Oracle Interview Experience for Associate Software Engineer (On-Campus) 2022

Oracle visited our Campus for two roles i.e., NetSuite(Associate Software Engineer) and Server Technology(Member Technical Staff). This year the test pattern for the first round has been changed. The entire process was virtual. 

Round 1(Online Test): This was an online test on the HackerRank Platform held on 3rd August 2022. It was a proctored exam of 105 minutes. There were 9 questions in all, 2 of them were coding questions, 1 DBMS query and 6 were DSA-based MCQs.

1. Modify the String: https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/lexicographically-largest-subsequence-containing-all-distinct-characters-only-once/
2. REST API(Relevant Food Outlets): You can refer to the HackerRank REST API section.
3. DBMS Query:  Write a query to print the names of all the hackers from the HACKER table where a number of months is less than 10 and a number of hackos (hackos*months) are greater than 100. Records should be in ascending order of ID. 
4. BFS of the given graph.
5. A number of keys in a B-Tree of order 6 and height 4.
6. Count inversions in the given array.
7. A number of Topological Sorts for the given graph.
8. A number of swaps to convert arr1 to arr2.
9. Number of swaps to make the array sorted.

I was able to solve all the questions except the REST API one. Results were declared on 6th August 2022, 14 candidates were shortlisted for the NetSuite role and 32(+6 Wait-listed) were shortlisted for the Server Technology Role. I was shortlisted for the former. Pre-Placement Talk(for shortlisted candidates only) for respective roles was held on 9th August 2022 from 9 AM to 10 AM.

Round 2(Technical Interview-I): After the PPT, we were asked to join the zoom meet link at the time communicated by the Oracle Campus Relations team. On joining the meet, we were asked to join the breakout room. Then we were assigned the interviewers. 

• One of the two interviewers asked me about my projects as well as my internship experience in brief. Then they asked me about my preferred language to which replied Java. 
• What is a pure Object-oriented language?
• Pillars of OOPs in brief.
• Next, I was presented with a time-bound coding question. Given a String array of products and a searchWord, find all the possible products starting with each and every prefix of the searchWord and place in a list. If more than three products are there, return the three lexicographically smallest ones. I gave all the possible approaches and optimizations for this question and once the interviewer was satisfied with my approach he asked me to code. 
  • Input: products=[“bad”,”bagels”, “baggage”,”bags”,”bed”], searchWord=”bags”
  • Output: [[“bad”,”bagels”, “baggage”],[“bad”,”bagels”, “baggage”],[“bagels”,”baggage”,”bags”],[“bags”]]
• Next, there were two DBMS queries,
  • Display all duplicates(with frequency) in the table.
  • Delete all duplicates in the table

The platform used was HackerRank and I was asked to share my screen. The interviewer was quick to notice that I have solved many questions on HackerRank(Your HackerRank profile is automatically shared with the interviewer) and I was familiar with the platform. This was an elimination round and out of 14, 9-10 students were eliminated in this round.

Round 3(Technical Interview-II): I was told that you will be informed whether you have any further rounds and was asked to join another breakout room. After 10-15 minutes another Interviewer joined. 

• She asked about my experience in the first round and further asked me to elaborate on my technical skills. Then some questions related to Data Structures were asked. 
• What all Data Structures do you know?
• You mentioned trees, so what are all tree traversals that you know of?
• How can you differentiate between a tree and a graph?
• What is the DFS and BFS of the graph?
• Which data structure is used to implement DFS and BFS?
• Then I was presented with another coding question, Longest Increasing Subsequence. I gave all the possible approaches and optimizations and once the interviewer was satisfied with my approach she asked me to code. https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/longest-increasing-subsequence-dp-3/
• Do you have any questions for me?

This was also an elimination round and only 2 students were able to clear this round.

Round 4(Technical+HR):  I was told that you will be informed whether you have any further rounds and was asked to join another breakout room. After 10-15 minutes another Interviewer joined. He was quite friendly and started a normal conversation in order to test my communication skills. 

• Where are you from?
• Are you willing to relocate to Hyderabad as it is very far from your city?
• So which language are you more comfortable in?
• The diamond problem in Java.
• Interface and solution of the diamond problem.
• Can a class implement two interfaces with the same method signature?
• What if the main method is overloaded?
• What if the main method is overrided?
• What if the main method is made private?
• Next up was a coding question. Given two people and their calendars as well as time-bound, print all the slots in which they both are free for x minutes.  gave all the possible approaches and optimizations and once the interviewer was satisfied with my approach she asked me to code the same. As we were running out of time and the input was a string. It was a tedious task to first convert the input into the integer format so the interviewer asked me to write a pseudo-code for the problem. Then I was asked about the complexity of my code and whether I can reduce it further.
• What difficulties did you face during your internship? Describe in brief.
• Do you have any questions for me?

I was told that I was done for the day and to wait for the results. The entire interview process was held in a day and went on for 5 hours, i.e., from 1 PM to 6 PM without any breaks.

Results were announced at 10 AM on 10th August 2022. In NetSuite 2 candidates were selected and in Server Technology 5 were selected.

Interview Tips: 

• Confidence is the key! Don’t be nervous, the interviewers are friendly people and will try to make you comfortable by engaging in healthy conversations. 
• Be vocal and think out loud. Try to explain each and every line of your code while writing it so the interviewer can decipher your thoughts well.
• Your approach matters. Even if your code doesn’t work, don’t worry just try to communicate your approach to the interviewer as they are more interested in how your brain interprets a problem. They will give you umpteen hints so try to work it out with them. 
• If you are unable to answer a question, do not stall the interviewer. Just say, Sorry sir I am unable to answer this question.
• Maintain good body language and have a warm smile on your face.

I hope this article answers all your doubts. All the best!