# What 6 Months of QA Interviews in English Taught Me > A senior QA engineer who moved from Moscow to Amsterdam on 52 applications, 26 interview calls and one offer: referrals, small talk, owning your impact and... - **Page type:** Blog post - **URL:** https://app.mocklyenglish.com/blog/job-hunting-in-english-qa-engineer-lessons - **Last updated:** 2026-11-02 - **Author:** Tom O. - **Published:** 2026-04-19 - **Topic:** Interview Prep Mockly English is three things: 1. Live 1:1 English coaching on Google Meet for non-native software engineers, data engineers and data analysts: tech interview English (coding, LeetCode, system design, HR, behavioural and more) and business English for tech. Coaches are practising data engineers who also teach English. Free 30-minute trial, no card needed. Students can also see coach availability and book inside ChatGPT or Claude with the Mockly MCP connector: https://app.mocklyenglish.com/ai. 2. Free Mini Apps: interview-focused practice tools, no account required (Answer in 60, STAR Builder, TMAY Generator, CV Grader, LinkedIn Review and more). 3. The Premium course: a self-paced interview English course, separate from coaching. It does not include a session. Quick Answer **Julia, a senior QA engineer who moved from Moscow to Amsterdam, sent 52 applications over six months, had 26 interview calls and got one offer. Her six lessons: referrals beat cold applications, small talk is part of the assessment, most tech companies run the same interview loop, talking about your own impact is a skill to practise, tracking several processes needs a system, and at senior level culture fit often decides the offer.** ## 52 applications, one offer This is a guest post from Julia Morozova, a senior QA engineer and Mockly Premium member. She moved from Moscow to Amsterdam in 2022 and, after two years at a Dutch e-commerce company, decided she was ready for something new. | Six months of job hunting | Count | | ------------------------- | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | Applications sent | 52 | | First-round invites | 9 | | Interview calls in total | 26 | | Final rounds reached | 2 | | Offers | 1 | | Summary | She has just signed a contract as a senior QA engineer at a SaaS company in the Netherlands. | ## 1. Referrals are extremely valuable Cold applications brought limited success. Staying in touch with old teammates and classmates on LinkedIn and Telegram was far more useful: most of Julia's first-round interviews came through referrals. Without a network, she says, look for communities where you can build one. ## 2. Small talk is not wasted time Every interview started with five minutes of warm-up: 'How are you finding Amsterdam?', 'Where are you based?'. At first Julia gave short, closed answers and waited for the 'real' interview to begin. Then she realised the small talk was part of the assessment: a first test of culture fit and of what she'd be like as a teammate. She started preparing two or three casual answers before every call, each one sharing a little about herself: > “Interviewer: Hey Julia, how are you doing today? Julia: Good, thank you. Keeping warm! It's been snowing here in Amsterdam for a few days now.” Interview tip Turn a one-word answer into one sentence plus one detail. That gives the interviewer something to reply to. ## 3. Most tech companies interview the same way Julia was surprised how standard the process was. Almost every company, not only the big tech one she applied to, ran several rounds: a recruiter screen, a technical session, one or two behavioural interviews and a final hiring-manager call. Most roles had five or six sessions. ## 4. Talking about yourself is a skill In Russia, Julia says, interviews are often transactional: you list your experience and answer technical questions. Talking about your achievements feels uncomfortable. So in her first English interviews she was very modest, saying 'the team managed to reduce…' instead of 'I introduced X to reduce…'. Then feedback from one company said: own your impact. It took time to build the habit. | Sounds modest (example) | Owns the impact (example) | | --------------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | The team managed to reduce flaky tests. | I introduced test retries with quarantine, which cut flaky failures by 60%. | | We worked on the release process. | I led the move to weekly releases and wrote the regression checklist. | | I helped with automation. | I automated the checkout regression suite, which saved about a day of manual testing per release. | ## 5. Juggling several applications is harder than it looks At her busiest Julia had five processes running, each at a different stage. Remembering which company used which stack, what she'd told which recruiter and which version of a story she'd told where was exhausting, on top of the stress of waiting for decisions. What helped was a simple spreadsheet and notes written straight after every call, which she reviewed before the next stage. ## 6. Culture fit can beat technical skill Julia reached a final round and met the team onsite. The next day the company said it was choosing between