Oracle and PayPal Fresher Interview Process in India: What Candidates Reported, Year by Year

For anyone who has an Oracle or PayPal drive on the campus notice board. If both land in the same week as an IT-services test, multiple placement drives covers how to split your time.

TL;DR: I read three Oracle campus write-ups (2020, 2022, a 2023 post for the 2024 batch) and two PayPal ones (a 2021 SDE-1 account and a 2023 intern account). They are all candidate posts on GeeksforGeeks. I found no Oracle or PayPal page that states the fresher stages, so everything below is "as one candidate reported it, in that year". The main thing they show is that both companies changed their test between years. Oracle moved from an aptitude and core-CS paper to a HackerRank test with a REST API question, and PayPal's reported platform and cut-off differ from post to post.

I also looked at Mastercard and American Express. Those are one or two posts each, and neither says which country's campus it was, so they're not in this guide.

Oracle India: three years, three shapes

December 2020: the aptitude-and-core-CS paper

A Bangalore, virtual, campus account with a 7.0 CGPA cut-off. The writer describes:

• Online test: about 90-120 minutes, aptitude plus core CS (networks, OS, database, DSA), with sectional cut-offs. 36 of 155 students were selected.
• Technical interview 1 (35-45 minutes): a project from the resume, how its data was stored, what NLP is, DBMS and OS (mostly Linux), and removing duplicates from a linked list while explaining the logic first and then coding in a shared notepad. 25-30 students moved on.
• Technical interview 2 (30-40 minutes): questions around the candidate's published technical articles, plus reversing each word in a string without library functions.
• HR plus technical (about 30 minutes): cloud and Oracle products, and how you would implement single sign-on. The writer's read was that the interviewer wanted to see an approach to something new. 13 of 30 were selected.

Everything was on Zoom.

August 2022: HackerRank and elimination rounds

This account covers two roles from the same visit: NetSuite (Associate Software Engineer) and Server Technology (Member Technical Staff). The writer says the test pattern for round 1 had changed. It was fully virtual:

• Test: HackerRank, proctored, 105 minutes, 9 questions: 2 coding (a string problem and a REST API one about food outlets), 1 DBMS query, and 6 DSA multiple-choice questions (BFS, B-tree keys, counting inversions, topological sorts, swap counts). The writer solved everything except the REST API question. 14 were shortlisted for NetSuite and 32 (plus 6 waitlisted) for Server Technology.
• Pre-placement talk for shortlisted candidates only, held three days after the test.
• Technical 1: Zoom breakout rooms and two interviewers. Projects and internship, "what is a pure object-oriented language", a time-bound coding question (search-suggestions style, three lexicographically smallest products per prefix) on a shared HackerRank screen, then two SQL queries: show duplicates with frequency, delete duplicates. The post says the interviewer noticed the writer's HackerRank profile, because it is shared automatically.
• Technical 2: only two people cleared this, per the post. Topics included trees versus graphs, DFS and BFS, and longest increasing subsequence.
• Final round: the Java diamond problem and relocation to Hyderabad.

2023 post, 2024 batch

A shorter account for an Application Developer role: a HackerRank test with a few aptitude questions, 2 easy DSA problems and one REST API question, then two technical rounds on inheritance and the diamond problem, a puzzle, REST, the OSI model, joins, normalisation, virtual memory and SDLC. The page went up in September 2023, so "2024" is the graduating batch, not the year it happened.

What changed across the three

• The test moved from "aptitude plus core CS" to "coding plus SQL plus a REST API task". If you only prepared for aptitude, 2022 and 2023 would have surprised you.
• SQL and OOP show up in every year, in different rounds.
• Two accounts say interviewers eliminated candidates round by round, so a strong first technical round still isn't a pass.
• Location comes up late: the 2022 account's last round asks about relocating to Hyderabad.

PayPal India: two accounts that don't match

2021 SDE-1

• Eligibility: 85% or 8.5 CGPA in X, XII and the degree, no standing arrears.
• Online test: HackerEarth, 2 hours, 2 coding questions (a chessboard-moves count rated easy, a DP string-counting problem rated hard). The cut-off was one question; 31 of 427 students were shortlisted.
• Technical 1 (1 hour): a resume project, then mutual friends via graph and BFS that kept growing as the interviewer added constraints (about 45 minutes), then grouping anagrams.
• Technical 2 (1 hour): projects, vertical-order traversal of a binary tree, and dividing without using division, multiplication or modulo, then making it faster.
• Hiring manager (30 minutes): a puzzle about bursting the maximum number of balloons with arrows.

