Oracle interview process (2026)

Round-by-round breakdown of the Oracle software engineering interview across 4 levels and 22 rounds: interview mode, sample questions, and worked solutions.

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Software Developer Intern / Associate Software Developer Intern (Summer / 2-6 month; campus + off-campus)

Difficulty: Medium · Timeline: 1-2 days · Recommended prep: 4-8 weeks · Cooldown: ~6 months

  1. Round 0: Online Assessment (OA)

    Assessment · ~75-90 minutes · difficulty 2/5 · elimination round

    Mode of interview: Online assessment · HackerRank

    Sample question: Top K Frequent Elements — Given an array of n integers and an integer k, return the k most frequent elements (any order). Input: line 1 is n; line 2 is the n integers; line 3 is k. Output the k values.

  2. Round 1: Technical Interview 1

    Onsite · ~45-55 minutes · difficulty 2/5 · elimination round

    Mode of interview: Onsite or virtual onsite interview

    Sample question: Decode Ways — Given a non-empty string of digits, count the number of ways to decode it into uppercase letters where 'A'->1, 'B'->2, ..., 'Z'->26. For example "226" -> 3 ways, "100" -> 0, "205" -> 1.

  3. Round 2: Technical Interview 2 (some batches split into a short 3rd round)

    Onsite · ~30-45 minutes · difficulty 2/5 · elimination round

    Mode of interview: Onsite or virtual onsite interview

    Sample question: Add Two Numbers (Linked Lists) — Two numbers are given as linked lists (e.g. L1 = 6->4->8 is 648, L2 = 8->4->9->8 is 8498). Return their sum as a linked list (648 + 8498 = 9146, i.e. 9->1->4->6). Handle carry and unequal lengths. Input: each line lists one linked list's nodes, most-significant digit first.

  4. Round 3: HR / Behavioral Round

    Behavioral · ~5-15 minutes · difficulty 1/5

    Mode of interview: Live behavioral interview

Software Engineer / SDE (IC2-IC3)

Difficulty: Medium · Timeline: ~3-6 weeks · Recommended prep: 6-10 weeks · Cooldown: ~6-12 months

  1. Round 0: Recruiter / HR Screen

    Phone · ~30 min · elimination round

    Mode of interview: Remote phone or video interview

  2. Round 1: Online Assessment (HackerRank / Codility)

    Assessment · 60-90 min · difficulty 2/5 · elimination round

    Mode of interview: Online assessment

    Sample question: LRU Cache — Design a data structure that supports get(key) and put(key,value) in O(1) average time, evicting the least-recently-used entry when capacity is exceeded.

  3. Round 2: Technical Interview 1 - DSA / Coding

    Onsite · 45-60 min · difficulty 3/5

    Mode of interview: Onsite or virtual onsite interview

    Sample question: Number of Islands — Given an m x n grid of '1' (land) and '0' (water), count the number of islands. An island is formed by connecting adjacent land cells horizontally or vertically.

  4. Round 3: Technical Interview 2 - DSA + LLD / DBMS / Concurrency

    Onsite · 45-60 min · difficulty 3/5

    Mode of interview: Onsite or virtual onsite interview

    Sample question: Design a Typeahead / Autocomplete Search-Suggestion Service — Design an autocomplete/typeahead system that returns the top-k ranked suggestions for a query prefix with low latency. Discuss the trie/prefix index, ranking by popularity, caching of hot prefixes, and how suggestions are updated as new query traffic arrives.

  5. Round 4: System Design / LLD + Hiring Manager

    System_design · 30-60 min · difficulty 3/5

    Mode of interview: Live system design interview

    Sample question: Design a Chat / Messaging Service — Design a real-time messaging service supporting one-on-one and group chats: message delivery and ordering, online presence, WebSocket fan-out via an API gateway and message service, storage, and offline delivery.

