As a Software Engineer at Ernst & Young Oman, you play a crucial role in shaping the technological landscape of the firm. This position is vital, as software engineers are responsible for developing innovative solutions that drive efficiency, enhance client experiences, and ensure the firm remains competitive in a rapidly evolving market. Your work contributes to various projects, including those in cloud computing, data analytics, and enterprise applications, which are integral to EY's mission of building a better working world. The impact of your contributions extends beyond just coding; you will be involved in the entire software development lifecycle, from ideation to deployment. You'll collaborate with cross-functional teams to address real-world challenges and develop scalable solutions that align with EY’s strategic objectives. This role offers an exciting opportunity to work with cutting-edge technologies, engage in complex problem-solving, and influence the direction of projects that are critical to the firm’s success. Expect to be immersed in a dynamic environment that encourages innovation and continuous improvement. As a Software Engineer, you will leverage your technical expertise to contribute to high-impact initiatives, making this role both challenging and rewarding.
Initial Screening
reportedCandidates undergo an initial screening to assess their qualifications and fit for the role.
What to demonstrate
- Candidates undergo an initial screening to assess their qualifications and fit for the role
- Depth in C#
How to prepare
- Be able to walk your CV end to end in two minutes, and say why this company specifically.
- Have your salary expectations, notice period and location constraints ready, and ask for the rest of the loop in writing.
Technical Interview
reportedCandidates participate in technical interviews that may include coding assessments or system design discussions.
What to demonstrate
- Candidates participate in technical interviews that may include coding assessments or system design discussions
- Depth in C#
How to prepare
- Answer aloud and timed: Can you describe the Entity Framework and its advantages?
- Answer aloud and timed: Write an SQL query to retrieve unique records from a table.
Behavioral Assessment
reportedBehavioral interviews explore candidates' motivations and past experiences to evaluate cultural fit.
What to demonstrate
- Behavioral interviews explore candidates' motivations and past experiences to evaluate cultural fit
- Depth in C#
How to prepare
- Prepare three examples from your own work, each with a decision you made and an outcome you can quantify.
- Re-read the description of the behavioral assessment above and write down what you would ask to confirm before it.
PracHub editorial advice for the preparation topics above.
Know Your Resume
Be ready to discuss every detail on your resume, especially projects and technologies you've worked with.
Practice Coding
Leverage platforms like LeetCode to familiarize yourself with coding problems that may come up during technical assessments.
Align with Company Values
Research EY’s culture and values, and be prepared to articulate how your experiences align with them.
Ask Questions
Prepare thoughtful questions for your interviewers to demonstrate your interest and engagement.
Choose a category, try a prompt, then open its approach, worked solution or follow-up when you need it.
Solve a problem involving data structures, such as flattening an array without using built-in methods.
Solve a problem involving data structures, such as flattening an array without using built-in methods.
Approach
- Restate the input: its shape, its size, and what is guaranteed about it.
- Name the brute-force solution and its complexity before improving on it.
- Choose the data structure from the access pattern, not from familiarity.
- State the target complexity and say which constraint rules the naive version out.
Follow-up
- How does this change if the input no longer fits in memory?
- What is the worst case, and how likely is it on real data?
Write a function to reverse a string in place.
Write a function to reverse a string in place.
Approach
- Restate the input: its shape, its size, and what is guaranteed about it.
- Name the brute-force solution and its complexity before improving on it.
- Choose the data structure from the access pattern, not from familiarity.
- State the target complexity and say which constraint rules the naive version out.
Follow-up
- How does this change if the input no longer fits in memory?
- What is the worst case, and how likely is it on real data?
Discuss the time complexity of your solution and any optimizations.
Discuss the time complexity of your solution and any optimizations.
Approach
- Restate the input: its shape, its size, and what is guaranteed about it.
- Name the brute-force solution and its complexity before improving on it.
- Choose the data structure from the access pattern, not from familiarity.
- State the target complexity and say which constraint rules the naive version out.
Follow-up
- How does this change if the input no longer fits in memory?
- What is the worst case, and how likely is it on real data?
Write an SQL query to retrieve unique records from a table.
Write an SQL query to retrieve unique records from a table.
Approach
- Name the grain you start from and join outward from it.
