I applied for the role of Application Developer (Java development) on Oracle's job portal and was contacted via email a month later. I received an interview invitation for a weekend drive.

The job location was Hyderabad, but the interview was conducted in Chennai. There were three problem-solving rounds, one design round, and one video conference manager round.

In all rounds, sufficient time was provided to think through the problems, write the code, and the interviewers were very friendly, ensuring my comfort.

Round 1:

Puzzle: You are given four pairs of socks: Red, Green, Blue, and Yellow. Arrange the eight individual socks such that there are four socks between the Yellow ones, three between the Blue, two between the Green, and one between the Red.

Pen and paper coding: Given an integer n, print the following structure (note the space between the stars):

• • ---

    • • • • (n=4)

Given a mobile number and conditions for a "fancy number," determine if the given number is fancy. The conditions are:

• A single number occurs three consecutive times (e.g., 777).
• Three consecutive digits are either in increasing or decreasing fashion (e.g., 456 or 987).
• A single number occurs four or more times in the number (e.g., 9859009976 - here, the digit 9 occurs 4 times).

Round 2:

You are given an array of integers, where each integer ranges from -10 to +10. Find the minimum and maximum possible products obtained by multiplying the array elements. Example: [-1, -2, 10, -10] Maximum product: 10 * -10 * -2 = 200 Minimum product: 10 * -10 * -2 * -1 = -200

Several Java OOPS questions followed, more like a rapid fire. The interviewer asked questions one after another. What do you know about Machine Learning and deep learning? How many squares are there in a chessboard? (No, not 64)

Round 3:

Write a piece of code that causes a deadlock and explain how to rectify it.

You are given an array containing stock prices for n days. You can make two transactions (Buy → Sell, then Buy → Sell). Find the maximum profit.

You are given an array containing 0s and 1s. Find the position of the single 0 that, if replaced with 1, would result in the maximum number of consecutive 1s.

You are given a string, say "ABC." Find all possible subsets of the string. In this case, it would be A, B, C, AB, BC, AC, ABC ((2^n)-1 combinations).

Round 4:

I was asked to specify a few database tables I've worked with, including their primary and foreign keys. I specified Product, Vendor, Warehouse, etc.

Then, I was asked to design a product search page end-to-end. I had to write code on paper for everything, including JSP and controller.

Round 5:

This was the final round. Since I was interviewed in Chennai for a position in Hyderabad, this was a video conference round with the project manager.

About myself and my current work. How do you find the 4th maximum salary from an employee table?

You have Rs. 100. There are three items A, B, and C. A costs Rs. 10 per piece, B costs Rs. 5 per piece, and C costs 25 paise. Using Rs. 100 fully, you have to buy A, B, and C such that the total count of items is also 100, with a minimum of 1 count from each item. What is the count of each item you will buy?

You have four sevens (7, 7, 7, 7). You can use any of ., +, -, /, * operators. You have to use all the sevens and any of these operators to get the result 100.

I completed my first four rounds in a single day, from 9:30 AM to 7:30 PM on November 25, 2017.

I had the video conference round on November 29, 2017.

They announced the interview result on December 1, 2017, and asked me to apply for a specific Job ID on their portal to process the offer.

I submitted my documents on December 7, 2017, for background verification, and received the offer on January 3, 2018. I am joining Oracle in March 2018.

Problem Solving, OOPS Concepts