  6. Round 5: Managerial / HR - Behavioral + Offer

    Behavioral · ~30 min · difficulty 1/5

    Mode of interview: Live behavioral interview

Senior Software Engineer / SMTS (IC4)

Difficulty: Hard · Timeline: ~3-6 weeks · Recommended prep: 8-12 weeks · Cooldown: ~6-12 months

  1. Round 0: Recruiter / HR Screen

    Phone · ~30 min · elimination round

    Mode of interview: Remote phone or video interview

  2. Round 1: Technical Screen - DSA + Multithreading (Elimination)

    Phone · 45-60 min · difficulty 3/5 · elimination round

    Mode of interview: Remote phone or video interview

    Sample question: Median of Two Sorted Arrays — Given two sorted arrays of sizes m and n, return the median of the combined sorted array in O(log(min(m,n))) time.

  3. Round 2: Technical Loop - DSA

    Onsite · 45-60 min · difficulty 3/5

    Mode of interview: Onsite or virtual onsite interview

    Sample question: First Missing Positive — Given an unsorted integer array, return the smallest missing positive integer using O(n) time and O(1) auxiliary space (in-place cyclic placement).

  4. Round 3: System Design (HLD)

    System_design · 45-60 min · difficulty 3/5

    Mode of interview: Live system design interview

    Sample question: Design a Distributed Key-Value Store — Design a horizontally scalable distributed key-value store: data partitioning (consistent hashing), replication and quorum reads/writes, tunable consistency vs availability (CAP), handling node failures and rebalancing, and hot-key mitigation.

  5. Round 4: Concurrency / SQL + Project Deep-Dive

    Onsite · 45-60 min · difficulty 3/5

    Mode of interview: Onsite or virtual onsite interview

  6. Round 5: Hiring Manager / Bar Raiser - Behavioral + Design

    Behavioral · 45-60 min · difficulty 3/5

    Mode of interview: Live behavioral interview

Principal Software Engineer (IC5)

Difficulty: Hard · Timeline: Several weeks; principal loops involve more panel coordinati · Recommended prep: 10-12+ weeks: hard DSA, deep distributed · Cooldown: ~12 months

  1. Round 0: Recruiter / HR Screen

    Phone · ~30 min · elimination round

    Mode of interview: Remote phone or video interview

  2. Round 1: Initial Technical Screen - DSA + System/Architecture

    Phone · 45-60 min · difficulty 3/5 · elimination round

    Mode of interview: Remote phone or video interview

    Sample question: Integer to English Words — Convert a non-negative 32-bit integer to its English-words representation (e.g. 1234567 -> 'One Million Two Hundred Thirty Four Thousand Five Hundred Sixty Seven'). Emphasis on grouping by thousands and clean spacing/edge cases.

  3. Round 2: Technical Loop - DSA + Project Architecture

    Onsite · 45-60 min · difficulty 3/5

    Mode of interview: Onsite or virtual onsite interview

    Sample question: Merge k Sorted Lists — Merge k sorted linked lists into one sorted list. Aim for O(N log k) using a min-heap over list heads.

  4. Round 3: System Design (Distributed / HLD)

    System_design · 45-60 min · difficulty 4/5

    Mode of interview: Live system design interview

    Sample question: Design a Distributed Database System — Design a distributed database that guarantees high availability, consistency, and fault tolerance: data partitioning/sharding, replication strategy and consensus, consistency models and the CAP trade-off, handling network partitions, and failover/recovery. Emphasis on enterprise SLAs given Oracle's data-platform focus.

  5. Round 4: Hiring Manager - Design + Behavioral

    Behavioral · 45-60 min · difficulty 3/5

    Mode of interview: Live behavioral interview

  6. Round 5: Bar Raiser

    Other · 45-60 min · difficulty 4/5

    Mode of interview: Interview format varies by team

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Worked sample solutions (code, design diagrams, and STAR answers) for every round are available in the FAANGPlus app: open interview processes.