- Check whether any join is one-to-many before aggregating, or the sums inflate.
- Say which index the query would use, and what makes it unusable.
- Handle the rows that do not match: that is usually the actual question.
Follow-up
- How does the query change if that join becomes one-to-many?
- What happens to this when the table is ten times larger?
Stop tag and share joins from fanning out a page
resource_tag is (resource_id, tag_id) with PK (resource_id, tag_id); resource_share is (resource_id, shared_with_user_id, permission). The tagged-and-shared listing inner-joins resource to both, filters tenant_id, tag_id = ANY($2) and shared_with_user_id = $3, orders by updated_at DESC and takes 50. Pages come back with fewer than 50 distinct resources and the total in the header is far too high. Explain the row multiplication, rewrite both the page query and the count query so each is correct, and name the index each one needs. PostgreSQL 16.
Approach
- Do the arithmetic against the predicates that are actually there. An inner join emits one row per matching child row, and both joins are filtered: tag_id = ANY($2) admits only the requested tags, shared_with_user_id = $3 admits one user's share rows. So a resource holding three of the requested tags and shared with $3 once yields three rows, not one — the multiplier is its count of matching tags times its share rows for that single user, and that second factor is 1 unless the table admits duplicate (resource_id, shared_with_user_id) pairs. LIMIT 50 then limits rows rather than resources, and COUNT(*) counts pairs — the header is the product, not the population.
- Reject DISTINCT as the fix. It deduplicates after the product has been built, so the planner must materialise and sort the fanned-out set before the LIMIT can apply, and it leaves any SUM or AVG in the same select list wrong.
- Rewrite both filters as semi-joins, keeping resource as the only row source: AND EXISTS (SELECT 1 FROM resource_tag rt WHERE rt.resource_id = r.resource_id AND rt.tag_id = ANY($2)) and the same shape against resource_share. A semi-join stops at the first match per resource and preserves the driving index order, so ORDER BY updated_at DESC, resource_id DESC LIMIT 50 still stops after 50 rows.
- Count with the same predicates and no join at all: SELECT count(*) FROM resource r WHERE r.tenant_id = $1 AND r.status = 'active' AND EXISTS (...) AND EXISTS (...). Nothing multiplies a resource, so the number is the population.
Follow-up
- The filter changes from 'any of these tags' to 'all of these tags'. Rewrite it and state what it costs relative to the ANY form.
- A resource can be shared with the same user twice under different permissions. Does your count change, and should it?
What are the key principles of Object-Oriented Programming?
What are the key principles of Object-Oriented Programming?
Approach
- Clarify what is being asked and what a complete answer contains.
- State your assumptions explicitly before working the problem.
- Say what you would check first and why it is the highest-information step.
- Work from the requirement backwards to the design.
Follow-up
- What assumption would you test first?
- How would you know your answer was wrong?
Explain how microservices architecture differs from a monolithic architecture.
Explain how microservices architecture differs from a monolithic architecture.
Approach
- Fix the scope first: who calls this, how often, and what they do when it fails.
- Name the read and write paths separately; they rarely have the same bottleneck.
- Choose a partition key and say what query it makes expensive.
- State the consistency you need, and where you are willing to be stale.
Follow-up
- What breaks first when traffic grows ten times?
- How does this behave when that dependency is down for an hour?
Can you describe the Entity Framework and its advantages?
Can you describe the Entity Framework and its advantages?
Approach
- Clarify what is being asked and what a complete answer contains.
- State your assumptions explicitly before working the problem.
- Say what you would check first and why it is the highest-information step.
- Work from the requirement backwards to the design.
Follow-up
- What assumption would you test first?
- How would you know your answer was wrong?
How would you approach optimizing a slow-performing database?
How would you approach optimizing a slow-performing database?
Approach
- Clarify what is being asked and what a complete answer contains.
- State your assumptions explicitly before working the problem.
- Say what you would check first and why it is the highest-information step.
- Work from the requirement backwards to the design.
Follow-up
- What assumption would you test first?
- How would you know your answer was wrong?
Describe a challenging technical problem you faced and how you resolved it.
Describe a challenging technical problem you faced and how you resolved it.
Approach
- Clarify what is being asked and what a complete answer contains.