January 2023 SDE intern

• Shortlisting: "a decent GPA (preferably 8+)" per the writer.
• Online test: 90 minutes, one LeetCode-medium question (similar to cheapest flights within K stops) plus 10-15 JavaScript and web development multiple-choice questions.
• Technical (45 minutes): greedy or DP, data structure questions with follow-ups on why this and not that, OOP (polymorphism), SQL queries with follow-ups, and a string problem like Word Pattern coded on HackerRank. The result came about a month after the test and the interview within a week.
• HR: a thorough project discussion and questions about stress and deadlines.

Where they disagree

The platform (HackerEarth versus an unnamed test with web MCQs), the CGPA bar (8.5 versus "preferably 8+") and the question mix all differ. Some of that is SDE-1 versus an intern role, and some is two years apart. I can't tell which, and I'd rather say that than average them into a "PayPal pattern".

What the two share

• Projects are interrogated. Both PayPal accounts and the Oracle 2022 account spend the opening minutes on resume projects. Be ready to explain an algorithm you used and the problem you hit.
• Interviewers keep adding to the question. PayPal's mutual-friends problem grew with each constraint, and Oracle's candidate was asked for all approaches before being allowed to code.
• Fundamentals beyond DSA. SQL, OOP and REST come up repeatedly.
• Speaking the approach first. The 2020 Oracle writer's own tip was to say the logic before coding and to ask for a hint if stuck.

How to prep

Oracle: a mixed paper. Practise a 105-minute set in the 2022 shape: two coding tasks including one REST API problem (HackerRank has a REST API section where you fetch from an endpoint and parse the JSON), one SQL query, and six quick DSA multiple-choice questions on graphs, trees and counting. Do the REST task once end to end so you know the platform's quirks.

Oracle: SQL duplicates. Write "show duplicates with frequency" and "delete duplicates" from memory, in the dialect your resume claims.

PayPal: constraint-chasing. Take a graph problem, solve it, then ask yourself what happens when someone adds a weight, a cap or a tie-break. That's the shape of the 45-minute mutual-friends question.

Both: project drill. For each project: the data model, one algorithm, one decision you'd reverse, one number.

For the timed test, OA Copilot is built for online assessments on platforms like HackerRank and HackerEarth. Oracle's 2022 test was described as proctored, so read the rules in your own invite before deciding what to use. For the live rounds, a mock interview where you explain a solution aloud and then take three new constraints is much closer to what both companies' accounts describe than another solo problem set. If you're also preparing for other product companies, product-based OA prep and the Cisco and Intuit breakdown are written the same way.

Pay

None of the five posts states a salary, and I'm not quoting a figure from elsewhere. When an offer arrives, ask HR to split it into fixed pay, variable, joining bonus and any stock, then compare using the CTC structure guide.

FAQ

What is the Oracle online assessment for freshers in India?

The latest account I could open (August 2022) describes a proctored 105-minute HackerRank test with 9 questions: 2 coding (one REST API), 1 SQL and 6 DSA multiple-choice. A 2020 account describes an aptitude-plus-core-CS paper, so the format has changed.

How many interview rounds does Oracle have for freshers?

It varies. The 2020 account has an online test and three interviews; the 2022 account has a pre-placement talk, two elimination technical rounds and a last technical-plus-HR conversation.

Does Oracle ask SQL and Java questions to freshers?

In the 2022 account, yes: SQL in the test and in the first interview, and the Java diamond problem near the end. The 2024-batch post mentions inheritance, joins and normalisation.

What is PayPal's CGPA cut-off for freshers in India?

The posts disagree: 8.5 in the 2021 SDE-1 account, "preferably 8+" in the 2023 intern account. Your placement cell's notice is the one that counts.

What platform does PayPal use for its fresher online test?

One account says HackerEarth (2021). The other doesn't name the platform and describes a 90-minute test with one coding question and web MCQs (2023). I found no PayPal page confirming either.

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Author · Alex Chen. Career consultant and former tech recruiter. Spent 5 years on the hiring side before switching to help candidates instead. Writes about real interview dynamics, not textbook advice.