Playwright Interview Questions 2026: From Basics to Pro

I once watched a brilliant developer completely freeze when asked to debug a simple Playwright script live. They knew the API inside and out, could list every option for launch(). But when faced with a flaky test on a live site, they stumbled. Why? Because they had memorized the what but never truly understood the why.

That's the shift we're seeing. As we head into 2026, Playwright interviews are no longer simple syntax quizzes. They're deep dives into your problem-solving process, your architectural thinking, and your ability to write tests that are not just functional, but also stable, fast, and maintainable.

Companies aren't just looking for someone who can write a selector. They need engineers who can build a resilient testing strategy. This guide breaks down the types of questions you should be ready for, from the deceptive fundamentals to the senior-level architectural challenges.

The New Fundamentals: Beyond the Obvious

Forget "What is Playwright?" The new baseline questions probe your understanding of its core principles. Your answers here reveal if you've just skimmed the docs or if you truly get what makes Playwright different.

Question 1: "Explain Playwright's architecture. Why is its out-of-process model a significant advantage over older tools like Selenium?"

This isn't just trivia. It's a foundational concept.

How to Answer: Start by explaining that Playwright communicates with browsers over the WebSocket protocol, not HTTP like the old WebDriver protocol. This is a key differentiator. The core of the answer should revolve around these points:

Out-of-Process Execution: Emphasize that Playwright runs in a separate Node.js process from the browser. This prevents the test script from being limited by the browser's single-threaded environment. It leads to greater stability because a crash in the browser page doesn't necessarily bring down the entire test runner.
Browser Contexts: Describe browser contexts as isolated, incognito-like sessions within a single browser instance. This is a powerful feature for running parallel tests without them interfering with each other's cookies or local storage. It's far more efficient than launching a new browser instance for every isolated test.
No Flaky Middleman: Contrast this with the old JSON Wire Protocol used by Selenium. That protocol acted as a translator between the test script and the browser driver, adding another layer of potential failure and latency. Playwright's direct communication is faster and more reliable.

Pro Tip: Mentioning the benefits of this architecture—speed, reduced flakiness, and true parallelism—will show you understand the practical implications, not just the theory.

Question 2: "What is 'auto-waiting' in Playwright, and how does it differ from an explicit wait like `page.waitForSelector()`?"

This question targets one of Playwright's most powerful features for eliminating flakiness.

How to Answer: Auto-waiting is the mechanism where Playwright actions (like page.click(), page.fill(), expect(locator).toBeVisible()) automatically wait for the target element to reach an actionable state before proceeding. This is a huge departure from manually managing waits.

Break it down:

Actionability Checks: Explain that page.click() doesn't just find the element. It waits for it to be attached to the DOM, visible, stable (not animating), and enabled. This built-in intelligence handles the vast majority of timing issues in modern web apps.
Explicit Waits: page.waitForSelector() is an explicit wait. You would use it for scenarios where you need more granular control, outside of a direct action. For example:
- Waiting for an element to exist in the DOM, even if it's not yet visible, before performing a complex series of assertions.
- Waiting for an element to be removed from the DOM.
- Synchronizing with a non-interactive element that signals a background process is complete.

Warning: A huge red flag for interviewers is seeing page.waitForTimeout(). Make it clear that you understand this is a last resort for debugging and should never be used in a test suite to fix flakiness. It's a code smell that masks the real problem.

Real-World Scenarios: Where You Prove Your Value

This is where the interview gets real. Expect to be given a problem and asked to talk through your solution. They want to see your thought process.

Scenario 1: The Flaky Dashboard Test

Question: "You're testing a single-page application (SPA) dashboard built in React. A test that verifies a chart is displayed after a date range is selected fails about 30% of the time in the CI/CD pipeline. How do you approach debugging and fixing this?"

How to Answer: This is a classic race condition problem. Your answer should demonstrate a systematic debugging approach.

Step 1: Reproduce and Analyze with Trace Viewer. The first thing you should say is, "I'd run the test with tracing enabled." The Playwright Trace Viewer is your single most powerful debugging tool. Explain how you'd use the trace to see the DOM snapshot at the moment of failure, inspect the network requests, and check the console logs. This shows you know how to use the toolset effectively.
Step 2: Identify the Root Cause. The likely cause is that the test is trying to assert the chart's visibility before the API call fetching the chart data has completed. The test script is faster than the network.
Step 3: Implement a Robust Wait Strategy. This is the fix. Avoid static waits. Instead, use one of these reliable methods:
- Wait for Network Response: The best approach. Use page.waitForResponse() to wait for the specific API call (e.g., **/api/chart-data) to finish before you attempt to interact with or assert the chart.
- Use Web-First Assertions: Instead of a simple expect(chart).toBeVisible(), you might need to assert on a loading spinner disappearing first. For example: await expect(page.locator('.spinner')).toBeHidden(); await expect(page.locator('.chart-container')).toBeVisible();.
Step 4: Use Resilient Locators. Mention that you'd ensure you're using user-facing locators like page.getByRole('img', { name: 'Sales chart' }) instead of brittle CSS selectors like #chart-div > svg > g:nth-child(2). This shows you're thinking about long-term maintainability.

Scenario 2: The Authentication Nightmare

Question: "Your test suite has 500 tests, and most require a user to be logged in. What is the most efficient strategy for handling authentication?"

How to Answer: The wrong answer is "I'd log in at the start of every test." The right answer demonstrates an understanding of state management and efficiency.

