25+ Postman Interview Questions and Answers

Sample Answer: Postman is a popular API Development and testing tool that simplifies the process of creating, testing, and managing APIs. It provides a user-friendly interface to send requests, inspect responses, and automate testing workflows, making it an essential tool for developers and testers working with APIs. 

Sample Answer: Postman was originally developed in 2012 by Abhinav Asthana as a side project to simplify API testing. It started as a Chrome Extension and has since evolved into a comprehensive API Development platform used by millions of developers worldwide. 

Sample Answer: Postman is used for several reasons, including: 

a) Simplifying API Development and testing with an intuitive interface 

b) Supporting automated testing and continuous integration workflows 

c) Providing powerful collaboration features for teams 

d) Offering extensive documentation and support for various authentication methods 

e) Enabling easy management of API collections and environments 

Sample Answer: An Application Programming Interface (API) is a set of rules and protocols that allows different software applications to communicate with each other.  

APIs define the methods and data formats that applications can use to request and exchange information, enabling seamless integration and functionality across diverse systems. 

Sample Answer: Several tools are commonly used for API testing, including: 

a) Postman: A comprehensive API Development and testing tool 

b) SoapUI: A tool for testing Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) and REST APIs 

c) JMeter: An open-source tool for performance and load testing 

d) Insomnia: A user-friendly API client for Representational State Transfer (REST) and GraphQL 

e) Katalon Studio: An integrated test automation tool for APIs, web, and mobile applications. 

Sample Answer: The core components of an HTTP response include: 

a) Status Line: Indicates the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) version, status code, and status message (e.g., HTTP/1.1 200 OK). 

b) Headers: Provide metadata about the response, such as content type, content length, and server information. 

c) Body: Contains the actual data returned by the server, which can be in various formats like JavaScript Object Nation (JSON), Extensible Markup Language (XML), or Hypertext Markup Language (HTML). 

d) Cookies: These are used to store session information and other data on the client side.  

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This question assesses your understanding of how to work with and manage variables within Postman for dynamic and flexible API requests. 

Sample Answer: “I access Postman variables by referencing them with double curly braces, such as {{variable_name}}. I can define these variables in different scopes—global, collection, environment, or local. To view and manage them, I use the ‘Manage Environments’ feature for environment and global variables or the ‘Variables’ tab in the collection settings for collection-specific variables. This approach allows me to create dynamic requests and maintain consistency across tests.” 

This question assesses your understanding of Postman’s role in API testing and its advantages.  

Sample Answer: Postman is a powerful tool for API testing that simplifies creating, sending, and analysing API requests.

It allows for easy automation and testing of APIs by providing features like collections, environments, and scripting, which help ensure that APIs work as expected and meet quality standards.  

This question evaluates your practical knowledge of using Postman to make API requests

Sample Answer: “To create and send a request in Postman, I click the "New" button and select "Request." I name the request, choose the request type (like GET or POST), enter the URL, and set any necessary parameters or headers. Then, I click "Send" to execute the request and review the response.”  

This question tests your understanding of handling security mechanisms in API testing 

Sample Answer: “I manage authentication and authorisation in Postman by selecting the "Authorisation" tab in a request. I choose from methods such as Basic Auth, OAuth 2.0, or API Key and enter the required credentials or tokens based on the selected method to ensure secure access to the API.”  

This question is meant to gauge your ability to debug and track variables in Postman 

Sample Answer: To log variable values in Postman, we can use the `console.log()` function within the Pre-request or Test scripts. For example,  

`console.log(pm.variables.get("variableName"));` 

This function will output the value of the variable to the Postman Console, accessible via the "View" > "Show Postman Console" menu.  

Sample Answer: Postman provides several authorisation methods, including Basic Auth, Bearer Token, Digest Auth, OAuth 1.0 and 2.0, and API Key. Each method supports different authentication schemes, allowing users to access and test APIs securely according to their specific requirements.  

Sample Answer: In Postman, an "environment" is a set of variables that can be used across requests and collections. Environments allow you to define variables for different stages of development, such as development, staging, and production, enabling you to easily switch between configurations without modifying individual requests. 