- State your assumptions explicitly before working the problem.
- Say what you would check first and why it is the highest-information step.
- Work from the requirement backwards to the design.
Follow-up
- What assumption would you test first?
- How would you know your answer was wrong?
If given a project with tight deadlines, how would you prioritize tasks?
If given a project with tight deadlines, how would you prioritize tasks?
Approach
- Clarify what is being asked and what a complete answer contains.
- State your assumptions explicitly before working the problem.
- Say what you would check first and why it is the highest-information step.
- Work from the requirement backwards to the design.
Follow-up
- What assumption would you test first?
- How would you know your answer was wrong?
Every query on one table stalls for forty seconds mid-deploy
During a release on PostgreSQL, every query touching resource times out for about 40 seconds and then recovers with no intervention. The release ran one migration, ALTER TABLE resource ADD COLUMN archived_reason TEXT, and the migration log shows it completing in 6 ms. Unrelated tables showed no change in error rate. Explain how a 6 ms statement caused a 40-second stall, give the ordered checks you would run on a live system to confirm it, and give the migration procedure that prevents a repeat.
Approach
- Separate the statement's duration from the lock's duration. ADD COLUMN with no default is a catalogue-only change and genuinely runs in milliseconds, but it requires ACCESS EXCLUSIVE, and it cannot acquire that until every transaction already touching the table has finished.
- Account for the queueing, which is the part that surprises people. A lock request that is waiting blocks later requests for conflicting modes behind it rather than letting them overtake, so one long-open transaction holds the DDL and the DDL holds all the traffic. The stall length is set by the longest open transaction, not by the size of the change.
- Confirm on a live system in this order: pg_stat_activity for that table ordered by xact_start, looking for the oldest transaction and specifically for state = idle in transaction; then pg_locks where granted = false to find the waiter; then join them on pid to name blocker and blocked. pg_blocking_pids() does that join for you and is the fastest single call.
- Prevent rather than merely time it better. Set lock_timeout to a second or two on the migration session so the DDL abandons the queue after a bounded wait and is retried, instead of holding it for as long as the oldest transaction lives. Be exact about what that buys: queries arriving during the wait still queue behind the pending ACCESS EXCLUSIVE request, so each attempt costs them up to one lock_timeout of added latency. The outage goes from 40 seconds to about one second per attempt, not to zero. Also run migrations away from deploy-time peaks, and put a statement timeout and an idle-in-transaction timeout on the analytics role that opens the long transactions.
Follow-up
- The same release also wants NOT NULL on that column. What is the sequence that gets there without a long lock?
- Your lock_timeout retry fails ten times in a row because the analytics transaction is always open. What do you change?
Built from the rounds and topics Ernst & Young Oman candidates report.
Prepare, practise & reflect
One practical outcome each day. Spend longer where you need it.
0 / 7 done01Map the Ernst & Young Oman loop
- Write out the reported sequence: Initial Screening, Technical Interview, Behavioral Assessment.
- For each round, write one sentence on what it is judging, from the description above, and mark the one you are least ready for.
Deliverable: A one-page map of the 3 reported rounds, with the weakest marked.
02Work C#
- Spend the session on C#, which Ernst & Young Oman candidates report being tested on.
- Write one worked example in C# and time yourself on it.
Deliverable: One timed worked example in C#.
03Work SQL
- Spend the session on SQL, which Ernst & Young Oman candidates report being tested on.
- Write one worked example in SQL and time yourself on it.
Deliverable: One timed worked example in SQL.
04Work Microservices
- Spend the session on Microservices, which Ernst & Young Oman candidates report being tested on.
- Write one worked example in Microservices and time yourself on it.
Deliverable: One timed worked example in Microservices.
05Answer out loud: Technical / Domain Questions
- Answer aloud, timed: What are the key principles of Object-Oriented Programming?
- Answer aloud, timed: Explain how microservices architecture differs from a monolithic architecture.
Deliverable: Spoken answers to 2 reported Technical / Domain Questions question(s), under time.
06Answer out loud: Problem-Solving / Case Studies
- Answer aloud, timed: How would you approach optimizing a slow-performing database?
- Answer aloud, timed: Describe a challenging technical problem you faced and how you resolved it.