The Core Solution: Reusing storageState. The gold-standard approach is to log in programmatically once, save the session state (cookies, local storage), and then inject that state into a new browser context for each subsequent test.
Describe the Workflow:
1. Create a global setup file (using globalSetup in the Playwright config).
2. In this file, launch a browser, perform the login via the UI or an API call.
3. Call page.context().storageState({ path: 'auth.json' }) to save the authenticated state to a file.
4. In your main playwright.config.ts, use the storageState option in use to tell all tests to start with this pre-authenticated state.

This shows you can architect a solution that saves massive amounts of execution time and isolates authentication logic from your test logic. For more detail, you can refer to the official Playwright Authentication documentation.

The Senior-Level Gauntlet: Architecture and Strategy

If you're interviewing for a senior or lead role, expect questions that zoom out from a single test to the entire framework.

Question 3: "How would you structure a large-scale test framework using Playwright? Discuss the Page Object Model (POM) and its potential drawbacks."

How to Answer: This question tests your experience with building maintainable automation.

Acknowledge POM: Start by explaining the Page Object Model. It's a well-known pattern where you create a class for each page or major component of your application. These classes encapsulate the locators and methods for interacting with that part of the UI. It's good for code reuse and separating test logic from page interaction logic.
Critique POM: This is the senior part. Acknowledge that while popular, POM can have drawbacks in large projects. The page objects can become massive, bloated, and hard to maintain. A small UI change can require updates in many places.
Suggest Modern Alternatives: Show your forward-thinking by discussing other approaches:
- Screenplay Pattern: A more user-centric approach that focuses on user roles, tasks, and actions. It promotes composing smaller, reusable actions rather than monolithic page objects.
- Action/Component-Based Helpers: Instead of a class per page, create functions or classes based on reusable components (like a date picker or a search modal) or user actions (like login() or addProductToCart()). This is often more flexible and scalable.

Your goal is to show you're not dogmatic about one pattern. You choose the right tool for the job based on the project's scale and complexity. A great resource on design patterns like this is Refactoring Guru.

Question 4: "Playwright has built-in API testing. When would you use it versus a dedicated tool like Postman, and when would you combine them?"

How to Answer: This is a question about strategy and efficiency.

Playwright for Hybrid Tests: Explain that Playwright's request context is ideal for hybrid tests. These are tests that use both the API and the UI. The classic example is using the API to set up state (e.g., create a user, post a product, seed a database) because it's thousands of times faster than doing it through the UI. Then, you use the UI part of the test to verify the outcome of that state change.
Dedicated Tools for API-Specific Testing: State that for pure API contract testing, load testing, or complex integration testing between microservices, a dedicated tool like Postman, Insomnia, or a code-based framework like supertest is often better. They have more specialized features for these tasks.
The Power of Combination: The ultimate answer is about using them together. You'd use Postman to ensure the API contract is solid. You'd use Playwright to test the user flows that depend on that API, mocking or hitting the real endpoints as needed. You can read more on the official Playwright API testing docs.

Key Takeaway: The best Playwright engineers don't just know the API; they understand browser behavior, network protocols, and how to write tests that are fast, stable, and easy to debug.

Your interview isn't a test of memory. It's a conversation to see how you think. Show them you're not just a script-writer; you're a quality strategist who understands the big picture. Walk in ready to discuss trade-offs, architecture, and debugging. That's how you'll prove you're the engineer they need.

Playwright Interview Questions 2026: From Basics to Pro

Supercharge Your Career with CoPrep AI

The New Fundamentals: Beyond the Obvious

Question 1: "Explain Playwright's architecture. Why is its out-of-process model a significant advantage over older tools like Selenium?"

Question 2: "What is 'auto-waiting' in Playwright, and how does it differ from an explicit wait like `page.waitForSelector()`?"

Real-World Scenarios: Where You Prove Your Value

Scenario 1: The Flaky Dashboard Test

Scenario 2: The Authentication Nightmare

The Senior-Level Gauntlet: Architecture and Strategy

Question 3: "How would you structure a large-scale test framework using Playwright? Discuss the Page Object Model (POM) and its potential drawbacks."

Question 4: "Playwright has built-in API testing. When would you use it versus a dedicated tool like Postman, and when would you combine them?"

Tags

Related Articles

Answering 'What's Your Greatest Weakness?' Without Lies

How to Answer 'Tell Me About Yourself' in 2026 (With Examples)

Tip of the Day

Master the STAR Method

Quick Suggestions

Success Story

Playwright Interview Questions 2026: From Basics to Pro

Supercharge Your Career with CoPrep AI

The New Fundamentals: Beyond the Obvious

Question 1: "Explain Playwright's architecture. Why is its out-of-process model a significant advantage over older tools like Selenium?"

Question 2: "What is 'auto-waiting' in Playwright, and how does it differ from an explicit wait like page.waitForSelector()?"

Real-World Scenarios: Where You Prove Your Value

Scenario 1: The Flaky Dashboard Test

Scenario 2: The Authentication Nightmare

The Senior-Level Gauntlet: Architecture and Strategy

Question 3: "How would you structure a large-scale test framework using Playwright? Discuss the Page Object Model (POM) and its potential drawbacks."

Question 4: "Playwright has built-in API testing. When would you use it versus a dedicated tool like Postman, and when would you combine them?"

Tags

Related Articles

Answering 'What's Your Greatest Weakness?' Without Lies

How to Answer 'Tell Me About Yourself' in 2026 (With Examples)

Tip of the Day

Master the STAR Method

Quick Suggestions

Success Story

Question 2: "What is 'auto-waiting' in Playwright, and how does it differ from an explicit wait like `page.waitForSelector()`?"