2026 Zscaler India Campus SDE Prep: 37 Past OA / Interview Experiences (Part 5 :)

Continued from Part 4. The earlier FastPrep links will be added after those parts are published.

Coverage: Detailed timelines 25–32. This part covers 2021–2022 SDE, Java, QA, DevTest, Dev Java API, and Cloud Operations campus reports.

36 detailed candidate timelines, loops, and screens — continued

25: 2022 SDE-1 fresher — four-question OA and two C-heavy interviews

Interview date: October 2022 · Role: SDE-1 · Process: On-campus · Result: Rejected

Online assessment

1. Four easy-to-medium questions.
2. The saved topic list was String, Array, Map, DFS, and Sorting.
3. The report does not map each topic to a full prompt.

Technical interview 1

1. Resume and project discussion.
2. C and OOP questions.
3. Compare a Binary Tree with a Binary Search Tree.
4. Explain virtual functions.

Technical interview 2

1. Solve string and array problems in C. The prompts were not preserved.
2. Count Distinct Subsequences. The report names the standard task but gives no constraints.

26: Java Developer university hiring — parentheses, anagrams, and fundamentals

Interview date: September 2022 · Role: Java Developer · Location: New Delhi · Process: University hiring · Result: Accepted offer

1. Three technical interviews and one HR interview happened on the same day.
2. Validate parentheses.
3. Group anagrams.
4. Remove repeated words from a list.
5. Answer Computer Networks and Operating Systems questions.
6. The source does not show which problem appeared in which technical round or give the follow-ups.

27: Associate SWE–QA — three broad technical interviews

Interview date: September 2022 · Role: Associate Software Engineer–QA · Location: Jalandhar, Punjab · Result: No offer

1. Candidates first took an OA. The prompt list was not published.
2. Around 30–40 candidates moved to interviews.
3. Three interviews were mostly technical.
4. The focus was Computer Networks, Operating Systems, the programming language chosen by the candidate, and easier coding tasks.
5. The source did not keep the exact questions.

28: Software QA — five stages from resume shortlist to HR

Interview date: October 2022 · Role: Software QA Engineer · Location: Bengaluru · Process: Campus placement · Result: Accepted offer

1. Around 500 people applied.
2. Resume screening reduced that group to about 300.
3. A HackerRank coding test followed. The prompts were not published.
4. The candidate then had two technical interviews, each about one hour.
5. The main areas were Networking, OS, Linux/Unix, DSA, and projects.
6. An HR round closed the process.

29: DevTest summer intern — 21 candidates from a 450–500 person contest

Report date: June 2022 · Role: DevTest Summer Intern · Process: Campus · Result: Selected

This experience was published as an interview with the candidate.

1. Around 450–500 students took an online coding contest.
2. Twenty-one moved to the next stage.
3. Three technical interviews followed.
4. The candidate remembered Operating Systems, Computer Networks, and DSA as the main areas.
5. The article does not publish the individual OA or interview prompts.

30: 2021 Dev Java API — four unusual OA problems and three technical rounds

Role: DEV Java API · Process: On-campus · Result: Selected

The drive offered DEV and DEVTEST roles.

Coding round — 2 hours

The candidate solved three of four questions with all tests passing.

1. Ancestral Sorting. Input examples included John VII, David V, John V, Henry VI, and Henry IV. Sort by name, then by the numeric value of the Roman suffix. The report suggested splitting each entry into a name/number pair and using a comparator.
2. Spin Wheel. Repeatedly remove round-wise maximum values from a 2D matrix. The saved example reduced a three-row matrix across rounds and added 7 + 4 + 2 to get 13. The report mentioned a stack for saved maximum values.
3. Inversion count. Use Merge Sort and divide-and-conquer to count inverse pairs.
4. Exact-k digit substrings. Given a string of digits 0–9, count substrings in which every distinct digit appears exactly k times. The report suggested hashing.

Technical interview 1 — 45 minutes

1. Tell me about yourself, hobbies, strengths, and weaknesses.
2. OOP, SQL, programming fundamentals, and explanations of OA solutions.

Technical interview 2 — 45 minutes

1. Comparator-based sorting.
2. Algorithms and data structures.
3. Deep project discussion. The candidate warned that weak project knowledge could end the process.

Technical interview 3 — 45 minutes

1. Explain Lambda expressions. The candidate knew what they were but not how to implement them; the interviewer let them explain and then helped.
2. Java OOP, static and final variables, Java memory, and Collections.
3. Explain when to use ArrayList versus LinkedList.
4. Computer Networks, security, testing, deployment, Git, and algorithms.

31: 2021 internship — maximum product, probability, logs, and HR

Report date: September 14, 2021 · Role: Internship · Process: On-campus · Result: Selected

Online assessment

1. Networking MCQs.
2. Three easy coding questions: one Array and two String problems.
3. The candidate passed every test for two of the three coding questions.
4. The prompts were not saved.

Technical interview 1

1. Introduce yourself in about 50 words, with the focus on projects.
2. Explain all seven OSI layers.
3. Explain Java abstraction, encapsulation, and final.
4. Find the maximum product of three distinct numbers.
5. For [5,4,1,2,6], return 120.
6. For [5,4,1,2,6,6], still return 120 because the selected values must be distinct.
7. The candidate gave two approaches but could not handle the follow-up with negative numbers.

Technical interview 2

1. If three coins are tossed, what is the probability of at least two heads?
2. If you are crossing a road with heavy traffic and no traffic officer, what would you do?

Technical interview 3

1. Merge two sorted arrays into one sorted array.
2. Given a log file, print lines containing “errors” or “exceptions.”
3. Explain clustering and its uses.

People and Culture / HR

1. What do you expect from Zscaler?
2. Why do you want to join?
3. What do you know about the company?
4. What would you do if selected?

The candidate received the result four days later.

32: Cloud Operations university hire — scheduling, strings, maps, then HR

Interview date: August 2021 · Role: Cloud Operations Engineer · Location: Ludhiana, Punjab · Process: University hiring · Result: Accepted offer

1. A coding test came first.
2. The saved OA tasks were a job-scheduling problem and an easier implementation task. The full prompts were not published.
3. Two technical interviews followed.
4. The first covered Computer Networks fundamentals, String Matching, and HashMap.
5. The second covered the candidate’s internship experience and HR topics.
6. The source does not keep the exact follow-ups or durations.

Part 6 continues with timelines 33–36, then the evidence-based priorities and final checklist.