Oscar Health Software Engineer Phone Screen Questions
3+ questions from real Oscar Health Software Engineer Phone Screen rounds, reported by candidates who interviewed there.
What does the Oscar Health Phone Screen round test?
The Oscar Health phone screen typically lasts 45-60 minutes and evaluates core Software Engineer fundamentals. Candidates should expect 1-2 algorithmic problems, basic system design discussion at senior levels, and questions about relevant experience. The goal is to confirm technical competence before bringing candidates onsite.
Top Topics in This Round
Oscar Health Software Engineer Phone Screen Questions
## Problem Schedule or query medical appointments, detecting conflicts or finding the earliest available slot. ## Likely LeetCode equivalent Similar to LC 253 Meeting Rooms II. ## Tags heap, intervals, oscar_health
Medical Procedures: Schedule Medical Procedures Respecting Dependencies and Resource Constraints
## Problem A hospital needs to schedule `n` medical procedures. Each procedure has a duration, a required room type, and a list of prerequisite procedures that must complete first. Rooms of the same type are interchangeable. Find the minimum total makespan (finish time of the last procedure) using as many rooms as needed. ```python def schedule_procedures( procedures: list[dict], # {id, duration, room_type, prerequisites: list[str]} rooms: dict # {room_type: count} ) -> dict: # {procedure_id: start_time} pass ``` **Example:** ``` procedures = [ {"id":"A", "duration":30, "room_type":"OR", "prerequisites":[]}, {"id":"B", "duration":20, "room_type":"ICU", "prerequisites":["A"]}, {"id":"C", "duration":15, "room_type":"OR", "prerequisites":[]} ] rooms = {"OR": 1, "ICU": 1} Output: {"A": 0, "C": 30, "B": 30} # A and C compete for OR; B waits for A ``` ## Follow-ups 1. How do you detect cycles in the prerequisite graph? 2. This is a generalization of job-shop scheduling — what makes it NP-hard in the general case? 3. For a practical hospital with 20 procedures, what heuristic gives good results quickly? 4. How would you handle emergencies that must preempt a scheduled procedure?
## Problem Determine which patients or regions are covered by a healthcare provider network using graph reachability. ## Likely LeetCode equivalent No confident LC match. ## Tags graph, bfs, oscar_health
What to Expect in the Oscar Health Phone Screen Round
The Oscar Health Software Engineer Phone Screen round has a specific calibration purpose distinct from other rounds in the loop. Across 3+ verified reports on LeakCode for this exact round type, the consistent expectations: clear scoping of the problem before diving into a solution, explicit reasoning about complexity, structured handling of edge cases, and the ability to discuss trade-offs between two reasonable approaches.
Reports tagged with the Phone Screen round at Oscar Health show recurring patterns in difficulty and topic distribution. The Phone Screen round is typically 45-60 minutes; the interviewer is calibrated against a specific rubric. The discriminator between candidates who advance and candidates who do not is rarely the final correctness of the answer. It is the path: did you clarify, did you verbalize your approach, did you handle edge cases, and did you communicate throughout.
How To Prepare for This Specific Round
Filter the questions below to the most recent reports (past 6-12 months). Questions tagged for this exact round type from this exact company at this exact role level are the highest-signal data available. Older reports may reference questions that have since rotated out of the company's pool.
Practice 4-6 representative problems from this set under timed conditions. The goal is not memorization (companies rotate questions); the goal is to internalize the patterns the interviewer typically reaches for and the depth of follow-up to expect. Reports on LeakCode also tag the typical follow-up depth at this round type, which is the discriminating signal between hire and no-hire calibration.
Phone Screen Round Timing and Format
The Phone Screen round at Oscar Health typically runs 45-60 minutes. Use the first 2-3 minutes to clarify requirements; you should never start coding or designing without verifying the input/output format, constraints, and edge cases out loud. Use the next 5-7 minutes to verbalize your approach before writing any code. The middle 20-30 minutes are implementation. Reserve the final 10 minutes for testing with concrete examples and discussing optimization or trade-offs.
Time budget discipline is one of the most reliable senior-vs-junior discriminators in this round. Strong candidates verbalize where they are in their budget out loud ("I've used about 20 minutes, I have 15 minutes left for testing and one optimization"). This signals engineering maturity to the interviewer and creates positive feedback they can capture in writing.
Common Failure Modes in This Round
Reports tagged "no hire" at Oscar Health Software Engineer Phone Screen commonly cite: coding silently without verbalizing approach, jumping to implementation before clarifying requirements, missing edge cases (empty input, single element, very large input), producing working code that the candidate cannot refactor when asked, and failing to test their solution with concrete examples before declaring done.
The single most predictive failure mode in 2025-2026 reports: not asking clarifying questions. Interviewers at all FAANG companies are explicitly trained to weight this dimension. Strong candidates ask 3-5 clarifying questions even on problems that look obvious; weak candidates dive into code immediately. The clarifying-question check is often the first signal recorded in the interviewer's notes.
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