Oracle | Senior Application Software Engineer | 6+ YOE [Rejected]
Summary
I attended five interview rounds for a Senior Application Software Engineer position at Oracle and was ultimately rejected. The process covered DSA, Java, SQL, system design, and behavioral questions.
Full Experience
Round 1: Initial Technical Screening (Qualifying Round)
Duration: ~1 to 1.5 hours
The discussion started with a brief introduction followed by a detailed discussion of one of my previous projects.
DSA Questions
1. Find the alphabetically maximum substring from a given string.
2. Remove all even‑positioned nodes from a singly linked list.
Java Questions
- Explain the String Pool.
- Difference between String, new String(), and StringBuilder.
- When should each be used?
SQL Question
Given tables Student(Id, Name, DeptId) and Department(Id, Name), write an SQL query to list all departments sorted by (1) number of students descending and (2) alphabetically by department name for ties.
Round 2: Technical Interview 1 (DSA + Past Projects)
The interviewer started with introductions and a discussion about my current project, focusing on monitoring and alerting systems.
DSA Question
Given an array of movie ratings (positive or negative), maximize the total rating collected with the constraint that you cannot skip more than one consecutive movie.
Round 3: Technical Interview 2
Introductions followed by a deep discussion on my current project. Topics included SQL vs NoSQL, queue usage, SLA considerations, and design trade‑offs.
DSA Question
Given a matrix where 1 represents a valid path and 0 a blocked cell, find all possible paths from the top‑left to the bottom‑right cell moving only Right and Down.
Round 4: Hiring Manager Round
Focused on behavioral aspects, leadership, and system design. Discussed past projects, system design questions, leadership experiences, conflict resolution, stakeholder communication, and business impact.
Round 5: Bar Raiser (Bartender) Round
Mixed technical depth and leadership evaluation. Covered deep dive into current and previous projects, architectural decisions, system design, situation‑based behavioral questions, decision‑making scenarios, ownership, collaboration, and handling ambiguity.
Overall Experience
The interview evaluated data structures & algorithms, Java fundamentals, SQL, system design, project depth, leadership, decision‑making ability, and communication skills. Interviewers were friendly and emphasized reasoning behind design decisions.
Verdict: Rejected
Areas of Improvement: Coding and independent execution (could not solve the DP question).
Interview Questions (5)
Alphabetically Maximum Substring
Find the alphabetically maximum substring from a given string.
Remove Even‑Positioned Nodes from Linked List
Remove all even‑positioned nodes from a singly linked list.
Department Sorting SQL Query
Given tables Student(Id, Name, DeptId) and Department(Id, Name), write an SQL query to list all departments sorted by number of students in descending order, and alphabetically by department name when counts are equal.
Maximum Rating with Skip Constraint
Given an array of movie ratings (which can be positive or negative), maximize the total rating collected with the constraint that you cannot skip more than one consecutive movie.
All Paths in Binary Matrix
Given a matrix where 1 represents a valid path and 0 a blocked cell, find all possible paths from the top‑left to the bottom‑right cell moving only Right and Down.