Introduction
If you’re preparing for a CTS (Cognizant) automation testing interview in 2026, Playwright is almost guaranteed to appear in the discussion. Many companies now expect you to know not just Selenium, but also modern tools like Playwright, plus strong fundamentals in QA, Agile, and coding.
This guide brings together real-world, CTS-style Playwright interview questions with clear, structured answers. You’ll see a mix of tool-specific topics (fixtures, locators, auto-waiting), general automation questions (test data, reporting), and core QA concepts (defect lifecycle, Agile, severity vs priority).
Use this as a practice companion: read each question, try answering in your own words, and then compare with the detailed answer.
1. How does Playwright differ from Selenium and Cypress?
Playwright, Selenium, and Cypress are all used for web automation, but they differ in architecture, capabilities, and reliability.
Selenium is one of the oldest tools and supports multiple languages. However, it requires external browser drivers and does not provide built-in auto-waiting, which can lead to flaky tests.
Cypress is a JavaScript-based tool that runs inside the browser, making it fast. However, it has limitations with multi-tab handling, cross-domain testing, and enterprise-scale applications.
Playwright is a modern tool developed by Microsoft. It supports multiple languages, provides built-in auto-waiting, tracing, screenshots, and video recording, and handles complex scenarios like multiple tabs and iframes effectively. This makes Playwright more reliable and suitable for modern web applications.
2. What is meant by a fixture in Playwright, and why is it used?
A fixture in Playwright is a reusable setup mechanism that provides a predefined test context. Fixtures are used to supply commonly required objects such as browser instances, pages, authenticated sessions, or test data.
Fixtures help reduce code duplication, improve maintainability, and ensure consistent setup and teardown across tests. Built-in fixtures such as page and browser are injected automatically, and custom fixtures can be created for advanced scenarios like login or API setup.
3. Can you explain Playwright’s auto-waiting mechanism?
Playwright includes a built-in auto-waiting mechanism that waits for the required conditions before performing any action. This includes waiting for elements to be visible, enabled, and stable, as well as waiting for navigations and network requests to complete.
Because of auto-waiting, testers rarely need explicit waits or sleep statements. This significantly reduces flaky tests and improves test stability.
4. What locator strategies are available in Playwright?
Playwright provides several locator strategies designed to closely resemble how users interact with the application. These include getByRole, getByLabel, getByText, getByPlaceholder, getByAltText, and getByTitle. A generic locator method using CSS or XPath is also available as a last option.
The recommended approach is to use user-facing locators first and avoid XPath unless absolutely necessary.
5. How does getByRole work, and why is it recommended?
getByRole locates elements based on their accessibility roles and visible names. This aligns with how screen readers and real users interact with the application.
It is recommended because it produces more stable and readable tests, improves accessibility compliance, and is less affected by DOM structure changes.
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6. What is the difference between smoke testing and sanity testing?
Smoke testing is performed on new builds to ensure that the critical functionalities of the application are working. It provides broad coverage with minimal depth.
Sanity testing is conducted after minor changes or bug fixes to validate specific affected functionalities. It is more focused and deeper compared to smoke testing.
7. How do you handle and manage test data in Playwright automation?
Test data management in Playwright is handled using a combination of static and dynamic approaches. Static test data is stored in JSON files, while sensitive information such as credentials is stored using environment variables or .env files.
Dynamic test data can be generated using libraries like Faker, and environment-specific configurations are managed through the Playwright configuration file.
8. Can you explain the logic to reverse a string and find duplicate elements in an array?
To reverse a string, the string is converted into an array of characters, reversed, and then joined back into a string.
To find duplicate elements in an array, each element is compared with its first occurrence index. If the current index differs from the first occurrence, the element is considered a duplicate.
9. What factors do you consider when deciding which test cases to automate?
When deciding which test cases to automate, I focus on business-critical workflows, high-regression areas, frequently executed tests, stable functionalities, and scenarios that can be reused across multiple test cases.
Test cases that are unstable, exploratory, or executed only once are usually not automated.
10. How do you capture screenshots, videos, and traces in Playwright? What reporting do you use?
Playwright provides built-in support for capturing screenshots, recording videos, and generating execution traces through simple configuration settings.
By default, Playwright generates an HTML report containing execution details. For enhanced reporting and analytics, Playwright can also be integrated with third-party tools like Allure.
11. What information should a good automation test report contain?
A good automation test report should include the overall execution summary, pass and fail statistics, execution duration, detailed error messages, stack traces, screenshots, videos, trace files, and environment information.
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12. How do you differentiate between severity and priority of a defect?
Severity refers to the technical impact of a defect on the application, while priority indicates the urgency with which the defect needs to be fixed from a business perspective.
For example, a system crash has high severity, while a minor UI alignment issue usually has low severity.
13. What is an RTM, and why is it important?
A Requirement Traceability Matrix maps requirements to corresponding test cases and defects. It ensures full test coverage, helps track requirement changes, and supports audits and compliance needs.
14. Can you explain the difference between test strategy, test plan, and test artifacts?
A test strategy defines the overall testing approach at an organizational level. A test plan is project-specific and outlines how testing will be executed.
Test artifacts include all deliverables produced during testing, such as test cases, RTM, defect reports, and execution reports.
