Recently, I compiled a candidate’s complete experience of participating in the 2025 Salesforce new grad OA interview. This process is quite representative and is especially suitable for preparing Salesforce new grad OA Classmates’ reference. Let’s break it down according to the process.
Round 1: HackerRank OA real test questions and in-depth analysis
Salesforce's OA process is still based on HackerRank, but its question model is quite suitable for job requirements, and the question types of the front-end and back-end are hugely different. The following is a complete set of real questions, analysis of test points and coping skills classified by position, for targeted preparation by job seekers in different directions.
1. Difficult practical questions for front-end positions (Frontend/Full-stack)
OA for full-stack or front-end SDE positions focuses on practical capabilities, and most of the questions are native development scenarios. LeetCode’s regular test questions cover less, and you need to focus on the following two types of core real questions:
Problem A: JavaScript Currying Implementation
Problem Statement: Implement a function addThreeNumbers(a)(b)(c) that returns the sum of a, b, and c. For example, addThreeNumbers(1)(2)(3) should return 6.
| Key Points | Solution Skills |
|---|---|
| JavaScript Fundamentals | Mastery of closures and consecutive function returns. Closures allow inner functions to access variables from outer function scopes even after the outer function has finished executing. |
| Code Logic | The first call (with parameter a) returns a new function that captures the value of a. The second call (with parameter b) returns another new function that captures both a and b. The third call (with parameter c) finally calculates and returns the sum of a + b + c. |
Problem B: Traffic Light Implementation with Vanilla JS/CSS
Problem Statement: In a CoderPad environment without React, Vue, or other frameworks, implement the cycle logic of a traffic light using only HTML, CSS, and vanilla JavaScript. The specific requirements are as follows:
- Red light duration: 4 seconds
- Yellow light duration: 1 second
- Green light duration: 1 second
- Cycle order: Red → Green → Yellow → Red (repeat indefinitely)
| Key Points | Solution Skills |
|---|---|
| Frontend Practical Development | Use setTimeout or setInterval to implement timer and asynchronous logic.setTimeout is more suitable here to avoid accumulated time errors caused by setInterval in long-term cycles. |
| State Management | Design a state machine to manage the switching of the three light states. Define each state (red, green, yellow) with its corresponding duration and next state, then trigger state transitions through timer callbacks. |
| Environment Compatibility | Modify CSS styles (such as color switching) through vanilla DOM operations (e.g., document.getElementById, style.backgroundColor), as framework-related APIs are not available in the test environment. |
Problem B: Implement Traffic Light with Vanilla JS/CSS/HTML
Problem Statement: In a CoderPad environment without React, Vue, or other frameworks, implement the cycle logic of a traffic light using only HTML, CSS, and vanilla JavaScript.
Requirements.
- Red light duration: 4 seconds
- Yellow light duration: 1 second
- Green light duration: 1 second
- Cycle order: Red → Green → Yellow → Red (repeats indefinitely)
| Key Points | Solution Tips |
|---|---|
| Frontend Practice | Use setTimeout or setInterval to handle timer and asynchronous logic. setTimeout is more recommended here to avoid accumulated time errors caused by setInterval in long-term cycles. |
| State Management | Design a state machine to manage the three states (red, yellow, green). Each state transition triggers the next state after the specified duration, ensuring the cycle order is not disrupted. |
| Environment Compatibility | Modify CSS styles (e.g., color switching) through vanilla DOM operations (such as getElementById and style.property). Avoid using framework-specific APIs that are not available in the test environment. |
2. Back-end algorithm real questions (SDE Intern/Backend)
Backend and Intern positions have relatively traditional OA questions, mostly variants of LeetCode Medium difficulty. The focus is on data structure application and algorithm logic, and candidates can improve their pass rate by brushing up on similar topics in advance.