Deliverable: Spoken answers to 2 reported Problem-Solving / Case Studies question(s), under time.
07Answer out loud: Behavioral / Leadership
- Answer aloud, timed: Tell us about a time you worked in a team to achieve a common goal.
- Answer aloud, timed: How do you handle conflicts within a team?
Deliverable: Spoken answers to 2 reported Behavioral / Leadership question(s), under time.
Expand any day for tasks and deliverables. Your progress is saved on this device.
Behavioural rounds judge the decision you made and what it cost.
Discuss your experience with Azure and how you have leveraged it in past projects.
Discuss your experience with Azure and how you have leveraged it in past projects.
Approach
- Pick a story where you made the decision, not one where you watched it.
- State the situation in two sentences and spend the rest on the reasoning.
- Give the blast radius: what could have broken, and what you measured.
- Name the disagreement and how you resolved it with evidence.
Follow-up
- What would you do differently if you ran that again?
- How did you know your change caused the improvement?
Tell us about a time you worked in a team to achieve a common goal.
Tell us about a time you worked in a team to achieve a common goal.
Approach
- Pick a story where you made the decision, not one where you watched it.
- State the situation in two sentences and spend the rest on the reasoning.
- Give the blast radius: what could have broken, and what you measured.
- Name the disagreement and how you resolved it with evidence.
Follow-up
- What would you do differently if you ran that again?
- How did you know your change caused the improvement?
How do you handle conflicts within a team?
How do you handle conflicts within a team?
Approach
- Pick a story where you made the decision, not one where you watched it.
- State the situation in two sentences and spend the rest on the reasoning.
- Give the blast radius: what could have broken, and what you measured.
- Name the disagreement and how you resolved it with evidence.
Follow-up
- What would you do differently if you ran that again?
- How did you know your change caused the improvement?
What motivates you to work in technology consulting?
What motivates you to work in technology consulting?
Approach
- Pick a story where you made the decision, not one where you watched it.
- State the situation in two sentences and spend the rest on the reasoning.
- Give the blast radius: what could have broken, and what you measured.
- Name the disagreement and how you resolved it with evidence.
Follow-up
- What would you do differently if you ran that again?
- How did you know your change caused the improvement?
- 01
Discuss your experience with Azure and how you have leveraged it in past projects.
- 02
Tell us about a time you worked in a team to achieve a common goal.
- 03
How do you handle conflicts within a team?
- 04
What motivates you to work in technology consulting?
How difficult are the interviews at Ernst & Young Oman?
The interviews are generally challenging but fair, focusing on both technical skills and behavioral aspects. Preparation will be crucial to your success.
Ernst & Young Oman Software Engineer candidate reports ↗What differentiates successful candidates?
Successful candidates demonstrate not only strong technical capabilities but also effective communication skills and a deep alignment with EY's values, particularly in collaboration and integrity.
Ernst & Young Oman Software Engineer candidate reports ↗What is the typical timeline from initial screening to offer?
The timeline can vary, but candidates usually receive feedback within a few weeks of their final interview. It’s advisable to remain patient and proactive in following up.
Ernst & Young Oman Software Engineer candidate reports ↗How does EY support remote work?
EY promotes a flexible work environment, allowing for hybrid work arrangements. Candidates should be prepared to discuss their preferences and how they can contribute to the team's success in different settings.
Ernst & Young Oman Software Engineer candidate reports ↗What topics does Ernst & Young Oman test in interviews?
Ernst & Young Oman interviews most often cover Python, SQL, Problem Solving, Java, and Behavioral Interviewing. The exact emphasis depends on the specific role you apply for.
Ernst & Young Oman Software Engineer candidate reports ↗Sources & methodology 3 sources ↗
No official company page is cited. Rounds and questions come from candidate reports and PracHub editorial material; each source shows the date it was read.
- 01Ernst & Young Oman Software Engineer candidate reports ↗
Company-reported rounds, questions and FAQ.
Candidate reports · Accessed 2026-09-22 - 02PracHub Software Engineer practice ↗
PracHub practice material, not company-reported.
PracHub page · Accessed 2026-09-22 - 03PracHub preparation framework ↗
PracHub preparation guidance.
PracHub page · Accessed 2026-09-22
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