Got an invitation on Linked-in about an opening from a Manager based in US. The position interviewed was based in India for a CMTS position.
Pre- Screening : An architect from US took the interview. He provided a problem statement and asked me to design a class on an online editor. I was disappointed with the problem statement for an architect role. He told me to watch out in other rounds
Oracle has a specific 5 rounds of interview and I was told that I would be given a feedback at the end of 5 rounds and no 1 round would impact the result.
Round1: Architect from US provided an interesting problem statement and design for Data Structures. I was able to define the data structure, use suitable algorithm, make it thread safe, partition and parallelize for large scale. The whole interview felt good.
Round2: Interviewer had specific questions on my current role, problems I had faced and how it solved. More of an open discussion. Gave a data structure question and I think i answered it ok
Round3: Architect from US again. This time he gave an open ended problem and asked for design. It was the most fun filled session to design end to end. The interviewer added scenarios to see how the design withstands, since my interview questions are similar, it was a cake walk
Round 4: Bar riser. Initially, he did not switch on his camera. I made him to and did not like it. Architect from India. He asked similar questions to Round2. Gave a data structure question and asked me to compile on an online editor, it took time to get it compiling because I am not used to it. But got it working 50%. He gave another oral question I was able to answer the same. However, both questions are standard online ones very disappointing to ask for an Architect role
Round 5 : Hiring manager. This is one of the worst in my career. I never heard back after this interview. Not that it would matter. Look, I am paid over 8 figures in my current role in India and definitely begging for job.
Here are some of the snippets from the interview and you decide for yourself.
Interviewer: What did you build in your earlier role?
Me: Architect for XXX feature in XXX app
Interviewer: Well, I use it when I come to India but never seen the feature...
[So?]
Interviewer: What is your current role
Me: We are building XXX.....
Interviewer: Don't tell "we", tell me what are "you" are doing...
[As a lead/architect, you have your team build things for you.... If everything is I, I, I, what does he do as a manager?]
Interviewer: What tools do you use
Me: Evaluated X, Y, Z. Android use X, IOS uses Y for K reason
Interviewer: Tell that it is platform specific nothing more
[What?]
Interviewer: How do you do automated testing
Me: On P cloud service from N company
Interviewer: What is that? I have never heard of it!!
[So?]
After that he gave a DataStructure question, I couldn't understand the question why it has to be that way. He gave some clarification, did not understand one bit. After sometime ended the interview (And thankfully after such a demotivating session)
Overall: I recommend taking interviews from US based architects, they are smart and it will be respectable, fun session not such much from India based ones.
Secondly, I think the interviews need to be structured on what each round is about. I got at-least 3 times similar questions on my role and had to repeat each time because of which some interviews extended to more than 1.5 hours.
Thirdly, if you are going to have 5 compulsory interviews, the interviews should be learning experience making the time spent worthwhile. I would always judge an interviewer quality on whether his questions are available online and whether he has the ability to ask an open ended question and followup with additional questions on your answers.
Fourthly, for any of the interviews, Oracle is not providing with the profile of the interviewer before hand. You do not know about the interviewer or the interview pre-requisite before hand.