the exit criteria for testing?

Scenario-based thinking

You’re testing a mobile dial pad screen (0–9 digits, call button, backspace, input field). What test cases would you focus on if you could only pick five?
A web page displays a number that updates on refresh. How would you verify that this number truly comes from the backend?
What kind of issues can be uncovered during API testing? What are your must-check items?

Tools and technologies

Have you worked with Android Studio or Xcode? How do you use them to build and test applications?
How do you check and manipulate logs, network requests, or responses? (e.g. with Charles Proxy)
Are you familiar with analytics tools like Firebase, Mixpanel, or A/B testing setups?

For automation roles, we’ll also discuss:

How you evaluate the ROI of automation.
Your approach to CI/CD and infrastructure.
The frameworks you've built or worked with.
Selector strategies, parallelisation, and reporting tools.

This interview is your chance to show us how you think, what you know, and how you’d work with us day-to-day. There’s no need to prepare canned answers. Just be ready to talk about your past experience, ask thoughtful questions, and solve problems in real time.

4. Team fit call

The final stage of the process is the team fit call — a conversation designed to answer one big question from both sides: Is this the right match?

This call serves 3 key purposes:

We look at whether your values, communication style, and working methods align with Bolt’s culture.
We dive deeper into how you’d collaborate with the specific team you’d be joining: their workflows, pace, rituals, and personality mix.
We want to give you an honest and engaging glimpse into life at Bolt: the people, the mission, the growth ahead. It’s a chance to show you what makes our work meaningful and our team a place where people thrive.

We’ll discuss collaboration, product thinking, decision-making, ownership, and how you’ve handled challenges in your past work. Expect a thoughtful, open discussion, not a test.

If you’d like to prepare, here are a few examples of the types of questions we might explore:

Did you ever ask a product manager or customer to change project specifications? What led to that, and how did it go?
How do you define a successful outcome of a project, beyond just meeting deadlines or completing tasks?
What’s your involvement in the ideation process for future work?
Have you ever worked with other teams to build something together? What made that collaboration great or difficult?
Was there a time when a process helped you succeed? How about one that held you back? How did you respond?

By the end of this call, both sides should have the clarity and confidence to move forward or to recognise if it’s not the right fit right now.

Your questions matter

We believe interviews should be a two-way conversation. The questions you ask help us understand what you care about, and they help you figure out whether Bolt is the right place for you.

Some thoughtful questions we’ve heard from QA candidates:

What does onboarding look like for QA engineers at Bolt?
What’s the team’s approach to managing technical debt?
How is success measured for this role?
How are code reviews handled on the QA side?
Can you share a recent challenge the QA team faced?
How much autonomy do QA engineers have in choosing tools or suggesting improvements?
What’s the team’s take on work-life balance and sustainable delivery?

Join us!

Our QA hiring process is designed to be thoughtful, fair, and human. We want you to feel supported and well-informed every step of the way. If you’re passionate about quality, collaboration, and continuous learning, there’s a place for you here.

Let’s build something great together!

The process of getting hired as a QA Engineer at Bolt: From first call to final interview

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