15. How do you store sensitive information like credentials securely in automation frameworks?
Sensitive information is stored using environment variables, .env files excluded from version control, and secure secret managers provided by CI/CD tools such as Azure DevOps or GitHub Actions.
Hardcoding credentials in test scripts is strictly avoided.
16. What is Agile methodology, and how does it help in software testing?
Agile methodology focuses on iterative development, continuous feedback, and close collaboration between cross-functional teams.
For testers, Agile enables early testing, faster feedback cycles, and continuous quality improvement.
17. What is the purpose of a sprint retrospective?
A sprint retrospective is conducted at the end of each sprint to evaluate team performance. The team discusses what went well, what did not go well, and identifies actionable improvements for future sprints.
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18. How would you professionally explain your reason for a job change?
A professional explanation for a job change focuses on career growth, exposure to modern technologies, learning opportunities, and the desire to contribute more effectively to organizational goals.
19. What assertions have you used in your framework?
I use different types of assertions depending on the layer being tested.
UI Assertions
expect(locator).toBeVisible();
expect(locator).toHaveText('Success');
expect(page).toHaveURL('/dashboard');
API Assertions
expect(response.status()).toBe(200); expect(data.token).toBeDefined();
Data Assertions
expect(actualValue).toBe(expectedValue);
Soft Assertions
expect.soft(locator).toBeVisible();
Allows multiple validations without stopping execution.
20 How do you verify that a list is sorted alphabetically?
Interview-standard detailed answer
To verify alphabetical sorting, I first capture all the visible text values from the list elements displayed on the UI. I store these values in an array in the same order they appear on the screen.
Then, I create a separate copy of this array and sort it alphabetically using JavaScript’s locale Compare method. Finally, I compare the original UI list with the sorted list. If both arrays match exactly, it confirms that the UI data is already sorted alphabetically.
Code approach (Playwright)
const actualList = await page.locator('ul li').allTextContents();
// Remove extra spaces if needed
const trimmedList = actualList.map(text => text.trim());
// Create a sorted copy
const sortedList = [...trimmedList].sort((a, b) => a.localeCompare(b));
// Assertion
expect(trimmedList).toEqual(sortedList);
Why this approach works (Explain in interview)
1️⃣ Validates UI order, not just data presence
- It ensures the UI is displaying data in the correct alphabetical sequence, not just showing the right values.
2️⃣ Non-destructive comparison
- Using the spread operator ([…]) prevents modification of the original UI list, ensuring accurate comparison.
3️⃣ localeCompare is reliable
- Handles alphabetical sorting correctly
- Supports case sensitivity and language rules
- Safer than using simple > or < string comparison
4️⃣ Works for dynamic data
- Effective even when the list is populated from APIs or databases
- No dependency on hardcoded expected values
Conclusion
CTS Playwright interviews don’t just test if you “know the tool.” They check how you think about test design, frameworks, coding, Agile, and reporting under real project conditions. If you can explain concepts simply, connect them to your experience, and write clean, readable code, you’ll stand out from the crowd.
Use this guide as a starting point: customize every answer with your own project stories, and keep practicing out loud. If you’re serious about going deeper, consider a Playwright course online that focuses on real-world projects, CI/CD integration, and interview preparation.
To see Playwright in action with live demos and practical tips, you can also join our dedicated webinar:
👉 https://playwright-webinar.testleaf.com/?utm_source=Playwright_Webinar&utm_medium=Organic&utm_campaign=Playwright_Webinar
FAQs
Q1. Who is this CTS Playwright interview guide meant for?
This guide is ideal for QA engineers and SDETs with around 2–5 years of experience who already know basic automation and want CTS-style Playwright questions with structured, real-world answers.
Q2. What topics do CTS Playwright interviews usually focus on?
CTS typically covers Playwright fundamentals (locators, fixtures, auto-waiting), framework design, reporting, test data handling, basic coding questions, and core QA concepts like severity vs priority, Agile, and defect lifecycle.
Q3. How should I use these Playwright interview questions for preparation?
First, try answering each question in your own words. Then compare with the provided answer, refine your explanation, and finally add 1–2 real examples from your project so it doesn’t sound memorised.
Q4. Does CTS only ask tool questions or also general QA and Agile?
CTS interviews rarely limit themselves to tool syntax. Along with Playwright, they usually ask about test strategy, smoke vs sanity, Agile ceremonies, reporting, and how you handle bugs in real projects.
Q5. Do I need both Selenium and Playwright knowledge for CTS?
In most cases, yes. Many CTS roles expect you to know Selenium from previous projects and Playwright for modern web automation. Being able to compare the tools and explain why you’d choose Playwright for certain scenarios is a big plus.
Q6. How can I go beyond these questions and deepen my Playwright skills?
Use this question set as a base, then build a small Playwright framework, integrate it with CI/CD, and automate 2–3 real flows from an application. Hands-on practice plus these interview questions will make your answers much more convincing.
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Author’s Bio:
Content Writer at Testleaf, specializing in SEO-driven content for test automation, software development, and cybersecurity. I turn complex technical topics into clear, engaging stories that educate, inspire, and drive digital transformation.
Ezhirkadhir Raja
Content Writer – Testleaf
