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Oracle OCI SDE Interview: Santa Clara, February 2020 (Rejected)

OracleSDE (LC2)·Santa Clara, CA·Interviewed February 2020No offer

Updated July 17, 2026

The candidate was a new graduate with about a year of prior work experience and a master's degree in computer science from a mid-tier US university, applying for an SDE - LC2 role on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure's (OCI) File Storage Service team in Santa Clara. The process began after reaching out to several engineering managers and directors on LinkedIn; one director referred the candidate to a hiring manager, who set up an initial call to discuss background, prior projects, and the team's work.

From there, the process moved to a recruiter-scheduled technical phone screen, followed about two weeks later by a single day of five back-to-back onsite interviews covering coding, system design, object-oriented design, and behavioral topics. The candidate ultimately received a rejection, noting in the write-up that this was their fifth onsite rejection since graduating.

How the process went

  1. Sourcing

    Reached out to several engineering managers and directors on LinkedIn; one director connected the candidate with a hiring manager on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure's (OCI) File Storage Service team in Santa Clara.

  2. Hiring manager call

    A roughly 30-minute call in which the hiring manager reviewed the candidate's prior experience and master's projects and explained the team's work and expectations for the role.

  3. Recruiter follow-up

    About a week after the hiring manager call, a recruiter scheduled a technical phone screen with a team member.

  4. Phone screen

    A roughly one-hour phone screen, which wrapped up around the 40-minute mark, covering OOP principles, Python lists, and an in-place sorting implementation.

  5. Onsite scheduling

    Two days after the phone screen, the candidate received an onsite invitation, prepared for about two weeks, and scheduled the onsite for February 3.

  6. Onsite (5 rounds)

    A single day of five back-to-back one-hour rounds: a combined behavioral/coding round, a system design round, a lunch interview with the hiring manager, an object-oriented design round, and a closing round mixing values questions with coding.

  7. Outcome

    Rejected. The candidate described this as their fifth onsite rejection since graduating and asked the community for feedback on how to improve.

Hiring Manager Call

Background and team overview · About 30 minutes

    Informal discussion of prior experience, master's projects, and an explanation of the team's work and role expectations.

    Technical Phone Screen

    OOP fundamentals and basic coding · Wrapped up around 40 minutes (of an allotted hour)

    • Explain OOP principles such as inheritance and polymorphism
    • Questions about Python lists
    • Implement an in-place sorting algorithm

    Onsite Round 1 — Behavioral and Coding

    Project deep dive, coding, and culture questions · 1 hour

    • Explain a project completed during the master's program, with follow-up questions
    • Implement the Unix grep command in C++ or Java
    • Questions about OCI values

    Onsite Round 2 — System Design

    Messaging system design · 1 hour

    • Design a WhatsApp-like messaging app, covering one-to-one messaging, sent/delivered/read receipts, push notifications, and image/video sharing

    Onsite Round 3 — Lunch Interview with Hiring Manager

    Behavioral, conflict handling · 1.5 hours

    • How do you handle conflicts with your manager?
    • Are you a team player?
    • Describe an instance of conflict with a teammate and how it was resolved

    Candidate noted the hiring manager let them ask most of the questions during this round.

    Onsite Round 4 — Object-Oriented Design

    OO design and puzzle implementation · 1 hour

    • Implement the Futoshiki puzzle

    Focus was on class design and writing code to verify the puzzle's correctness.

    Onsite Round 5 — Coding and Values

    Coding plus OCI values · 1 hour

    • Questions about OCI values
    • K Closest Points to Origin (LeetCode)

    Key takeaways

    • Prioritize system design and object-oriented design preparation alongside coding — this onsite leaned heavily on both, not just algorithm problems.
    • Practice company-tagged problem sets (here, Oracle-tagged LeetCode questions) rather than relying only on general practice.
    • Keep talking through a problem out loud when stuck instead of going quiet; the candidate flagged this as their main misstep.
    • Expect values-based questions to appear inside technical rounds, not only in a dedicated culture-fit round.
    • Reaching out directly to hiring managers and directors on LinkedIn can open a referral path into a role even without an existing internal contact.

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    Source

    The questions and process facts come from the candidate's public write-up, linked below. The retelling above is our own summary.

    Candidate's public write-up on LeetCode Discuss