| Position | Problem Description (Similar to LeetCode Style) | Core Key Points |
|---|---|---|
| General SDE | Occurrence Marking: For each element in array arr, use two binary strings to mark whether it has appeared before the current position and after the current position.Example: Input arr = [1, 2, 3, 2, 1]Output: [“00011”, “11000”] (The first string marks “appeared before”, the second marks “appeared after”) | HashMap (two passes). First pass: Traverse the array to record the frequency of each element. Second pass: Update the HashMap (decrement frequency when the element is encountered) and check the occurrence status before (frequency > 1 before update) and after (frequency > 0 after update) to generate binary strings. |
| General SDE | K-th Largest in Prefix: Given array arr and integer k, return an array where the i-th element is the k-th largest number in the subarray arr[0..i].Example: Input arr = [4, 2, 1, 3], k = 2Output: [4 (only 1 element, no 2nd largest, adjusted to [2,2,3] based on actual test cases)] | PriorityQueue or Balanced BST. Maintain a min-heap of size k. For each element in the prefix subarray, add it to the heap. If the heap size exceeds k, remove the smallest element (heap top). The heap top at this time is the k-th largest element in the current prefix subarray. |
| SWE Intern | Minimum Replacements to Avoid Adjacent Duplicates: Given an array of strings words, for each string, calculate the minimum number of character replacements needed to ensure no two adjacent characters are the same.Example: Input words = [“add”, “boook”]Output: [1, 1] (For “add”, replace one ‘d’; for “boook”, replace one ‘o’) | Greedy Algorithm. Traverse each string, count the length L of consecutive identical character segments. The number of replacements required for each segment is floor(L / 2) (replace every other character to avoid adjacent duplicates with minimal changes). |
| SWE Intern | Longest Subsequence Which Is Also a Substring: Given two strings x and y, find the longest subsequence of x that is also a substring of y.Example: Input x = “hackerranks”, y = “hackers”Output: “hackers” (length 7, which is a subsequence of x and a substring of y) | O(N·M) Two Pointers. Fix the starting position s of y (from 0 to y.length – 1), then use two pointers (i for x, j for y starting at s) to find the longest matching sequence. Traverse all possible starting positions of y and record the maximum length matching result. |
Round 2: System Design and SQL Pitfalls
Students encountered strict interviewers during the system design process that revealed Salesforce's high requirements for examining SQL skills and business understanding. The following are high-frequency test points and pitfall avoidance guides.
1. Coffee order system design and SQL questioning
The interviewer will focus on the core business scenario of "coffee order" and ask candidates to design data table structures and write SQL statements. The following questions are very confusing and need to be focused on.
SQL Trap: How to Query All Users Who Have Never Placed an Order?
| Key Points | Correct Idea | Conversion Intention |
|---|---|---|
| SQL Join | Use LEFT JOIN. Join the Users table and the Orders table based on user_id. Users who have never placed an order will have NULL values in the order_id field of the Orders table after the join. | Custom Writing/Assistance |
| Correct Query | SELECT U.* FROM Users U LEFT JOIN Orders O ON U.user_id = O.user_id WHERE O.order_id IS NULL | Custom Writing/Assistance |
2. Difficult system design: profit accounting system
Problem Requirement: Design an accounting system that can determine whether a product is profitable. The system needs to integrate sales data, cost data, and user behavior data to provide accurate profit analysis.
| Key Points | Wrong Idea | Correct Direction |
|---|---|---|
| System Design | Only focus on sales revenue or gross profit, ignoring hidden costs (such as logistics costs, after-sales costs) and long-term user value. | Must consider Cost Accounting and Lifetime Value (LTV). Design core tables including Product (product information), Transaction (sales transactions), Cost (cost details), and User (user information) to realize end-to-end data linking. |
| Coping Strategy | Get stuck on writing complex SQL statements at the beginning, ignoring the overall system architecture design. | First explain the overall system architecture (including data sources, core modules, and data flow) macroscopically, then delve into table structure design and key SQL logic. Interview Proxy/Custom Writing |
3. Behavioral Question (BQ)
Problem Requirement: Design an accounting system that can determine whether a product is profitable. The system needs to integrate sales data, cost data, and user behavior data to provide accurate profit analysis.
- Question: "Describe a time when you initiated a migration and persuaded others to support it."
- High-scoring elements: Emphasize the complexity of business value and cross-department collaboration, and avoid describing simple technology upgrades that only you are involved in.
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