Hacksaw Gaming interview questions

Although the position is advertised as a “QA Analyst” role, the responsibilities align much more closely with those of a video game tester for a gambling platform rather than a traditional QA Analyst position. The initial recruitment stage was acceptable. The recruiter was responsive and communication was clear, which initially left a positive impression. Unfortunately, the practical test stage was extremely poorly designed and, in my experience, the weakest assessment process I have encountered. The test focused on questionable criteria, such as writing the current date in a specific way and identifying visual differences between two images. Candidates were then asked to write “bug reports” for those differences, without any clarification regarding intended behavior versus actual defects. Naturally, one would expect such a task to assess core QA competencies: bug reporting quality, use of QA terminology, clarity of English, analytical thinking, or the ability to work with limited specifications. However, none of these aspects appeared to matter. The evaluation was instead based almost entirely on visually marking (specifically circling) differences in the images. The written explanations were effectively ignored. After I submitted the test I shortly received a rejection and was informed that identifying at least eight differences was required to progress further. I did identify and describe eight differences in detail in the written section. Due to the small size and overlapping nature of the images, I grouped certain differences within a single highlighted area and explained them clearly in text. Despite this, my submission was rejected solely because only seven visual highlights were counted. I was even penalized for using a red square instead of a red circle to mark a difference. It became clear that the reviewers did not read the written explanations at all and assessed the task purely by counting visual markings. When I attempted to clarify this, the response was dismissive and framed as underperformance, some would say guilt tripping even “there were candidates that found ALL the differences and highlighted them”. Then proceeded to hire my friend who circled 8 differences (clown emoji) (This is a true story). Overall, this reinforced the impression that the assessment criteria was arbitrary and superficial. This process does not reflect a serious or professional QA hiring standard and is misleading for candidates expecting a true QA Analyst role.