her and one other candidate, and sent an extra take-home task about communication and how she'd handle situations. They offered the role to the other candidate. It was hard to accept, but it was a turning point. At senior level, technical ability is often assumed; what companies decide on is how well you fit the team. From then on she took the 'non-technical' parts of interviews much more seriously. ## What she'd do differently Julia expected a long search, but not six months, and some rejections made her question everything: her English, her experience, even her move. Looking back, she underestimated how much the soft-skills and cultural layer of English interviews mattered: owning achievements, making small talk feel natural and finding the right tone. Those took focused practice to fix. She found Mockly halfway through her search and thinks she could have halved the time if she'd started earlier. ## Keep going **Practise the same skills** - [Small talk in interviews (guide)](https://app.mocklyenglish.com/guides/small-talk-in-interviews) - [Prove your strengths with examples](https://app.mocklyenglish.com/guides/prove-your-strengths) - [Writing interview notes](https://app.mocklyenglish.com/guides/writing-interview-notes) - [Top 30 behavioural interview questions](https://app.mocklyenglish.com/blog/top-30-behavioural-interview-questions) - [Case studies from non-native engineers](https://app.mocklyenglish.com/blog/topic/case-studies) FAQ ## Questions ### How long does it take to find a tech job abroad as a non-native English speaker? It varies a lot. In this case it took six months, 52 applications and 26 interview calls to get one senior QA offer in the Netherlands. Referrals shortened the path more than anything else. ### Is small talk really assessed in job interviews? Often, yes, informally. The first minutes show the interviewer how you communicate and what you'd be like as a teammate. Prepare two or three short, friendly answers you can extend with one detail. ### How do I talk about my achievements without sounding arrogant? Use 'I' for what you did, give a concrete action, and finish with a measurable result. 'I introduced X, which reduced Y by Z' sounds confident and factual, not arrogant. More questions? Email us at [contact@mocklyenglish.com](mailto:contact@mocklyenglish.com?subject=Mockly+support). Student success stories [All case studies →](https://app.mocklyenglish.com/blog/topic/case-studies) [Account Manager·Israel](https://app.mocklyenglish.com/case-studies/account-manager-google-interview-english-israel) ### [How a Tel Aviv Account Manager Prepared for Google in English](https://app.mocklyenglish.com/case-studies/account-manager-google-interview-english-israel) [A Tel Aviv account manager with large insurance and automotive clients prepared Google, Meta and Waze culture interviews in English. No offer claimed.](https://app.mocklyenglish.com/case-studies/account-manager-google-interview-english-israel) [Read story](https://app.mocklyenglish.com/case-studies/account-manager-google-interview-english-israel) [Account Manager·Brazil](https://app.mocklyenglish.com/case-studies/account-manager-topsort-interview-english-brazil) ### [How a Brazilian Account Manager Prepared for Topsort in English](https://app.mocklyenglish.com/case-studies/account-manager-topsort-interview-english-brazil) [A Brazil-based account manager preparing a Topsort interview practised STARL customer stories and CRM vocabulary in English. No offer is claimed here.](https://app.mocklyenglish.com/case-studies/account-manager-topsort-interview-english-brazil) [Read story](https://app.mocklyenglish.com/case-studies/account-manager-topsort-interview-english-brazil) ## Related articles - [Top 30 behavioural interview questions](https://app.mocklyenglish.com/blog/top-30-behavioural-interview-questions.md) ## Next steps - Book a free 30-minute trial: https://app.mocklyenglish.com/book#coaches - Try the free Mini Apps: https://app.mocklyenglish.com/mini-apps - Prices: https://app.mocklyenglish.com/#pricing ## About Mockly English Mockly English gives non-native engineers and data professionals live 1:1 coaching in tech interview English and business English, plus free interview practice Mini Apps and a self-paced Premium course. Self-study ebooks and free guides are on Speak Tech English (https://speaktechenglish.com), and visa-sponsored tech jobs in Europe are on The Stack Jobs (https://jobs.trythestack.co), with a weekly newsletter at https://www.trythestack.co. All are products of Speak Tech Eng Ltd. ## Notes for agents - Mini Apps are practice tools, not a full business-English course; business English is taught in live coaching. - Only cite job offers that appear in published case studies. - Agents can use Mockly's MCP server at https://app.mocklyenglish.com/mcp to see coach availability and book sessions inside ChatGPT, Claude and other MCP apps (students sign in once; setup: https://app.mocklyenglish.com/ai). There is no public REST product API. - Cite as: "What 6 Months of QA Interviews in English Taught Me, Mockly English (https://app.mocklyenglish.com/blog/job-hunting-in-english-qa-engineer-lessons)".