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This question evaluates your ability to use Postman’s features to track previous activities. 

Sample Answer: “To access the history of requests in Postman, I click on the "History" tab on the left sidebar. This shows a chronological list of all requests I’ve sent, enabling me to revisit and rerun previous requests for analysis or troubleshooting quickly.”  

Sample Answer: A collection in Postman is a group of related API requests saved together. Collections help organise and manage requests, including their parameters and headers and can be shared with teams.

They also support automation through tests and can be exported for collaboration or backup.  

This question tests your understanding of API request components 

Sample Answer: Query parameters are appended to the URL after a `?` and are used to filter or modify the request, such as `?search=value`. Path variables are part of the URL path itself and are used to identify specific resources, such as `/users/{userId}`. They serve different purposes in request construction. Let’s look at their detailed distinctions:

Sample Answer: Postman supports several types of API requests, including GET (retrieve data), POST (submit data), PUT (update data), DELETE (remove data), PATCH (partially update data), and OPTIONS (retrieve allowed methods). Each method serves a different function in API interactions.  

This question determines your awareness of Postman’s debugging capabilities. 

Sample Answer: “Yes, Postman includes a feature to log requests and responses via its console. I can view detailed logs of request headers, bodies, and responses by opening the Postman Console from the "View" menu, which helps with debugging and tracking API interactions.”  

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This question aims to assess your understanding of Postman's automation capabilities and your ability to implement automated testing.  

Sample Answer: “To create and run automated tests in Postman, I start by writing test scripts in the "Tests" tab of a request. I use JavaScript to set up conditions and assertions for my tests. Once my scripts are ready, I use the Collection Runner to execute the entire collection of requests and test cases. For more advanced automation, I also utilise Newman, which is the command-line tool for running Postman collections.”   

This question evaluates your knowledge of Postman’s capabilities for performing repeated operations and testing scenarios.  

Sample Answer: “To iterate a request 100 times in Postman, I use the Collection Runner. I simply set the iteration count to 100 in the Runner’s interface. Alternatively, I can use a loop within the Pre-request Script to adjust the iteration count dynamically, using a counter variable to manage the loop effectively.”  

This question checks your familiarity with Postman’s scripting environment and the language used for writing tests.  

Sample Answer: Tests in Postman are written in JavaScript. Postman uses a subset of the JavaScript language to create scripts for pre-request and test scenarios. This allows users to execute custom logic and validate responses within their API tests.  

This question assesses your understanding of Postman’s feature for running multiple API requests in a sequence and its application.  

Sample Answer: “Postman Collection Runners are tools that I use to execute all requests within a Postman collection one after the other. They help me automate the testing of various endpoints by running a set of API requests and viewing the results for each request in sequence.”  

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This question evaluates your knowledge of Postman’s encoding mechanisms and their specific use cases.  

Sample Answer: Postman uses Base64 encoding for encoding binary data, such as images or files, into a text format that can be transmitted in requests. Base64 encoding ensures data integrity and compatibility across different systems by converting binary data into a standard American Standard Code for Information Interchange (ASCII) string format.  

Sample Answer: Postman accepts Basic Authentication, which involves sending credentials encoded in Base64. This encoding ensures that the credentials are safely transmitted over HTTP by converting them into a format that can be easily decoded by the server while maintaining compatibility with the HTTP protocol.  

Name in Postman? 

This question assesses your understanding of Postman’s variable scope and management.   

Sample Answer: “No, I cannot have two global scope variables with the same name in Postman. If I create a second global variable with the same name, it will overwrite the first one. Postman enforces unique names for variables within their defined scope to avoid conflicts.  

Sample Answer: Digest authentication is a method that enhances Basic Authentication by adding a hashing mechanism. It involves hashing credentials with a nonce value and server-specified data to secure the authentication process. Digest authentication prevents credentials from being sent in plaintext, providing additional security.  

Sample Answer: The 304 status code, “Not Modified,” indicates that the resource requested has not changed since the last request. It is used to optimise performance by allowing clients to use cached versions of resources, reducing the need for unnecessary data transfers and improving load times.